depths, _ibid._ *830; its torments and personages described by ghost of Tantalus, _Thy._ 1; its regions and inhabitants seen by Creon through the yawning chasm in the earth made by Tiresias' incantations, _Oed._ *582.
HARPIES, mythical monsters, half woman and half bird; driven from Phineus by Zetes and Calaïs, _Med._ 782; still torment Phineus in hades as upon earth, _H. Fur._ 759; used as type of winged speed, _Phoen._ 424.
HEBE, the daughter of Juno, cupbearer to the gods, and given as bride to the deified Hercules, _Oct._ 211.
HECATE, daughter of Perses, presider over enchantments; often identified with Proserpina as the underworld manifestation of the deity seen in Diana on earth and Luna in heaven, _H. Oet._ 1519; _Med._ HECTOR, the son of Priam and Hecuba, husband of Andromache, the bravest warrior and chief support of Troy, _Tro._ 125; burns the Greek Achilles and his body dragged around the walls of Troy, _ibid._ *413; _Agam._ 743; his body ransomed by Priam, _ibid._ 447; lamented by the band of captive Trojan women, _Tro._ 98; his ghost warns Andromache in a dream of the danger of their son Astyanax, _ibid._ 443; she hides the boy in Hector's tomb, _ibid._ 498; she loves Astyanax for the boy's resemblance to his father, _ibid._ 646.
HECUBA (_Troades_), the wife of Priam, unhappily survives Troy; as one of the captive Trojan women, leads them in a lament for Troy's downfall, for Hector and Priam, _Tro._ *1; before the birth of Paris, dreamed that she had given birth to a firebrand, _ibid._ 36; her once happy estate described, and contrasted with her present wretchedness, _ibid._ *958; given to Ulysses by lot, _ibid._ 980; having suffered the loss of all her loved ones she is at last changed into a dog, _Agam._ *705; rejoices for the first time after Hector's death on occasion of wooden horse being taken into Troy, _ibid._ 648.
HELEN (_Troades_), daughter of Jupiter and Leda, sister of Clytemnestra, wife of Menelaüs, reputed the most beautiful woman in Greece; given by Venus to Paris as a reward for his judgment in her favor, _Oct._ 773; fled from her husband for love of Paris, _Agam._ 123; afterward pardoned by Agamemnon and returned home with Menelaüs, _ibid._ 273; sent by Greeks to deceive Polyxena and prepare her for sacrifice on tomb of Achilles, _Tro._ 861; cursed by Andromache as the common scourge of Greeks and Trojans, _ibid._ *892; bewails and describes her own hard lot, _ibid._ 905; she is not to blame for the woes of Troy, _ibid._ 917.
HELLE, sister of Phrixus, who fled with him on the golden-fleeced ram, and fell off into the sea which thereafter bore her name (Hellespont), HERCĒAN JOVE, an epithet of Jupiter as the protector of the house; it was at his altar in the courtyard of his own palace that Priam was HERCULES (_Hercules Furens_, _Hercules Oetaeus_), the son of Jupiter 147, 1500, 1697, 1864; in his infancy he strangled the two serpents which Juno sent against him in his cradle, _H. Fur._ *214; _H. Oet._ 1205; by a trick of Juno who hastened the birth of Eurystheus, made subject to Eurystheus who set him various labors, _H. Oet._ 403; _H.
