the account that follows is one of the most extensive and exciting episodes of the "catalogue" to survive from antiquity. atalanta wished to avoid marriage, but a throng of suitors gathered because of her beauty. her father schoeneus promised her hand to the one who could beat his swift daughter in a footrace, with one further condition: any who accepted the challenge and lost would be put to death. aphrodite had given one of the contestants, hippomenes, three golden apples with which to temp the girl off course; these he threw as he ran and begged atalanta to have pity upon him. the toss of the third apple finally accomplished its aim, but the couple did not live happily after: through the will of zeus atalanta was transformed into lion because she had seen "what it is not lawful to see," which presumably means that she had unlawfully entered a holy precinct. this is where the evidence for atalanta leaves off, and it remains unknown just where and how the passage fit in the "catalogue".