Tityus
A son of Gaea, or of Zeus and Elara, the daughter of Orchomenus, was a giant in Euboea, and the father of Europa.1 Instigated by Hera,2 he made an assault upon Leto or Artemis, when she passed through Panopaeus to Pytho, but was killed by the arrows of Artemis or Apollo, or, according to others, Zeus killed him with a flash of lightning.3 He was then cast into Tartarus, and there he lay outstretched on the ground, covering nine acres, and two vultures or snakes devoured his liver.4
His gigantic tomb was shown in aftertimes near Panopeus.5
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Iconography
Tityus is depicted on some Greek vases as a bearded man, succumbing to the attack of Apollo, for instance on a krater at Paris (ca. 465 BCE) and on a kylix by the Penthesilea Painter (ca. 455 BCE) in Munich. His fall by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis was represented on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae.6
References
Notes
- Homer. Odyssey vii, 324; Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library i, 4.1; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, i, 181, 761; Pindar. Pythian Odes iv, 81.
- Hyginus. Fabulae, 55.
- Hyginus, l.c.; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, i, 181; Pausanias. Description of Greece iii, 18.9; Pindar. Pythian Odes iv, 160; Horace. Odes, iv, 6.2.
- Hyginus, l.c.; Scholiast on Pindar's Olympian Odes i, 97; Homer. Odyssey xii, 576 ff.
- Pausanias. Description of Greece x, 4.4.
- Pausanias. Description of Greece iii, 18.9; x, 11.1, 29.2; comp. Strabo. Geography ix, p. 422; Virgil. Aeneid vi, 595; Ovid. Metamorphoses iv, 457; Letters from the Black Sea i, 2.41.
Sources
- Aken, Dr. A.R.A. van. (1961). Elseviers Mythologische Encyclopedie. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
- 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.