Fur._ 78, 524, *830. These twelve labors are as follows: (1) The 1192, 1235, 1885; _Agam._ 829; (2) the destruction of the hydra of stag, famous for its fleetness and its golden antlers, _H. Fur._ 222; _H. Oet._ 17, 1238; _Agam._ 831; (4) the capture of the wild boar of cleansing of the Augean stables, _H. Fur._ 247; (6) the killing of Oet._ 27; _Agam._ 834; (8) the obtaining of the mares of Diomedes which fed on human flesh and the slaying of Diomedes himself, _H. Fur._ 226; _Agam._ 848; (10) the killing of Geryon and the capture of his oxen, securing of the golden apples of the Hesperides, _H. Fur._ 239, 530; bringing to the upper world of the dog Cerberus, _H. Fur._ *46, **760; Hercules are as follows: he bore up the heavens upon his shoulders in 1905; burst a passage for the river Peneus between Ossa and Olympus, _H. Fur._ *283; rent Calpe and Abyla (the "Pillars of Hercules") apart and made a passage for the Mediterranean Sea into the ocean, _H. Fur._ 237; _H. Oet._ 1240, 1253, 1569; fought with and overcame the Centaurs, _ibid._ 1195; fought with Acheloüs for the possession of Deianira, _ibid._ 299, 495; slew the centaur Nessus who was carrying off his bride, _ibid._ *500, 921; overcame Eryx, the famous boxer, _H. Fur._ of Mars, _H. Fur._ 485; killed Zetes and Calaïs, _Med._ 634; killed Periclymenus, _ibid._ 635; wounded Pluto, who was going to the aid of the Pylians, _H. Fur._ 560; wrecked off the African coast, he made his way on foot to the shore, _ibid._ 319; assisted the gods in their fight against the giants, _ibid._ 444; capured Troy with aid of Telamon during the reign of Laomedon, _Tro._ 136, 719; his arrows said to be twice fated for the destruction of Troy, _ibid._ 825; _Agam._ 863; forced Charon to bear him across the Lethe (not Styx), _H. Fur._ *762; 477; _H. Oet._ 422. More or less extended recapitulations of the deeds of Hercules are found in the following passages: _Agam._ 808-866; _H.
1218-1257, 1518-1606, 1810-1830, 1872-1939. The loves of Hercules are as follows: Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, rescued from the sea-monster, and made captive to Hercules with the first fall of Troy; he afterward gave her to Telamon, _H. Oet._ 363; Auge, daughter of Aleus, king of Tegea, _ibid._ 367; the Thespiades, the fifty daughters of Thespius, _ibid._ 369; Omphale, queen of Lydia, to whom Hercules, in expiation of an act of sacrilege, went into voluntary servitude daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia, whom Hercules destroyed because wives were (1) Megara daughter of Creon, king of Thebes; Hercules, in a fit of madness, brought upon him by Juno's machinations, slew her and his sanity returned, Theseus promised him cleansing for his crime by Mars at Athens, _H. Fur._ 1341; elsewhere said to have been cleansed by washing in the Cinyps, a river in Africa, _H. Oet._ 907; (2) Deianira, daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydonia. See DEIANIRA and ACHELOÜS. The favorite tree of Hercules was the poplar, _H. Fur._ 894, 912; _H. Oet._ 1641. Hercules himself was destined to come to a tragic end after a life of great deeds, _Med._ 637; his death was in accordance with an oracle which declared that he should die by the hand of one whom he had slain, _H. Oet._ 1473; Deianira, ignorantly seeking to regain her husband's love from Iole, sends him a robe anointed with the poisoned blood of Nessus, _ibid._ 535; Lichas bears the robe to his master, _ibid._ 569; Hercules was worshiping Cenaean Jove in Euboea when the robe was brought to him, _ibid._ 775; his sufferings caused by the terrible burning poison described, _ibid._ *749, 1218; hurls Lichas, the innocent cause of his pains, over a cliff, _ibid._ 809; after dire suffering, is borne by boat from Euboea to Mt. Oeta where he was to perish, _ibid._ 839; he orders a funeral pyre to be built for him on the top of the mountain, _ibid._ 1483; speculation upon his probable place in heaven after death, _ibid._ 1565; his glorious and triumphant death in the midst of the flames described, _ibid._ **1610, 1726; his fated bow is presented by the dying hero to his friend Philoctetes, _ibid._ 1648; his ashes are collected into an urn by his mother, Alcmena, _ibid._ 1758; Medea was said to have in her magical store some of the ashes of Oeta's pyre soaked with the dying (poisoned) blood of Hercules, _Med._ 777; the voice of the hero is heard from heaven, declaring that he has been deified, _H. Oet._ *1940; now received into heaven as a god, in spite of Juno's opposition, he is given Hebe as his wife, _Oct._ 210.
HERMIONE, daughter of Menelaüs and Helen; the Trojans pray that she may suffer the same doom as Polyxena, _Tro._ 1134.
