quite similar to those employed in the Indian epics.^74 For reasons given below,
however, I hesitate to conclude that the archery event is an Indo-European
theme.
On several occasions in Greek myth a multitude of suitors come together in
response to a proclamation and are assessed by the girl’s father, who retains
the right of decision. Danaos found husbands for forty-eight daughters in a
morning by lining the girls up at the end of a racetrack, making the suitors
race to them, and letting each man as he finished take his pick of those
remaining. Antaios too made his daughter’s suitors race for her, as did Ikarios
when Penelope was to be married.^75
The most celebrated of such gatherings was that of the suitors of Helen.
According to the Hesiodic Catalogue her brothers the Dioskouroi organized
the event. The chieftains came from all over Greece and the islands, each
offering as high a bride-price as he could afford, and the Dioskouroi decided
that she was to be given to Menelaus. Other authors, however, attest a version
in which her father Tyndareos allowed her to choose whom she wanted,
making it a real svayam
̇
vara.^76
One of these writers, the mythographer Hyginus, includes in his cursory
reference a detail of great interest: Tyndareos, he says, arbitrio Helenae posuit
ut cui uellet nubere coronam imponeret. Helen was to signify her choice by
placing a garland on the lucky man. This corresponds exactly to the Indian
procedure as described in the epics. Once Damayantı ̄ had identified Nala,
the man she wanted, among a group of divine lookalikes, she ‘chose him
according to the Law. Bashfully she touched the hem of his garment and hung
on his shoulders a most beautiful garland; and thus the fair woman chose him
for her husband’.^77
A similar event is described in the Sha ̄h-na ̄ma. Caesar in ‘Rum’ decides that
it is time for his daughter Kata ̄yun to marry, and he assembles a large com-
pany of mature, distinguished men. She looks them all over and finds none of
them to her liking. A further proclamation is made and another gathering
of nobles and princes is convened. This time Goshta ̄sp is present. On seeing
(^74) Gabriel Germain, Genèse de l’Odyssée (Paris 1954), 15–54; West (1997), 431–3; S. W.
Jamison (as n. 73, 1999), 243–58. Vase paintings indicate that there was a myth of an archery
contest for Iole, the daughter of Eurytos; see Gantz (1993), 435 f.
(^75) Pind. Pyth. 9. 106–25; Paus. 3. 12. 1 f. If we believe Herodotus (6. 126–30), Cleisthenes of
Sicyon invited quality suitors for his daughter Agariste from all over Greece and spent a year
investigating their merits.
(^76) Eur. Iph. Aul. 68–70, Arist. Rhet. 1401 b36 (Polycrates fr. 17 Sauppe), Hyg. Fab. 78.
(^77) MBh. 3. 54. 26 (with one modification to van Buitenen’s translation in the light of S. Insler,
JAOS 109 (1989), 577); cf. 1. 179. 22 (with 1850, 1852 from Southern manuscripts); Ka ̄lida ̄sa,
Raghuvam
̇
sa ̄ 6. 86 f.; J. Przyluski, JAs. 205 (1924), 111–21.
434 11. King and Hero