which was to bring him sore troubles. This leads us directly to the most suggestive of the Delian legends—that which concerns Anios[1]. Anios figures as the son of Apollo, and as his prophet at Delos. He receives the host of Agamemnon on their way across the Aegean. After the fall of Troy, he gives a hospitable welcome to Aeneas. Anios has three daughters,—Oeno, Spermo, Elaïs. These, by grace of Dionysos, command the gifts of wine, corn, and oil. Collectively they are called οἰνοτρόποι,—apparently with special reference to the faculty of the eldest, since she could turn water into wine[2]. This legend of Anios seems to disclose a glimpse of Delos in that phase of society which the Homeric poems mirror. We see an island governed by a patriarchal priest-king. Peaceful amid wars, because sacred, it can receive Greek and Trojan alike; and it has a local cult of deities who preside over the fruits of the earth. The fact that the infant Anios reaches Euboea in a floating chest (as Perseus reaches Seriphos), and is thence carried by Apollo to Delos,
- ↑ M. Lebégue (p. 225) has collected the ancient sources for the myth. Vergil (Aen. iii. 80) marks the essential point,—that Anius is 'rex idem hominum Phoebique sacerdos.'
- ↑ Tzetzes ad Lycophr. 370 (Cycl. fragmenta, ed. Didot, p. 593). γεννᾶ τὰς Οἰνοτρόπους, Οἰνὼ Σπερμὼ καὶ Ἐλαΐδα· αἶς ὁ Διόνυσος ἐχαρίζετο, ὁπότε Βούλοιντο, οἶνον σπέρματα καὶ ἔλαιον ποιεῖν καὶ λαμβάνειν κατὰ τὰς τῶν ὀνομάτων θέσεις. We are reminded of the name Oeneus derived from οἴνη, the vine-plant, his son being called Φύτιος (Hecataeus in Müller, Frag. Hist. Gr. i. 26). Can οἰνοτρόφοι have been corrupted to οἰνοτρόποι, and the fable invented to explain the latter?