HESIONE, daughter of Laomedon, exposed to a sea-monster sent by Neptune to punish the perfidy of Laomedon. She was rescued by Hercules and captured by him when he with Telamon's aid took Troy, _H. Oet._ 363.
HESPERIDES, APPLES OF, golden apples on certain islands far in the west, watched over by three nymphs, and guarded by a sleepless dragon; it was the eleventh labor of Hercules to get these apples and take them HESPERUS, the evening star, messenger of night, _Med._ 878; _Hip._ 750; _H. Fur._ 883; impatiently awaited by lovers, _Med._ 72; as example of perverted nature, Hesperus will bring in the day, _Phoen._ 87; functions of evening and morning stars interchanged at the conception HIEROSCOPÏA (_extispicium_), a method of prophesying by inspecting the viscera of a newly slain sacrificial victim practiced by Tiresias in his effort to discover the murderer of Laius, _Oed._ *353.
HIPPODAMĪA, daughter of Oenomaüs, king of Pisa. See MYRTILUS.
HIPPOLYTE, a queen of the Amazons, possessed of the belt of Mars; Eurystheus imposed upon Hercules as his ninth labor that he should secure and bring this belt, or girdle, to him; this the hero HIPPOLYTUS (_Hippolytus_), son of Theseus and Hippolyte, or, according to others, of Theseus and Antiope; represented as devoted to the hunt, and to Diana, the goddess of the hunt, _Hip._ 1; the object of the guilty love of Phaedra, his father's wife, _ibid._ *99; he hates and avoids all womankind, _ibid._ 230; his severe life as a recluse described, _ibid._ 435; sings the praises of the simple life in the woods and fields, and contrasts this with city life, _ibid._ *483; is charged with a criminal attack upon Phaedra, _ibid._ 725; his death caused by a monster sent by Neptune in response to the prayer of Theseus, _ibid._ 1000; his innocence discovered, _ibid._ 1191.
HYADES, daughters of Atlas and sisters of the Pleiades; a constellation seemingly borne on the horns of Taurus, _Thy._ 852; a storm-bringing constellation, but not yet recognized as such in the golden age, _Med._ 311; disturbed by the magic power of Medea, _ibid._ 769.
HYDRA, a monster which infested the marsh of Lerna; it had eight heads, and one besides which was immortal. When any one of the eight heads was severed there sprang forth two in its stead. After a desperate struggle with this creature, Hercules killed it as his second labor assigned by HYLAS, a beautiful youth, beloved by Hercules, who accompanied that hero on the Argonautic expedition; while stopping on the coast of Mysia for water, the boy was seized and kept by the water-nymphs of a stream into which he had dipped his urn, _Hip._ 780, _Med._ *647.
HYLLUS (_Hercules Oetaeus_), son of Hercules and Deianira; describes to his mother the terrible sufferings of Hercules after putting on the poisoned robe, _H. Oet._ 742; called the grandson of Jove, _ibid._ 1421; Iole is consigned to him as his wife by the dying Hercules, _ibid._ 1490.
HYPERMNESTRA, one of the fifty daughters of Danaüs, who refused to murder her husband at her father's command, _H. Fur._ 500; for this act of mercy, she is not suffering among her sisters in hades, _H. Oet._ 948. See DANAÏDES.
I ICARUS, the son of Daedalus, who, attempting to escape from Crete on wings which his father had made, melted the wax of his wings by a flight too near the sun, and so fell into the sea which took its name IDMON, son of Apollo and Asteria, one of the Argonauts, with prophetic power; he died from the stroke of a wild boar, not, as Seneca says, INO, daughter of Cadmus, sister of Semele, wife of Athamas, king of Thebes. Her husband, driven mad by Juno, because Ino had nursed the infant Bacchus, attempted to slay her, but she escaped him by leaping off a high cliff into the sea with her son Melicerta. They were both IOLE (_Hercules Oetaeus_), daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia. She was sought in marriage by Hercules, who destroyed her father and all his house because she was refused to him, _H. Oet._ 221; in captivity to Hercules, she mourns her fate, _ibid._ 173; sent as a captive to Deianira, _ibid._ 224; her reception by Deianira described, _ibid._ 237; is consigned to Hyllus as wife, by the dying Hercules, _ibid._ 1490.
