Ogyges

Or Ogygus, is sometimes called a Boeotian autochthon, and sometimes a son of Boeotus, and king of the Hectenes, and the first ruler of the territory of Thebes, which was called after him Ogygia. In his reign the waters of lake Copais rose above its banks, and inundated the whole valley of Boeotia. This flood is usually called after him the Ogygian.1

The name of Ogyges is also connected with Attic story, for in Attica too an Ogygian flood is mentioned, and he is described as the father of the Attic hero Elensis, and as the father of Daeira, the daughter of Oceanus.2 In the Boeotian tradition he was the father of Alalcomenia, Thelxinoea and Aulis.3 Polybius4 and Strabo5 call Ogyges the last king of Achaea, and some traditions even described him as an Egyptian king.6

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References

Notes

  1. Pausanias. Description of Greece ix, 5.1; Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica iii, 1177; Servius on Virgil's Eclogues, vi, 41.
  2. Pausanias. Description of Greece i, 38.7.
  3. Suidas, s.v. Πραξιδίκη; Pausanias. Description of Greece ix, 33.4.
  4. iv, 1.
  5. Geography viii, p. 384.
  6. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 1206.

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.