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Eleon, in Boeotia near Tanagra, was the home of the legendary seer Bacis (viii. 20 n.).

Λαΐου: perhaps ‘oracles referring to Laius’; cf. Soph. Oed. Tyr. 906Λαΐου θέσφατα”, but more probably ‘collected by Laius’. Antichares was probably a χρησμολόγος (vii. 6. 3 n.), who made use of an apocryphal collection of oracles passing in the sixth century under Laius's name, and similar to those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, and Bacis (vii. 6; viii. 20). For an inscription supposed to be of the time of Laius cf. v. 59 n.

Ἡρακλείην. If taken of a town, the article (as in i. 16) would imply an existing city, made a Greek colony by Dorieus, but in spite of Diodorus (iv. 23 Δωριεὺς ἔκτισε πόλιν Ἡράκλειαν), there was clearly no such city near Mount Eryx (cf. 45. 1 ad fin., 46. 1), Heraclea Minoa lying on the south coast (46. 2). Probably γῆν has fallen out before τήν, then Ἡρακλείη γῆ = Ἡρακλέος γῆ as Ἔρυκος χώρη = Ἐρυκίνη χώρη (cf. 45. 1 ad fin.).

The claim of the Heracleid prince to the land of Heracles is similar to the Dorians' title to the Peloponnese, but in Sicily the claim is vitiated by the fact that the Heracles of Mount Eryx is no Greek hero but Tyrian Melkart (cf. ii. 44), accepted like Astarte-Aphrodite by the Elymi from their Phoenician neighbours. The general identification of Heracles with Melkart and Astarte with Aphrodite is, however, without sufficient grounds.

The Italy of Herodotus (cf. iv. 15. 1; vi. 127. 1) does not on the west coast extend to the north of the river Laus, Hyele (Velia) being in Oenotria (i. 167. 3): but it takes in all the Greek cities on the gulf of Tarentum, including Tarentum itself (i. 24. 1; iii. 136, 138) which Antiochus excluded. On Italy in this and other senses cf. Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, i. ch. 1.

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    • Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 906
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