Melanippus

"With black horses." A youth of Patrae, in Achaea, who was in love with Comaetho, a priestess of Artemis Triclaria. As the parents on both sides would not consent to their marriage, Melanippus profaned the temple of the goddess by his intercourse with Comaetho. The goddess punished the two offenders with instantaneous death, and visited the whole country with plague and famine.

The oracle of Delphi revealed the cause of these calamities, and ordered the inhabitants to sacrifice to Artemis every year the handsomest youth and the handsomest maiden.

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References

Sources

  • Pausanias. Description of Greece vii, 19.2.
  • 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.