Virtually all the major scholarly reference works, as well as many more popular sources, provide two alternative versions of the ancestry of Amphictyon, the mythical founder of the Delphic-Pylaic amphictyony, as either the son or the grandson of Deucalion, that is, by implication, either the brother or the son of Hellen.Footnote ¹ Yet, a review of all relevant sources shows that they unanimously and exclusively refer to Amphictyon as the son of Deucalion.Footnote ²

The only apparent exception, and, in fact, the only passage on which Amphictyon's alleged descent from Hellen relies, is Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.25.3, where Dionysius speaks of Ἀμφικτύονος τοῦ Ἕλληνος. In his entry for W.H. Roscher's reference work on ancient mythology, Stoll took this to mean ‘Amphictyon, son of Hellen’, and his view was adopted in the works of numerous scholars who followed, or depended on, him.Footnote ³ Before Stoll, W. Smith read the passage in the same way in his entry on ‘Amphictyon’ in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology (London, 1844), from where it appears to have found its way into more popular reference works, including Wikipedia.Footnote ⁴ In this note I will demonstrate that this translation is wrong and, therefore, the reference to ‘Amphictyon, son of Hellen’ in modern scholarship spurious.

The main reason why the expression has so often been misunderstood, I surmise, is that scholars have failed to pay sufficient attention to the context. Taken in isolation, Ἀμφικτύονος τοῦ Ἕλληνος looks like the standard Greek phrase for ‘x, son of y’. As E. Cary phrased it: ‘The Greek words can mean either “the son of Hellen” or “the Greek”; but the latter does not seem to be a very natural way of describing him’ (italics mine).Footnote ⁵ Cary's note offers us a rare ‘glimpse’ into the mind of an expert reader of Dionysius’ Antiquitates and, hence, an opportunity to formulate a reasonable hypothesis as to why so many scholars (including Cary himself) rejected, or failed to consider in the first place, the less common, but equally possible (and, in this case, correct), translation ‘Amphictyon the Greek’: consciously or subconsciously, they simply chose the seemingly ‘natural’ translation of the phrase.Footnote ⁶

But Cary's note is also exceptional in that he—unlike the majority of scholars who dealt with this passage—at least regarded the problem worth commenting on, and he deserves credit for that. Cary, however, was not the first to notice the ambiguity of the phrase. In fact, further inquiries into the history of translations of the Antiquitates uncover a remarkable backstory to Cary's note which is worth retracing briefly. This will not only offer us insight into a fascinating chapter of the history of scholarship on Dionysius’ Antiquitates; it will also be a useful first step of my own examination of the correct meaning of the phrase.

Cary's note, it turns out, was only the last stage of a mini-dispute, as it were, about the correct meaning of Dionysius’ phrase carried out in the notes on this passage by previous translators: Cary's note was prompted by a note in Spelman's 1758 translation,Footnote ⁷ on which Cary's translation is based, while Spelman's own note responded to a note in a French translation of the Antiquitates published in 1723 under the name of ‘M.***’, now identified with François Bellanger.Footnote ⁸ Noticing that Dionysius was at variance with all other sources in calling Amphictyon the son of Hellen, ‘M.***’ suggested that the correct translation of the phrase might be ‘Amphictyon the Greek’. Spelman, in turn, accepted ‘M.***’'s point but rejected his solution: at the time of Amphictyon, Spelman claimed, the Greeks were called Γραικοί, not Ἕλληνες; Ἕλλην therefore had to be the name of an individual, and the ambiguity of the expression must have been caused by scribal error, namely the omission of ἀδελφοῦ, which Spelman ‘restored’ and on which his translation ‘brother of Hellen’ is based.

‘M.***’ thus turns out to be the first scholar in the history of translations of Dionysius’ Antiquitates to have not only noticed the ambiguity of the phrase but also at least pondered the correct translation.Footnote ⁹ Moreover, his observation that no other source refers to Amphictyon as ‘son of Hellen’ remains a strong argument for questioning this translation and was by no means refuted by Spelman's objection (above): Ἕλλην is the term Dionysius regularly uses for ‘Greek’, and his language use alone is relevant to determine the meaning of the phrase; whether (or not) the Greeks at the time of Amphictyon were called Γραικοί, as Spelman claimed, by contrast, is quite immaterial. Neither Spelman's reasoning nor his textual emendation has therefore (and rightly) found any followers. That leaves Cary's attempt to justify his own (and, by implication, Spelman's) translation through recourse to standard (‘natural’) Greek language use (see above). Yet, a reading of the phrase in context will demonstrate that this argument does not hold up in this case and that ‘M.***’ was on the right track after all.

At 4.25.3, Dionysius narrates that the Roman king Servius Tullius desired to create an everlasting testament to his greatness. He therefore examined (ἐφιστὰς […] τὴν διάνοιαν) the achievements that had resulted in the permanent glory of some of the most famous rulers of the past. Yet, neither did he see fit to praise (ἐμακάρισε) ‘that Assyrian woman’ (τὴν Ἀσσυρίαν ἐκείνην γυναῖκα), that is, Semiramis (Dionysius never names her explicitly), for the walls of Babylon, nor ‘the kings of Egypt’ (τοὺς Αἰγύπτου βασιλεῖς), who remain equally anonymous, for their pyramids; only the ‘project’ (ἐπίνοιαν) Ἀμφικτύονος τοῦ Ἕλληνος, i.e the Delphic-Pylaic amphictyony, aroused his admiration (ἠγάσθη) and inspired him to create the Latin League as his own political (and intellectual) legacy.Footnote ¹⁰

After ‘Assyrian woman’ and ‘kings of Egypt’, it is not Amphictyon's family-tree that Dionysius wants to emphasize, but the fact that it was a Greek whose political legacy lay behind one of the crucial political events of early Roman history, the formation of the Latin League under the leadership of Rome. The correct translation of the expression is therefore ‘the Greek Amphictyon’.Footnote ¹¹

This also fits better with the fundamental thesis that informs Dionysius’ account of early Rome: Servius Tullius’ choice is a further element in Dionysius’ interpretation of the Romans as Greeks, both ethnically and culturally. The Roman king chooses the Greek over the non-Greek, the intellectual (ἐπίνοιαν) over the mere material (τοῦ Βαβυλωνίου τείχους; τῶν ἐν Μέμφει πυραμίδων), the durable and truly beneficial (ἧς πλεῖστοί τ’ ἀπολαύουσι καὶ ἐπὶ μήκιστον χρόνον καρποῦνται τὰς ὠφελείας) over the short-lived and merely showy (ὀλιγοχρόνια […] ὄψεώς τ’ ἀπάτας, οὐκ ἀληθεῖς βίου καὶ πραγμάτων ὠφελείας) achievements as the model for his own project. His choice thus makes a crucial contribution to establishing the Romans’ ‘Greek way of life’ (βίον Ἕλληνα, 1.90.1) which, according to Dionysius, was ultimately responsible for the unprecedented expansion and duration of their rule.Footnote ¹²