Myrtilus

A son of Hermes by Cleobule, or by Clytia,1 or, according to others, by Phaetusa or Myrto.2 He was the charioteer of Oenomaus, king of Elis, and, having betrayed his master, he was thrown into the sea by Pelops near Geraestus in Euboea; and that part of the Aegean is said to have thenceforth been called after him the Myrtoan sea. At the moment he expired, he pronounced a curse upon the house of Pelops, which was hence harassed by the Erinyes of that curse. His father placed him among the stars as auriga.

His tomb was shown at Pheneus, behind the temple of Hermes, where the waves were believed to have washed his body on the coast. There he was also worshiped as a hero, and honored with nocturnal sacrifices.3

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References

Notes

  1. Hyginus. Poetical Astronomy ii, 13.
  2. Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, i, 752.
  3. Pausanias. Description of Greece vi, 20.8; viii, 14.7.

Sources

  • Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica i, 755.
  • Euripides. Orestes, 993 ff.
  • Eustathius on Homer, p. 184.
  • Hyginus. Fabulae, 84, Poetical Astronomy ii, 13.
  • Pausanias. Description of Greece ii, 18.2; v, 1.5; viii, 14.8.
  • Servius on Virgil's Georgics i, 205; iii, 7.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Sophocles. Electra, 509.
  • Tzetzes on Lycophron, 156, 162.

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