The fourth entry of Antoninus Liberalis’ Synagôgê Metamorphôseôn (Collection of Metamorphoses)Footnote 1 presents the story of a certain old and just shepherd named Cragaleus, who is jostled out of his unassuming life when three divinities—Apollo, Artemis and Heracles—approach him and make him the judge of their dispute over the patronage of Ambracia. The three present their cases, and Cragaleus awards the city to Heracles. In anger over the decision Apollo turns Cragaleus into a stone ‘in the very spot he stood’ (4.7, ἵναπερ εἱστήκει). The location of this episode involving Cragaleus has been sufficiently misunderstood that it is worthwhile to review the evidence within the narrative context of the story itself and establish, once and for all, that the setting of the story is entirely in the region of Epirus around Ambracia, just as is indicated by Ovid’s allusion to the story in Met. 13.
As is typical for Antoninus’ narratives, the opening of the story establishes the main character and the geographical locationFootnote 2 (text Papathomopoulos,Footnote 3 translation mine):
Κραγαλεὺς ὁ Δρύοπος ᾤκει ⟨τῆς⟩ γῆς τῆς Δρυοπίδος παρὰ τὰ Λουτρὰ τὰ Ἡρακλέους, ἃ μυθολογοῦσιν Ἡρακλέα πλήξαντα τῇ κορύνῃ τὰς πλάκας τοῦ ὄρους ἀναβαλεῖν.
Cragaleus son of Dryops lived in the land of Dryopis near the Baths of Heracles, which, the myth goes, Heracles caused to spring forth when he struck the flat top of the mountain with his club.
The references to one Dryops and the land of Dryopis point to the Dryopes, a pre- or early-Greek ethnic group whose most prominent, and perhaps original, location was in Malis, near Trachis and Mt Oeta.Footnote 4 Later in Antoninus’ collection (Met. 32, ‘Dryope’), Dryopis clearly refers to this region but, as we will see, Dryopis can refer to Epirus as well, and there is no reason to insist on rigorous consistency on the part of the author in different stories. The Baths of Heracles, in turn, have been interpreted—erroneously, in my judgement—as the hot springs at Thermopylae. Finally, many scholars have pointed to the name Cragaleus as the eponym of the historical Cragalidae, who lived in Cirrha in the historical period and were instrumental in the first Sacred War. Together, these have suggested to critics that Cragaleus resided to the east, in Malis near Trachis and Mt Oeta, and that this is where his transformation took place. For instance, Papathomopoulos locates our Dryopis ‘sur l’Oeta’Footnote 5 and identifies the baths as Thermopylae.Footnote 6 When Cragaleus is later turned to stone by Apollo, the same commentator notes that it happened ‘en Dryopide’,Footnote 7 that is, the Dryopis near Oeta, emphasizing that Ovid (Met. 13.713–15) locates the petrified Cragaleus elsewhere, near Ambracia. Many others have made the same assumption.Footnote 8
Antoninus’ account, however, is not as straightforward as has been assumed, and the conventional interpretation creates additional problems of logic that have not been addressed. How, for instance, can a reader reconcile a cult setting honouring Cragaleus in Ambracia when his stone remains are located over 140 miles away in Malis (Met. 4.7, contradicting Ovid’s version)? How likely is it that divinities contesting over Ambracia in Epirus would go all the way to Mt Oeta and Thermopylae to consult with a shepherd who has no connection to Ambracia? It is true that Cragaleus makes an appropriate judge: he is old and considered both just (δίκαιος) and sensible (φρόνιμος) by his local neighbours (ἐγχωρίοις). While that alone might make the gods seek him out regardless of his location, in the other accounts of divinities contesting over patronage of a city—few though they may be—it is always a local figure who is involved in the decision.Footnote 9 Furthermore, Cragaleus is not said to be famous across the entire Greek world for his wisdom, only within the narrow orbit of ‘the locals’, making an Ambraciote setting even more likely. All internal clues point to the fact that Cragaleus is a local figure in Ambracia and its environs.
If we are to believe the marginal source references for the story, Antoninus is drawing from the first book of Nicander’s Heteroeumena and the Ambracian History (Ambrakika) of the obscure historian Athanadas.Footnote 10 The latter (FGrHist 303), only found here, is considered by Jacoby to be a local historian of the third century b.c., though the date is no more than a guess.Footnote 11 The details in Antoninus’ account, however, are consistent with the use of a local Hellenistic historian, leading one to suspect that Antoninus integrated further details from Athanadas into the framework of a transformation myth found in Nicander. The cases presented by the three divinities, outlining their contributions to Ambracia and its environs, collectively offer something like a universal history of Epirus from the arrival of the Dryopes to Epirus all the way up to the Cypselids and the Corinthian colony in the sixth century. Recent scholarship on Antoninus has emphasized that, no matter what sources he was using, he is not merely presenting summaries of previous work but creating his own ‘autonomous narrative fictions’.Footnote 12 In other words, we should expect an internally logical account within the context of his own overall project. The internal logic demands an Ambraciote setting, where the contest of the gods, Cragaleus’ transformation and his subsequent cult presence are all united geographically.
