Ἤτοι γὰρ Λοκρὸς Λελέγων ἡγήσατο λαῶν, Τούς ῥά ποτε Κρονίδης Ζεὺς ἄφθιτα μήδεα εἰδὼς, Λεκτοὺς ἐκ γαίης λάας πόρε Δευκαλίωνι.
The reputed lineage of Deukaliôn continued in Phthia down to the time of Dikæarchus, if we may judge from the old Phthiot Pherekratês, whom he introduced in one of his dialogues as a disputant, and whom he expressly announced as a descendant of Deukaliôn (Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. i. 10).
[215] The latter account is given by Dionys. Halic. i. 17; the former seems to have been given by Hellanikus, who affirmed that the ark after the deluge stopped upon Mount Othrys, and not upon Mount Parnassus (Schol. Pind. _ut. sup._) the former being suitable for a settlement in Thessaly.
Pyrrha is the eponymous heroine of Pyrrhæa or Pyrrha, the ancient name of a portion of Thessaly (Rhianus, Fragm. 18, p. 71, ed. Düntzer).
Hellanikus had written a work, now lost, entitled Δευκαλιώνεια: all the fragments of it which are cited have reference to places in Thessaly, Lokris and Phokis. See Preller, ad Hellanitum, p. 12 (Dörpt. 1840). Probably Hellanikus is the main source of the important position occupied by Deukaliôn in Grecian legend. Thrasybulus and Akestodôrus represented Deukaliôn as having founded the oracle of Dôdôna, immediately after the deluge (Etm. Mag. v. Δωδωναῖος).
The enormous iniquity with which earth was contaminated—as Apollodôrus says, by the then existing brazen race, or as others say, by the fifty monstrous sons of Lykaôn—provoked Zeus to send a general deluge.[216] An unremitting and terrible rain laid the whole of Greece under water, except the highest mountain-tops, whereon a few stragglers found refuge. Deukaliôn was saved in a chest or ark, which he had been forewarned by his father Promêtheus to construct. After floating for nine days on the water, he at length landed on the summit of Mount Parnassus. Zeus having sent Hermês to him, promising to grant whatever he asked, he prayed that men and companions might be sent to him in his solitude: accordingly Zeus directed both him and Pyrrha to cast stones over their heads: those cast by Pyrrha became women, those by Deukaliôn men. And thus the “stony race of men” (if we may be allowed to translate an etymology which the Greek language presents exactly, and which has not been disdained by Hesiod, by Pindar, by Epicharmus, and by Virgil) came to tenant the soil of Greece.[217] Deukaliôn on landing from the ark sacrificed a grateful offering to Zeus Phyxios, or the God of escape; he also erected altars in Thessaly to the twelve great gods of Olympus.[218]