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Sparta, too, affords not a few stories of this sort:One wonders whether Lucian’s omission of the story of Leda is careless or intentional. Hyacinthus, and Apollo’s rival, Zephyrus; the lad’s slaying with the discus, the flower that came from the blood, and the word of woe (AI) that is written on it.The tale is told by Lucian in Dialogues of the Gods, 16 (14), and there too the scene is laid in Sparta; cf. Apoll., III, 10, 3. It figured also among the tales of Northern Greece (Apoll., I, 3, 3). Also the resurrection of Tyndareus, and Zeus’s anger at Asclepius over it. Further, the entertainment of Paris and the rape of Helen, after his judgement in the matter of the apple.
46
For we must recognise that there is a connecting bond between Spartan story and that of Troy, which is copious and full of parts to play; in fact, for each person who fell there, a drama offers itself to the theatre. These themes must be kept in mind above all others, from the time of the rape straight through to what happened in the “Home-farings,” with the wandering of Aeneas and the love of Dido.Dido’s story essentially as it was told in the Greek of Tinaeus may still be read in the Latin of Justin (XVIII, 4-8); but Aeneas played no part in it. His introduction into it cannot be traced further back than Naevius. It probably came to Lucian by way of Vergil, from whom, however, it is hardly likely that he derived it at first hand.
