(Compare with this the remarks previously made about "boys.") Because of this significance of the arrow it is intelligible why the Scythian king Ariantes, when he wished to prepare a census, demanded an arrow-head from each man. A similar meaning attaches equally to the lance. Men are descended from the lance, because the ash is the mother of lances. Therefore, the men of the Iron Age are derived from her. The marriage custom to which Ovid alludes ("Comat virgineas hasta recurva comas"—Fastorum, lib. ii: 560) has already been mentioned. Kaineus issued a command that his lance be honored. Pindar relates in the legend of this Kaineus:
"He descended into the depths, splitting the earth with a
straight foot."[30]
He is said to have originally been a maiden named
Kainis, who, because of her complaisance, was transformed
into an invulnerable man by Poseidon. Ovid
pictures the battle of the Lapithæ with the invulnerable
Kaineus; how at last they covered him completely with
trees, because they could not otherwise touch him. Ovid
says at this place:
"Exitus in dubio est: alii sub inania corpus
Tartara detrusum silvarum mole ferebant,
Abnuit Ampycides: medioque ex aggere fulvis
Vidit avem pennis liquidas exire sub auras."[1]
- ↑ The result is doubtful: the body borne down by the weight of the
forest is carried into empty Tartaros: Ampycides denies this: from out
of the midst of the mass, he sees a bird with tawny feathers issue into
the liquid air.
