Metamorphoses 27
- IPHIGENIA
- Artemis made a bull calf appear by the Altar instead of Iphigenia whom she carried off far away from Greece, to the Sea of Pontus with its welcoming name of Euxine,312 to Thoas son Borysthenes.313 She called the tribe of Nomads there Taurians314 becuase of a bull [tauros] had appeared instead of Iphigenia on the altar.
E.6.27
- So when Orestes was come with Pylades to the land of the Taurians, he was detected, caught, and carried in bonds before Thoas the king, who sent them both to the priestess. But being recognized by his sister, who acted as priestess among the Taurians, he fled with her, carrying off the wooden image.1 It was conveyed to Athens and is now called the image of Tauropolus.2 But some say that Orestes was driven in a storm to the island of Rhodes, ... and in accordance with an oracle the image was dedicated in a fortification wall.3
Iphigenia among the Taurians
- 26–39
- Iphigenia: ... I came to Aulis; held up high over the altar, I, the unhappy one, was about to die by the sword; but Artemis gave the Achaeans a deer in exchange for me and stole me from them; conducting me through the bright air, [30] she settled me here in the land of the Taurians. A barbarian rules this land of barbarians: Thoas, who runs as quickly as the flight of birds, and so he received his name for his swiftness of foot. Artemis has made me the priestess in this temple. [35] Here I begin the rites, which the goddess delights in, of a banquet noble in name only—I am silent as to the rest, for I fear the goddess— [for I sacrifice, by a custom of the city established earlier, any Hellene who comes to this land.] [40]
Fabulae
- 15
- Hypsipyle secretly put her father Thoas on board a ship which a storm carried to the island Taurica.
- 120
- [Grant:] IPHIGENIA: When the Furies were pursuing Orestes, he went to Delphi to inquire when his sufferings would end. The reply was that he should go to the lad of Taurica to King Thoas, father of Hypsipyle, and bring to Argos from the temple there the statue of Diana; then there would be an end to his sufferings. Upon hearing this oracle, along with Pylades his companion, son of Strophius, he embarked and quickly came to the land of the Taurians. It was their custom to sacrifice at the temple of Diana whatever stranger came within their borders. When Orestes and Pylades were hiding in a cave waiting an opportunity, they were seized by shepherds and brought to King Thoas. Thoas, as was his custom, ordered them to be brought bound into the temple of Diana to be sacrificed. The priestess there was Iphigenia, sister of Orestes, and when by tokens and questioning she found out who they were and why they had come, she herself, casting aside the vessels for sacrifice, started to remove the statue of Diana. When the king came up and asked her why she was doing this, she made pretence and said that since the men were accursed they had defiled the statue; because impious and wicked men had been brought into the temple, the statue should be taken to the sea for cleansing. She bade him make a proclamation forbidding citizens to go outside the city. The king complied with the words of the priestess. Iphigenia, seizing the opportunity, took the statue, embarked with Orestes and Pylades, and by a favouring breeze was borne to the island Zminthe to Chryses, priest of Apollo.
- 121
- [Grant:] CHRYSES: When Agamemnon was on his was to Troy, Achilles, too, came to Moesia, and took Chryseis, daughter of the priest of Apollo, and gave her in marriage to Agamemnon. When Chryses came to Agamemnon to beg him to return his daughter, he was refused. Because of this Apollo destroyed almost all the army, partly by famine, partly by pestilence. And so Agamemnon sent back Chryseis, though she was pregnant, to the priest. Though she claimed to be untouched by him, when her time came she bore Chryses the Younger, and said she had conceived by Apollo. Later when Chryses was about to return Iphigenia and Orestes to Thoas, he [Chryses the Elder] learned that they were children of Agamemnon, and revealed to Chryses his [grand]son the truth — that they were brothers and that he was a son of Agamemnon. Then Chryses, thus informed, with Orestes his brother, killed Thoas, and from there they came safe to Mycenae with the statue of Diana.
3.16.7
- The place named Limnaeum (Marshy) is sacred to Artemis Orthia (Upright). The wooden image there they say is that which once Orestes and Iphigenia stole out of the Tauric land, and the Lacedaemonians say that it was brought to their land because there also Orestes was king. I think their story more probable than that of the Athenians. For what could have induced Iphigenia to leave the image behind at Brauron? Or why did the Athenians, when they were preparing to abandon their land, fail to include this image in what they put on board their ships?
Argonautica
- 300–303
- [Hypsipyle] finished; [Thoas] in fear escapes in the oarless ship afar, and reaches the dwelling of the Tauri and Diana’s savage shrine. Here didst thou, goddess, put a sword in his hand, and didst appoint him warden of thy cheerless altar;