Anius

A son of Apollo by Creusa, or according to others by Rhoeo, the daughter of Staphylus, who when her pregnancy became known was exposed by her angry father in a chest on the waves of the sea. The chest landed in Delos, and when Rhoeo was delivered of a boy she consecrated him to the service of Apollo, who endowed him with prophetic powers.1

Anius had by Dryope three daughters, Oeno, Spermo, and Elais, to whom Dionysus gave the power of producing at will any quantity of wine, corn, and oil, — whence they were called Oenotropae. When the Greeks on their expedition to Troy landed in Delos, Anius endeavored to persuade them to stay with him for nine years, as it was decreed by fate that they should not take Troy until the tenth year, and he promised with the help of his three daughters to supply them with all they wanted during that period.2

After the fall of Troy, when Aeneas arrived in Delos, he was kindly received by Anius,3 and a Greek tradition stated that Aeneas married a daughter of Anius, of the name of Lavinia, who was, like her father, endowed with prophetic powers, followed Aeneas to Italy, and died at Lavinium.4

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References

Notes

  1. Diodorus Siculus, v, 62; Conon. Narratives, 41.
  2. Pherecydes ap. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 569; Ovid. Metamorphoses xiii, 623 ff.; comp. Dictys Cretensis, i, 23.
  3. Ovid, l.c.; Virgil. Aeneid iii, 80, with Servius.
  4. Dionysius of Halicarnassus. i, 59; Aurelius Victor. The origins of Roman Race, 9; comp. Hartung. Die Religion der Römer. i, 87.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.