IPHIGENĪA, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; taken from her mother to be sacrificed at Aulis, on the pretext that she was to be married to Achilles, _Agam._ 158; sacrificed to appease Diana to the end that the Greek fleet might be allowed to sail from Aulis, _ibid._ Diana at the last moment and taken to serve in the goddess' temple at Tauris, _Oct._ 972.
IRIS, the messenger of Juno, and goddess of the rainbow, _Oed._ 315.
ITYS, son of Tereus, king of Thrace, and Procne, who, to punish her husband for his outrage upon her sister, Philomela, slew the boy Itys and served him as a banquet to his father. The sisters, changed to IXĪON, for his insult to Juno fixed to an ever-revolving wheel in _H. Oet._ 945, 1011; his wheel stood still at the music of Orpheus, _ibid._ 1068; Medea prays that he may leave his wheel and come to Corinth, and that Creon may take his place upon the wheel, _Med._ 744.
See NEPHELE.
J JASON (_Medea_), son of Aeson, king of Thessaly, and nephew of the usurping king, Pelias. He was persuaded by Pelias to undertake the adventure of the Golden Fleece, for which he organized and led the Argonautic expedition. He was able to perform the hard tasks in Colchis which King Aeëtes set, through the aid of Medea: the taming of the fire-breathing bull, _Med._ 121, 241, 466; overcoming of the giants sprung from the sown serpents' teeth, _ibid._ 467; putting to sleep of the ever-watchful dragon, _ibid._ 471; he had had no part in the murder of Pelias for which he and Medea were driven out of Thessaly, _ibid._ 262; but this and all Medea's crimes had been done for his sake, _ibid._ *275; living in exile in Corinth, he is forced by Creon into a marriage with the king's daughter, Creüsa, _ibid._ 137; Medea imprecates a dreadful curse upon him, _ibid._ 19; he laments the hard dilemma in which he finds himself placed, _ibid._ 431; and at last decides to yield to Creon's demands for the sake of his children, _ibid._ 441.
JOCASTA (_Oedipus, Phoenissae_), wife of Laïus, king of Thebes, mother and afterward wife of Oedipus; on learning that Oedipus is her son, she kills herself in an agony of grief and shame, _Oed._ 1024. According to another version of the story, she is still living after the events leading to the voluntary exile of Oedipus; she bewails the fratricidal strife between her two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and knows not with which she ought to side, _Phoen._ 377; rushing between the two hosts, she pleads with her sons to be reconciled with each other, _ibid._ *443.
JUDGES IN HADES, Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, weep for the first time on hearing Orpheus' plaintive strains, _H. Fur._ 579; Theseus describes at length their persons and their judgments, the moral law under which the souls of men are judged, and the punishments and rewards meted out after judgment, _ibid._ **727.
JULIA, daughter of Drusus and Livia Drusilla, exiled and afterward slain, _Oct._ 944.
JUNO (_Hercules Furens_), speaks the prologue, revealing her motive in bringing about the catastrophe of the play; she recounts in order Jove's infidelities with mortals whose constellations she points out, and relates especially her fruitless struggles with Hercules; she cannot overcome him by any toil which she can invent, _H. Fur._ *1; she looks forward with hatred and dread to the time when Hercules will force his entrance into heaven, _ibid._ 64; she is cited to Octavia by her nurse as a type of wife who, by wise management, finally won a wayward husband's love to herself again, _Oct._ *201; hymn in praise of, _Agam._ 340; Argos is dear to her, _ibid._ 809.
JUPITER, lord of Olympus, ruler of the skies and seasons, _Hip._ *960; ruler of heaven and earth, to whom victors consecrate their spoils, _Agam._ *802; his mother, Rhea, brought him forth in Crete and hid him in a cave of Mount Ida, lest his father, Saturn, should discover and destroy him, _H. Fur._ 459; hymn in praise of, _Agam._ 381; his thunderbolts are forged in Aetna, _Hip._ 156; his amours with mortals are as follows: with Leda to whom he appeared in the form of a swan, _H. Fur._ 9; _H. Oet._ 550; with Danaë, in form of a golden shower, _H. Fur._ 13; with Callisto, _ibid._ 6; the Pleiades (Electra, Maia, Alcmena, _ibid._ 22. For his ancient oracle in Epirus, see DODONA; see also HERCEAN JOVE and CENAEUM.
