Tyrrhenus

Or Tyrsenus (Τυρσηνός). A son of the Lydian king Atys and Callithea, and a brother of Lydus, is said to have led a Pelasgian colony from Lydia into Italy, into the country of the Umbrians, and to have given to the colonists his name, Tyrrhenians.1 Others call Tyrrhenus a son of Heracles by Omphale,2 or of Telephus and Hiera, and a brother of Tarchon.3

The name Tarchon seems to be only another form for Tyrrhenus, and the two names represent a Pelasgian hero founding settlements in the north of Italy.

❧

References

Notes

  1. Herodotus. Histories iv, 94; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, i, 27.
  2. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, i, 28.
  3. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 1242, 1249.

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.