Heraclids and mermnadae

Caburus

Active Member
According to Herodotus, Gyges, the usurping king of Lydia, was the son Dascylus, of the house of Mermnadae. He deposed Candaules, the legitimate King, who was a descendant of Heracles, and whose family had reigned in Lydia for 22 generations. After Gyges had killed him,the Lydians threatened a revolt. But the supporters of Gyges approached the Delphic oracle, who sanctioned his royal power, but warned that in the fifth generation the Heraclids would have their revenge.
The fifth generation was Croesus, King of Lydia, who was defeated and deposed by Cyrus, King of Persia. Herodotus has Cyrus as a descendant of Achaemenes, a member of the Paargadae family of Persia, descendants of Perseus's son Persis.
Does the Delphic oracle imply that Cyrus was classed as a Heraclid? Heracles was a descendant of Perseus, so it the title being projected back to cover all of Heracles' relatives?
And where did the family of Mermnadae come from? Does Mermnad appear in any Greek myths?
 

Alejandro

Active Member
I think you might be right about the backward-projection of the title, although perhaps the Delphic Oracle might have been able to explain this away by citing an intermarriage between the descendants of Perses [firstborn son of Perseus] and those of Heracles, with Cyrus tracing himself back to both, much in the same way that Pterelaus could trace himself to both Poseidon and Perseus when he laid claim to the throne of Argolis during the reign of his own great-uncle Electryon [another son of Perseus].

I'm stumped about your second question, though. Any idea where the name Mermnad came from in the first place? It seems just very randomly applied to Dascylus and his family when we first encounter them. Was there supposed to be an actual personage called Mermnad? Or was it rather a sort of title? Because if it is a true patronymic then the form which the name of the progenitor who originated it should take would be more like Mermnas or Mermnades. Non?
 

Caburus

Active Member
I've never come across a commentary or reference to who the Mermnadae family descended from. Some classical dictionaries say a certain Mermnas (evidently just derived from the family name), but then claim he was also a Heraclid descended from Agelaus or Lemnos - but the only references they give is Herodotus, who says nothing of the sort! They also don't say who Lemnos was - a person or the island people.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
Whoa. That's some pretty obscure stuff, man. Might any commentators like the ancient Scholiasts ever have supplemented Herodotus' work like they did with the Iliad, Argonautica and several other mythographers' books? Maybe that's who the classical dictionaries are referencing...? I've never heard of any actual personage bearing the name Lemnos, but we know that there existed a few now-lost Greek myths. Perhaps there was once a man Lemnos after whom the island was named. Or it was just the name of the island's god, who begot its inhabitants. (Granted that this would probably be the only instance of an island doing so in the mythology. Also, these were usually female divinities.) If the island was named after a certain dude, then he might have been a son of the island's patron god Hephaestus, or possibly of Hephaestus' father Zeus, who is usually the father of eponymous islanders, like Cres after whom Crete was named, and Saon, or Samon, the first inhabitant of Samothrace. But that is, of course, no help in necessarily connecting Lemnos with Heracles, or Agelaus... or the Mermnadae :oops:
 
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