JUSTICE (_Justitia_), the goddess Astraea, who once lived on earth during the innocence of man in the golden age of Saturn, _Oct._ 398; she fled the earth when sin became dominant, _ibid._ 424. See ASTRAEA.
L LABDACIDAE, a name for the Thebans, derived from Labdacus, king of LACHESIS, one of the three fates, or Parcae, who measured out the thread of human life, _Oed._ 985. The other two were Clotho and Atropos. See CLOTHO.
LAËRTES, the father of Ulysses, dwelling in Ithaca, _Tro._ 700; "feels the shock of reeling Ithaca" in a storm, _Thy._ 587.
LAÏUS, king of Thebes, husband of Jocasta, father of Oedipus, whom, fearing an oracle, he had exposed in infancy; at the time of the opening of the play of _Oedipus_, he had been murdered by an unknown man, and his murder must be avenged before the plague afflicting Thebes can be relieved, _Oed._ *217; place and supposed manner of his death described to Oedipus by Creon, _ibid._ *276; time and circumstances of his murder described by Jocasta, _ibid._ 776; his shade is raised by Tiresias and declares that Oedipus is his murderer, _ibid._ *619; his shade seems to appear to the blind Oedipus in exile and call him to death, _Phoen._ 39.
LAOMEDON, king of Troy, father of Priam; he deceived Apollo and Neptune, who built the walls of Troy, and again cheated Hercules out of his promised reward for delivering Hesione; hence his house is called a "lying house," _Agam._ 864.
LAPITHAE, a tribe of Thessaly, associated in story with the Centaurs, and both with a great struggle against Hercules in which they were worsted by that hero; in hades they still fear their great enemy when LATŌNA, beloved of Jupiter, to whom she bore Apollo and Diana; hence these gods are called the children of Latona, _Agam._ 324; the floating island, Delos, was the only spot allowed her by the jealous Juno for the birth of her children, _H. Fur._ 15.
LEDA, the wife of Tyndarus, king of Sparta; she was beloved by Jupiter in the form of a swan, _Oct._ 205, 764; and became by him the mother of Castor and Pollux, who were falsely called Tyndaridae, and set in the heavens as constellations, _H. Fur._ 14; _Oct._ 208; Clytemnestra was the daughter of Leda and Tyndarus, _Agam._ 125, 234.
LEMNOS, an island in the Aegean Sea, the seat of fierce fires, as connected with the fall of Vulcan on that island where he established his forges, _H. Oet._ 1362; according to story all the Lemnian women at one time, except Hypsipyle, murdered all their male relatives, _Agam._ 566.
LEO, the zodiacal constellation of the Lion, representing the Nemean lion slain by Hercules, and set as a constellation in the sky, _H.
Fur._ 69, 945; _Thy._ 855; said to have fallen from the moon, where, according to the opinion of the Pythagoreans, all monsters had their LETHE, a river of the lower world whose waters possessed the power of causing those who drank of them to forget the past, _H. Oet._ 936; _H.
Fur._ 680; _Hip._ 1202; elsewhere it loses its distinctive meaning and is used as equivalent to Styx or the lower world in general, _ibid._ his boat over this river, _H. Fur._ 777.
LIBRA, the zodiacal constellation of the Scales, marking the autumnal LICHAS, the ill-fated bearer of the poisoned robe from Deianira to Hercules, thrown over a cliff by the agonized hero, _H. Oet._ 567, 570, 809, 814, 978, 1460; he had previously been sent home by Hercules to announce the hero's triumph over Eurytus, _ibid._ 99.
LIVIA, the wife of Drusus; her fate, _Oct._ 942.
LUCIFER, the morning star, or "light-bringer," the herald of the sun, LUCĪNA, the goddess who presides over child-birth, i. e., Diana or LUCRETIA, daughter of Lucretius, wife of Collatinus, avenged by a bloody war for the outrage committed upon her by Sextus Tarquinius, _Oct._ 300.
