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Indeed, even if you go to Crete in fancy, the dance garners very many contributions from there— Europe, Pasiphae, both the bulls,The Minotaur, and the bull that fathered him. the labyrinth, Ariadne, Phaedra, Androgeos, Daedalus and Icarus, Glaucus and the soothsaying skill of Polyidus, and Talus, the bronze roundsman of Crete.
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Or if you cross over to Aetolia, there too the dance finds a great deal—Althea, Meleager, Atalanta, the brand, the wrestling-match between Heracles and the river (Achelous), the birth of the Sirens,Clearly Lucian has in mind the legend that made them daughters of Earth (Eur., Hel., 168), engendered of the blood that dropped from the wound of Achelous, inflicted by Heracles through breaking off one of his horns (Libanius, Progymn., 4). the emergence of the Echinades,Five of the Echinades were nymphs, turned into islands for their failure to invite Achelous to a sacrifice. A sixth, Perimele, was a maiden who was thrown into the sea by her father because she had given herself to Achelous; in answer to Achelous’ prayer, Poseidon changed her into an island. So, at all events, says Ovid (Met., VIII, 577-610). and the settlement of Alemaeon there after his madness; then Nessus, and the jealousy of Deianeira, and, consequent upon it, the pyre in Oeta.
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Thrace also has much that is essential to one who intends to dance—Orpheus, his dismemberment and his talking head that voyaged on the lyre;The story of the head of Orpheus is told by Lucian in The Ignorant Book-Collector, 11-12 (Vol. III, pp. 188 ff.). Haemus and Rhodope; the punishment of Lycurgus;
