We have not yet exhausted the eventful career of Œneus and his family—ennobled among the Ætôlians especially, both by religious worship and by poetical eulogy—and favorite themes not merely in some of the Hesiodic poems, but also in other ancient epic productions, the Alkmæênis and the Cyclic Thêbais.[355] By another marriage, Œneus had for his son Tydeus, whose poetical celebrity is attested by the many different accounts given both of the name and condition of his mother. Tydeus, having slain his cousins, the sons of Melas, who were conspiring against Œneus, was forced to become an exile, and took refuge at Argos with Adrastus, whose daughter Deipylê he married. The issue of this marriage was Diomêdês, whose brilliant exploits in the siege of Troy were not less celebrated than those of his father at the siege of Thêbes. After the departure of Tydeus, Œneus was deposed by the sons of Agrios, and fell into extreme poverty and wretchedness, from which he was only rescued by his grandson Diomêdês, after the conquest of Troy.[356] The sufferings of this ancient warrior, and the final restoration and revenge by Diomêdês, were the subject of a lost tragedy of Euripidês, which even the ridicule of Aristophanês demonstrates to have been eminently pathetic.[357]
[355] See the references in Apollod. i, 8, 4-5. Pindar, Isthm. iv. 32. Μελέταν δὲ σοφισταῖς Διὸς ἕκατι πρόσβαλον σεβιζόμενοι Ἐν μὲν Αἰτωλῶν θυσίαισι φαενναῖς Οἰνεΐδαι κρατεροὶ, etc.
[356] Hekat. Fragm. 341, Didot. In this story Œneus is connected with the first discovery of the vine and the making of wine (οἶνος): compare Hygin. f. 129, and Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 9.
[357] See Welcker (Griechisch. Tragöd. ii. p. 583) on the lost tragedy called Œneus.
Though the genealogy just given of Œneus is in part Homeric, and seems to have been followed generally by the mythographers, yet we find another totally at variance with it in Hekatæus, which he doubtless borrowed from some of the old poets: the simplicity of the story annexed to it seems to attest its antiquity. Orestheus, son of Deukaliôn, first passed into Ætôlia, and acquired the kingdom: he was father of Phytios, who was father of Œneus. Ætôlus was son of Œneus.[358]