LUNA, the goddess of the moon, identified with Diana upon the earth, called also Phoebe as sister of Phoebus, _Oed._ 44; she reflects her brother's fires, _ibid._ 253; and passes his car in shorter course, _Thy._ 838; in love with Endymion, she seeks the earth, _Hip._ 309, 422, 785; and gives her chariot to her brother to drive, _ibid._ 310; saved by the clashing of vessels from the influence of magic, _ibid._ 790.
LYCURGUS, a king of Thrace, who, for his opposition to Bacchus, was LYCUS (_Hercules Furens_), a usurper, who took advantage of the absence of Hercules in hades, and slew Creon and his sons, and is, at the opening of the play, ruler in Thebes, _H. Fur._ 270; he boasts that, though low born, he has by conquest gained great power and wealth, _ibid._ 332; he desires to repair his fault of birth by a union with Megara, wife of the absent Hercules, and daughter of Creon, _ibid._ 345; proposes marriage to Megara, _ibid._ 360; is scorned by her, _ibid._ 372; is slain by Hercules, _ibid._ 895.
LYNCEUS, one of the Argonautic heroes, renowned for his wonderful keenness of vision, _Med._ 232.
M MAEANDER, a river of Phrygia, celebrated for its exceedingly winding course, _Phoen._ 606; used to illustrate the windings of the river MAENADS, female attendants and worshippers of Bacchus, _Oed._ 436; their bewildered madness while under the inspiration of Bacchus, _H.
Oet._ 243; their unconsciousness of pain, _Tro._ 674; they go wildly ranging over the mountain tops, _Med._ 383.
MAGIC ARTS, the powers of, as practiced by Medea, _Med._ 670-842; by Tiresias, _Oed._ 548-625; by the nurse of Deianira, _H. Oet._ 452-64.
MANTO (_Oedipus_), the prophetic daughter of the seer Tiresias, _Agam._ 22; she leads her blind old father into the presence of Oedipus, _Oed._ 290; describes the appearance of the sacrifices which he interprets, _ibid._ 303.
MARS, the son of Jupiter and Juno, god of war, _Tro._ 185, 783, 1058; or battle itself, _ibid._ 275, 646; _Agam._ 921; the amour of Mars and Venus was discovered by Phoebus, and by him with the aid of Vulcan they two were caught in a cunningly wrought net; for this reason Venus hates the race of Phoebus, _Hip._ 125; Mars, summoned to judgment by Neptune for the murder of his son, was tried and acquitted by the twelve gods sitting in judgment at Athens in the Areopagus (Mars Hill), _H.
Fur._1342; Mars is here called _Gradivus_.
MEDĒA (_Medea_), daughter of Aeëtes, king of Colchis, and granddaughter of Sol and Perseïs, _Med._ 28, 210; the grandeur of her estate in her father's kingdom, _ibid._ *209, 483; mistress of magic arts, _ibid._ *750; by means of these arts she helped Jason perform the deadly tasks set him by her father, _ibid._ 169, 467, 471; helped Jason carry off the golden fleece upon the possession of which her father's kingdom depended, _ibid._ 130; left her father's realm through crime for love of Jason, _ibid._ 119; slew her brother, Absyrtus, and strewed his dismembered body upon the sea to retard her father's pursuit, _ibid._ 121; _H. Oet._ 950; tricked the daughters of Pelias into murdering their father, _Med._ 133, 201, *258; driven out of Thessaly and pursued by Acastus, she with Jason sought and received a place of safety in Corinth, _ibid._ 247, 257; did all her crimes not for her own but for Jason's sake, _ibid._ 275; exiled now by Creon, she obtains one day of respite, _ibid._ 295; prepares a deadly, enchanted robe for her rival, Creüsa, _ibid._ 570; her magic incantations described, _ibid._ *675; sends the robe to Creüsa, _ibid._ 816; and rejoices in its terrible effect, _ibid._ 893; kills her two sons, _ibid._ 970, 1019; gloats over her husband's misery and vanishes in the air in a chariot drawn by dragons, _ibid._ 1025; goes to Athens and marries Aegeus; is a type of an evil woman, _Hip._ 563; the stepmother of Theseus, _ibid._ 697.
