Οὐαλέριος Ἁρποκρατίων, Φώτιος, Σοῦδα, Ἐτυμολογικὸν τὸ Μέγα Τριτοπάτορες· Δήμων ἐν τῆι Ἀτθίδι φησὶν ἀνέμους εἶναι τοὺς Τριτοπάτορας. Φιλόχορος δὲ τοὺς Τριτοπάτορας πάντων γεγονέναι πρώτους .... Φανόδημος δὲ ἐν ϛ φησὶν ὅτι μόνοι Ἀθηναῖοι θύουσί τε καὶ εὔχονται αὐτοῖς ὑπὲρ γενέσεως παίδων, ὅταν γαμεῖν μέλλωσιν. ἐν δὲ τῶι Ὀρφέως Φυσικῶι ὀνομάζεσθαι τοὺς Τριτοπάτορας Ἀμαλκείδην καὶ Πρωτοκλέα καὶ Πρωτοκρέοντα, θυρωροὺς καὶ φύλακας ὄντας τῶν ἀνέμων. ὁ δὲ τὸ Ἐξηγητικὸν ποιήσας Οὐρανοῦ καὶ Γῆς φησὶν αὐτοὺς εἶναι, ὀνόματα δὲ αὐτῶν Κόττον, Βριάρεων, καὶ Γύγην.
The Anonymous Exegete is a lost Greek work of historical commentary, known only from a single fragment preserved in later compilations. The fragment, which concerns the nature of the Tritopatores, demonstrates the work's character as a piece of explanatory exegesis on mythological or cultic subjects. It records and compares varying traditions about these ancestral deities, citing earlier authorities such as Demon, Philochorus, and Phanodemus, as well as an Orphic text, before presenting its own interpretation that identifies the Tritopatores with the primordial figures Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, whom it describes as the offspring of Uranus and Earth. The work's survival within collections of historical fragments, such as the Fragments of the Greek Historians, indicates that its scholarly interpretations were considered valuable by later antiquarians and lexicographers. It stands as a representative example of the numerous minor, erudite commentaries that circulated in antiquity, contributing to the preservation and analysis of local Athenian traditions and mythological lore.
Anonymous Historians (FGrH) Anonymous Exegete in Greek in PDF
Anonymous Historians (FGrH) Anonymous Exegete in Greek in MD