A review of the first lines will be instructive (4.1):
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1) Cragaleus. Many, including PapathomopoulosFootnote 13, and Parke and Boardman,Footnote 14 have emphasized the connection of the main character to the historical Cragalidae, who lived in Phocian Cirrha south of Delphi and committed sacrilege against Apollo’s sanctuary, prompting the so-called First Sacred War (Aeschin. 1.107–10). On this reading, the eponymous Cragaleus is further indication of a setting well to the east of Ambracia, recalling earlier scholarship that treated Antoninus’ account as containing kernels of a now lost history. For instance, Croon,Footnote 15 arguing that the myth reflects a pre-Corinthian legend, explicitly calls the Cragalidae ‘the neighbours of the Dryopians in the Oeta-country’, even though Cirrha lies on the southern coast of Phocis, rather far removed from Malis. Following Oberhummer, Tambornino also views Antoninus’ narrative as a historical source but suggests that a branch of the Cragalidae (= Dryopes) split off and migrated to the area of Ambracia prior to the establishment of the Corinthian colony.Footnote 16 While neither Tambornino nor Oberhummer makes it explicit, their interpretation, as unlikely as it is, presupposes that Antoninus’ story is set in Ambracia. In short, the eponym—if it is meant to function as a significant eponym—need not be anchored geographically to Phocis or Malis.
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2) Son of Dryops. Papathomopoulos: ‘Ce personnage n’est pas nécessairement différent de celui dont il est question au chap. XXXII.’Footnote 17 The Dryops in Met. 32, however, is the son of Sperchius and Polydore (a daughter of Danaus), the ruler of the area around Oeta and the father of Dryope. The chronology cannot be reconciled. In Met. 4 Cragaleus judges the contest of the gods after the colonization of Ambracia in the seventh century. By contrast, the Dryops in Met. 32 is grandson of Danaus, set deep in the mythical period. Our Dryops, then, is not the eponym of the original Dryopes in any normal sense. Eponyms, of course, function differently from other mythical entities with extensive ‘biographies’,Footnote 18 but here the choice of the name Dryops seems calculated only to reinforce Cragaleus’ relationship to Epirote Dryopis (see next).
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3) Lived in the land of Dryopis: At first blush this might be taken to mean Dryopis near Oeta—Antoninus’ account is ambiguous enough—but there is a significant tradition that Epirus was also called Dryopis: Dionysius (son of Calliphron, first century b.c.), Anagraphê Hellados 30 (GGM 1.239), καλεῖται Δρυοπὶς ἡ χώρα δ’ ὅλη, ‘the whole area [around Ambracia] is called Dryopis’; compare Plin. HN 4.2, which locates the Dryopes in Epirus next to the area of Cassopia, putting them in and around Ambracia. In addition, Apollo’s case in Antoninus’ narrative provides an explanation as to why Epirus was called Dryopis (4.3): the god reminds Cragaleus that, long ago, his son Melaneus, the king of the Dryopes, conquered all of Epirus (presumably from Dryopis near Oeta) and fathered two children, one of whom was the eponym Ambracia.Footnote 19 Melaneus’ military expansion connects the two places called Dryopis, and it is this conquered Dryopis that Cragaleus inhabits, not the one near Oeta.
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4) The Baths of Heracles: No other detail has done more to cause confusion as to the setting of this narrative. It seems obvious that this refers to Thermopylae, but only if one assumes that Dryopis is near Oeta and Trachis. Yet, the description does not really reflect the real topography of Thermopylae nor the way that the springs were created in the mythical tradition. The term λουτρά in Antoninus reflects the very word used for Thermopylae by Herodotus, who also notes that the locals call the spring ‘The Basins’ and that there was an altar to Heracles set up nearby (7.176; cf. Strabo 9.4.13, ‘sacred to Heracles’). The location of Thermopylae’s springs at the base or lower level of the mountainous terrain, however, seems to contradict the ‘table-top’ or ‘heights’ of the mountain specified in Antoninus (τὰς πλάκας τοῦ ὄρους).Footnote 20 In addition, the mythical tradition tells us that it was not Heracles but Athena who created ‘the warm baths along the shore’ for him.Footnote 21 Our author or one of his sources might have been following or even creating another tradition, but the inconsistencies should give one pause. And given that Heracles was a notable creator of waterways and springs,Footnote 22 one cannot discount the idea that Antoninus is referring to an otherwise unknown spring near Ambracia. Would Heracles’ creation of springs near Ambracia not be another point in his favour when Cragaleus is deliberating to whom he should award the city?
Let us briefly turn to the only other reference to the myth, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He clearly sets the conflict and metamorphosis in Ambracia, though the judge remains unnamed (13.713–15):
Unencumbered by the geographical ambiguities in Antoninus’ account, Ovidian scholars take at face value that the contest and transformation take place near the city itself. No wonder, then, that in interpreting Antoninus’ account, they assume, rightly, that Cragaleus is an Epirote through and through.Footnote 23 That Cragaleus was an actual part of the landscape along the Ambracian gulf—one that could presumably be verified by sight—suggests that Nicander, likely Ovid’s source, had located the myth in Ambracia. Would a Hellenistic poet not be the likely source of the erudite use of Dryopis for Epirus as well?
The opening of Antoninus’ narrative is open to, if not misinterpretation, at least different interpretations because of the ambiguity of Dryops, Dryopis and the Baths of Heracles.Footnote 24 If most modern critics assume a Malian setting, would not ancient readers make the same assumption? After all, the Dryopes are most commonly associated with Oeta (see e.g. Steph. Byz. δ 137 Billerbeck–Zubler, s.v. Δρυόπη), and it would take someone with sufficient erudition to recognize that Dryopis could also refer to Epirus. Yet even if Antoninus’ text is potentially ambiguous at the outset, it does not mean that he intended it to be so. As argued above, if Dryops and Dryopis refer to Epirus, Antoninus’ account reclaims an internal coherence, reuniting the location of Cragaleus’ transformation to that of his cult—even if the ambiguity is resolved only at the end of the narrative after the numerous internal clues force a re-evaluation of the initial reference to Dryopis.