MEDŪSA, one of the three Gorgons, slain by Perseus. He cut off her head which had the power of petrifying whatever looked upon it, and gave it to Minerva who set it upon her aegis, _Agam._ 530; her gall used by Medea in magic, _Med._ 831.
MEGAERA, one of the furies, summoned by Juno to drive Hercules to madness, _H. Fur._ 102; appears to the maddened Medea with scourge of serpents, _Med._ 960; seems to appear to the distracted Deianira, _H.
Oet._ 1006, 1014; summoned by Atreus to assist him in his revenge upon his brother, _Thy._ 252. See FURIES.
MEGARA (_Hercules Furens_), the daughter of Creon, king of Thebes, and wife of Hercules, _H. Fur._ 202; laments the constant toils which hold her husband from his home, and keep her anxious for his life, _ibid._ *205; scorns the advances of Lycus who has usurped the throne of Thebes, _ibid._ *372; slain by her husband in his fit of madness brought upon him by the jealous Juno, _ibid._ 1010; _H. Oet._ 429, *903, 1452.
MELEĀGER, son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and Althaea; his tragic death brought upon him by his mother's wrath because he had killed her brothers, _Med._ 644, 779. See ALTHAEA.
MELICERTA, see INO.
MEMNON, the son of Aurora, slain by Achilles, _Tro._ 239; _Agam._ 212.
MENELĀUS, son of Atreus, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen, king of Sparta, employed by his father to trick his uncle, Thyestes, _Thy._ 327; Helen looks forward with fear to his judgment, _Tro._ 923; he pardoned Helen for her desertion of him for Paris, _Agam._ 273.
MEROPE, the wife of Polybus, king of Corinth; she adopted the infant Oedipus and brought him up to manhood as her own child, _Oed._ 272, 661, 802.
MESSALĪNA, the wife of Claudius, and mother of Octavia, _Oct._ 10; cursed by Venus with insatiate lust, _ibid._ 258; openly married Silius in the absence of Claudius, _ibid._ *260; slain for this by the order of her husband, _ibid._ 265; her former proud estate, as the wife of Claudius, contrasted with her wretched fate; her death described, _ibid._ *974.
MIMAS, one of the giants, _H. Fur._ 981. See GIANTS.
MINOS, a son of Jupiter, king of Crete; father of Phaedra, _Hip._ 149; father of Ariadne, _ibid._ 245; widely ruling and powerful monarch, _ibid._ 149; no daughter of Minos loved without sin, _ibid._ 127; because of his righteousness on earth made one of the judges in hades, MINOTAUR, a hybrid monster, born of the union of Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos, and a bull; called brother of Phaedra, _Hip._ 174; confined in the labyrinth in Crete, _ibid._ 649, 1171.
MOPSUS, a Thesalian soothsayer, one of the Argonauts, who died by the bite of a serpent in Libya, _Med._ 655.
MULCIBER, one of the names of Vulcan. He gave to Medea the hidden fires of sulphur for her magic, _Med._ 824.
MYCALE, a celebrated witch of Thessaly, _H. Oet._ 525.
MYCËNAE, a city of Argolis, near Argos; its walls were built by the hands of the Cyclopes, _Thy._ 407; _H. Fur._ 997; ruled by the house of Pelops, _Thy._ 188, 561, 1011; _Tro._ 855; the favorite city of Juno, MYRRHA, a daughter of Cinyras, who conceived an unnatural passion for her father. Pursued by him, she was changed into the myrrh tree, whose exuding gum resembles tears, _H. Oet._ 196.
MYRTILUS, a son of Mercury, charioteer of Oenomaüs. Bribed by Pelops, suitor for the hand of Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaüs, he secretly withdrew the linch-pins of his master's chariot, thus wrecking his master's car in the race which was to decide the success of Pelop's suit. His sin and fate described, _Thy._ 140; the wrecked chariot preserved as a trophy in the palace of the Pelopidae, _ibid._ 660.
N NAÏDES, deities, generally conceived as young and beautiful maidens, inhabiting brooks and springs. _Hip._780. See HYLAS.
NAUPLIUS, a son of Neptune and king of Euboea; to avenge the death of his son, Palamedes, he lured the Greek fleet to destruction by displaying false beacon fires off the rocky coast of Euboea, _Agam._ *567; when, however, Ulysses, whom he hated most, escaped, he threw himself headlong from the cliff, _Med._ 659. See PALAMEDES.
