ἔργα Λήμνια: the mythological original and its copy?

Abstract

"Lemnian Deeds" is a well-known literary and mythological topic. It includes two events: 1) the murder of the husbands and all the men of the island by the Lemnian women; 2) the killing of the Athenian women and their children by the Pelasgians. Researchers have long noticed the affinity of these events. Some scholars believe that the narration of the crime of the Pelasgians was created according to its Lemnian prototype. Or, to put in other way, one of the events became a kind of copy for the other. This paper provides a different interpretation to the noted similarity.