TFBT: Ben's Curriculum, Part VIII

11.  Lineage Versus the Man 

Several times in the Iliad characters point out that in comparison to the immortals, men are just like leaves on a tree that are there for a season and then wilt and die.  (Iliad 6.144 and 21.461)  How difficult it must be for a god to keep an eye on just one leaf in the flurry of the falling leaves in the autumn.  I wonder if the gods, rather than thinking about an individual “short-lived” hero like Achilles thought instead of his lineage the pious Aeacides? Here is my research on the gods confounding a man with his lineage and vice versa. 

Part I; Looking at the Lineage versus the Man 

Part II: The Trojans Princes 

Part III; The Gods’ Love of the Line of Melampus 

Part IV; The Lineage Versus the Man 

Although not in the same category of "dear" or "pious" we might consider;  

The Divine Descendants of Gorgophone 

The Divine Descendants of Telephassa.  

TFBT: The Gods' Love of the Line of Melampus

This blog continues my research into whether the gods really view heroes as individuals or simply "links in a chain".  I am indebted to Memnon @Hour 25 for the analogy above and  the notion of a lineage suffering Or benefiting from the actions of their forefather.

"Melampus was a man of exceptional piety and became a friend of Apollo."   

                                                                    (Const.Exc 2(1) p.211)

Melampus begot Antiphates and Mantius.  Antiphas sired great-hearted Ocicles, in turn the father of  Amphiaraus "whom Zeus...and Apollo heartily loved in all manners of ways."(Od 15.238). Amphiaraus was dear to the gods and did not die but was enfolded in Gaea's bosom as he fled the defeat of the seven against Thebes (Statius, Thebiad 8.329). 

Amphiaraus left behind two sons Alcmaeon and Amphilocus.  Amphilocus becomes a god according to Lucian (DD 10.). Meanwhile his cousin Cleitus, son of Mantius, son of Melampus "golden-throned Dawn snatched away by reason of his beauty that he might dwell with the immortals." od 15.238

So here is the lineage of Melampus, a man of exceptional piety.  We have no record of his descendants' piety, but several were dear to the gods or made immortal.  Though not meeting these specific criteria, other Melampides were obviously favored by the gods.  So was it good genes, good upbringing or good reputation for their family that made so many of them dear to the gods?

Previous segments of this discussion include; 

Part I:  Looking at the Lineage versus the Man

Part II: The Trojans Princes

TFBT: Trojan Princes

This is Part II on my research into situations where the gods seem to confuse an ancient Greek hero with his lineage and vice versa.  Part I was TFBT Looking at His Lineage Rather than the Man

Homer tells us that;  "Tros, who was lord of the Trojans, and to Tros in turn there were born godlike Ganymedes who was the loveliest born of the race of mortals, and therefore the gods caught him away to themselves, to be Zeus' wine-pourer, for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the immortals” ^[i]  This is the first instant  of the Olympians’ love of  Trojan princes, apparently due to their beauty.    Ganymede consequently became immortal and unaging.  He never had any children.  However his brother unfaulted Ilus fathered Capys and his other brother Assaracus fathered the universally hated Laomedon.   

Laomedon in turn sired Priam and Tithonus.  Of Tithonus we hear that  golden-throned Eos (Dawn) snatched up Tithonus presumeable because he was as beautiful as the deathless gods and brought him to Ethiopia, and there consorting with him she bore two sons, Emathion and Memnon.[ii]  At some point the rosy fingered goddess went to ask the dark-clouded Son of Cronos that he should be deathless and live eternally; and Zeus bowed his head to her prayer and fulfilled her desire.”[iii]  When Memnon died as men do, the gods so loved him that once again the granted immortality to a descendant of Tros.[iv]  Memnon’s cousin Hector too is  “dear to the gods.” [v]  

Meanwhile the descendants of Capys though not made immortal seemed to be dear to the gods also because of their great beauty.  Hence we hear;  

"Anchises, (son of Capys) most glorious of mortal men, take courage and be not too fearful in your heart. You need fear no harm from me nor from the other blessed ones, for you are dear to the gods: and you shall have a dear son who shall reign among the Trojans, and children's children after him, springing up continually. His name shall be Aeneas, because I felt awful grief in that I laid me in the bed of mortal man: yet are those of your race always the most like to gods of all mortal men in beauty and in stature.” (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 191)  

Of Aeneas’ son Ascanius supposedly Virgil says in the Aeneid “Blessings on your fresh courage, boy, scion of gods and ancestor of gods yet to be, so it is man rises to the stars." 

Ascanius was ancestor of the Emperor August of Rome.  He as also the ancestor of Queen Victoria who ruled a quarter of the planet and upon whose empire the sun never set.  These two other descendants of Tros seem pretty favored by the gods too!

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[i] ( Iliad 20. 232)  

[ii] (APOLLODORUS, LIBRARY  3.12.4)

[iii] HOMERIC HYMNS 5. [218] 

[iv] (Arctinus of Miletus, The Aethiopis Frag 1 (from Proclus, Chrestomathia 2) 

[v] (Homer, Iliad 24:[746)