NECROMANTĪA, necromancy, a raising of the dead for purposes of consultation; practiced by Tiresias, in his effort to discover the murderer of Laïus, _Oed._ **530.
NEMEAN LION, the beast slain by Hercules near Nemea, a city of Argolis, as the first of his twelve labors, _Agam._ 830; _H. Fur._ 224: H. Oet.
1193, 1235, 1665, 1885; set in the heavens as a zodiacal constellation, _Oed._ 40. See LEO.
NEPHELE, the cloud form of Juno, devised by Jupiter, upon which Ixion begot the centaur, Nessus, in the belief that it was Juno herself, _H.
Oet._ 492.
NEPTUNE, son of Saturn, brother of Jupiter and Pluto, with whom, after the dethronement of Saturn, he cast lots for the three great divisions of his father's realm: the second lot, giving him the sovereignty over 266; _Hip._ 904, 1159; rides over the surface of the deep in his car, _Oed._ 254; sends a monster out of the sea to destroy Hippolytus in answer to the prayer of Theseus, _Hip._ 1015; assists Minerva in the destruction of Ajax, the son of Oïleus, in the great storm which assailed the Greek fleet upon its homeward voyage, _Agam._ 554; bidden by Hercules to hide beneath his waves lest he behold Cerberus, _H.
Fur._ 600; is the father of Theseus, to whom he gave three wishes, NEREUS, a sea-deity, used often, by metonymy, for the sea itself, Thetis and the other Nereïds, _Tro._ 882; _Oed._ 446; even they feel the fires of love, _Hip._ 336.
NERO (_Octavia_), the son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, _Oct._ 249; married his stepsister, Octavia, whom he treated with great cruelty; his character depicted by her, _ibid._ 86; emperor from A.D.
54 until his death in 68; murdered his mother, _ibid._ 46, 95, 243; lauds the beauty of Poppaea and announces her as his next wife, _ibid._ 544; his death prophesied and described by the ghost of Agrippina, _ibid._ **618; decrees the banishment and death of Octavia, _ibid._ 861.
NESSUS, a centaur, son of Ixion and Nephele, _H. Oet._ 492; insults Deianira, is slain by Hercules, and while dying gives a portion of his blood, reeking with the poison of the arrow of Hercules, to Deianira as a charm which shall recall to her her husband's wandering affections, ibid. *500; some of this blood is in Medea's collection of charms, _Med._ 775; the terrible power of this poisoned blood tested by Deianira after she has innocently sent the fatal robe to her husband, _H. Oet._ 716; Nessus declared to have been the one who conceived the plot against Hercules, while Deianira was but the innocent instrument, _ibid._ 1468.
NIOBE, daughter of Tantalus, wife of Amphion, king of Thebes; punished by the loss of her seven sons and seven daughters by Diana for her defiance of Latona, the mother of the goddess, _Agam._ 392; changed to stone, she still sits on the top of Mt. Sipylus and mourns for her comes up from hades, still proudly counting her children's shades, _Oed._ 613.
NYCTELIUS, an epithet of Bacchus, because his mysteries were celebrated at night, _Oed._ 492.
O OCTAVIA (_Octavia_), the daughter of the Emperor Claudius and Messalina, the latter having been murdered by order of Claudius himself, _Oct._ 10; and the former by his second wife, Agrippina, _ibid._ 26, 45; she became first the stepsister and then the wife of Nero, _ibid._ 47; with whom she led a most wretched life, _ibid._ *100; she had previously been betrothed to Silanus, _ibid._ 145; but he was murdered to make way for Nero, _ibid._ 154; She was beloved by her people, _ibid._ 183; is compared with Juno in that she is both sister and wife of her husband, _ibid._ 282; doomed by Nero to exile and death, _ibid._ 868; banished to Panditaria, _ibid._ 971.
ODRYSIAN HOUSE, that is, of the Thracian king, Tereus, whose house was polluted by a horrible banquet in which his own son was served up to him, _Thy._ 273.
OEDIPUS (_Oedipus, Phoenissae_), the son of Jocasta and of Laïus,