[9]
But afterwards the brothers fell out, and Neleus, being banished, came to Messene, and founded Pylus, and married Chloris,1 daughter of Amphion, by whom he had a
daughter, Pero, and sons, to wit, Taurus,
Asterius, Pylaon, Deimachus, Eurybius, Epilaus, Phrasius, Eurymenes, Evagoras, Alastor,
Nestor and Periclymenus, whom Poseidon granted the power of changing his shape. And when
Hercules was ravaging Pylus, in the fight Periclymenus turned himself into a lion, a
snake, and a bee, but was slain by Hercules with the other sons of Neleus. Nestor alone
was saved, because he was brought up among the Gerenians.2 He married Anaxibia, daughter of
Cratieus,3 and begat daughters, Pisidice and Polycaste, and sons,
Perseus, Stratichus, Aretus, Echephron, Pisistratus, Antilochus, and Thrasymedes.
1 Compare Hom. Od. 11.281ff.; Paus. 4.2.5.
2 See below, Apollod. 2.7.3, and compare Hom. Il. 11.690-693, with the Scholia; Ov. Met. 12.549ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 10. As to Periclymenus, see the verses of Hesiod quoted by the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.156, according to whom Periclymenus received from Poseidon the power of turning himself into an eagle, an ant, a bee, or a snake; but Herakles, so says the scholiast, killed him with a blow of his club when he had assumed the form of a fly. According to another account, it was in the form of a bee that Periclymenus was slain by Herakles (Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.285, pp. 1685ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.336). Ov. Met. 12.549ff. says that Herakles shot him in the shape of an eagle, and this version is followed by Hyginus, Fab. 10. Periclymenus is also reported to have been able to change himself into any animal or tree he pleased (Eustathius, on Hom. Od. xi.285, pp. 1685ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.286).
3 According to Homer (Hom. Od. 3.452), the wife of Nestor was Eurydice, daughter of Clymenus.
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