Hyleus, a native of Hyle or Hylae in Boeotia.
longo argumento, ‘with wealth of story,’ longo referring to the extent of the representation, as apparently does ingens in Virg. Aen.VII. 791.Conington there remarks that argumentum ‘seems to have been a technical term for historical and legendary subjects in art,’ comparing Prop.iv. IX. 13, “argumenta magis sunt Mentoris addita formae, at Myos exiguum flectit acanthus iter” (‘to the mould of Mentor groups are chief assigned, but Mys bids the acanthus wind on a narrow way,’ Postgate). Cf. Milt. P.l. VI. 84, ‘shields various, with boastful argument portrayed.’
caelaverat, ‘had chased,’ ‘the object being roughly cast and then finished with the caelum or graver’ (Postgate on Prop. l.c.). The subject of the bas-reliefs on the cup is a legend of Thebes. Aonia was visited by a pestilence, which could be stayed only by the voluntary death of two maidens, who were found in Menippe and Metioche, daughters of Orion. These stabbed themselves with their shuttles, and from their ashes or from the earth (cf. 698 n.) sprang two youths, the Coronae, who, soaring to heaven, were there called “κόμηται”. At Orchomenus there was an annual festival of the dead, at which the maidens were invoked as “παρθένοι κορωνίδες”. The story is related by Antoninus Liberalis (xxv.).
685-99. Such descriptions are common. See a list given by Ellis on Cat. LXIV. 50 (where the reference to Virg. Aen.VI. 250, should be V. 250), to which add VI. 70-128, where Minerva and Arachne contend in embroidery.
septem portas, the distinctive glory of the Boeotian Thebes, as its hundred gates of the Egyptian. Both are so characterised in Homer, Il.IV. 406, “Θήβης ἕδος εἵλομεν ἑπταπύλοιο”, ib. IX. 383, “Θήβας Αἰγυπτίας...αἵ θ᾽ ἑκατόμπυλοί εἰσι”.
