king of Thebes. An oracle had declared that Laïus should meet death at the hands of his son. Oedipus was accordingly doomed before birth to be slain, Oed. 34, 235; _Phoen._ 243; at birth he was exposed upon Mt. Cithaeron, _ibid._ 13, *27, with an iron rod through his ankles, _ibid._ 254; _Oed._ 857; carried by a shepherd and given to Merope, wife of the king of Corinth, by whom he was brought up as her own son, _ibid._ 806; grown to young manhood, he fled the kingdom of his supposed parents that he might not fulfil an oracle that had come to him, that he should kill his father and wed his mother, _ibid._ 12, 263; in the course of his flight he met and killed Laïus, his real father, _Phoen._ 166, 260; _Oed._ 768, 782; he answered the riddle of the Sphinx, and so saved Thebes from that pest, _Phoen._ 120; _Oed._ *92, 216; as a reward for this he gained the throne of Thebes, and Jocasta (his real mother) as his wife, _Oed._ 104; _Phoen._ 50, 262; _Oed._ 386; _H. Fur._ 388; attempts to find out the murderer of King Laïus, and utters a mighty curse upon the unknown criminal, _ibid._ *257; declared by the ghost of Laïus, which Tiresias had raised, to be his father's murderer and his mother's husband, _ibid._ *634; he refutes this charge by the assertion that his father and mother are still living in Corinth, _ibid._ 661; learns by messenger that Polybus and Merope are not his true parents, _ibid._ 784; rushes on his fate and forces old Phorbas to reveal the secret of his birth, _ibid._ *848; in a frenzy of grief, he digs out his eyes, _ibid._ 915; goes forth into exile, thus lifting the curse from Thebes, _ibid._ 1042; _Phoen._ 104; he begs Antigone, who alone had followed him into exile, to leave him, bewailing his fate and longing for death, _ibid._ 1.
OGYGES, a mythical founder and king of Thebes; hence-- OGYGIAN, i. e., Theban, an epithet of Bacchus, whose mother was a Theban princess, _Oed._ 437; an epithet of the Thebans, _ibid._ 589.
OĪLEUS, used instead of his son, Ajax, _Med._ 662. See AJAX.
OELENIAN GOAT, so called because it was nurtured in the vicinity of this place. See AMALTHEA.
OMPHALE, a queen of Lydia, to whose service Hercules submitted for HERCULES.
OPHĪON, one of the companions of Cadmus, sprung from the serpent's teeth; in adjectival form, it means simply Theban, _H. Fur._ 268; referring to Pentheus, _Oed._ 485.
OPHIÜCHUS, the northern constellation of the "Serpent Holder," representing a man holding a serpent, _Med._ 698.
Orestes (_Agamemnon_), son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, _Agam._ 196; _Tro._ 555; saved by his sister, through the agency of Strophius, king of Phocis, from death at the hands of his mother and Aegisthus, _Agam._ ORĪON, said to have been miraculously generated by Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury, out of an ox's hide; set as a constellation in the heavens, where his glittering sword menaces the heavenly ones, _H.
Fur._ 12.
ORPHEUS, the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, _Med._ 625; king of Thrace; one of the Argonauts; a sweet singer and harper, whose music could draw to him the rocks and trees, _ibid._ 228; _H. Oet._ *1036; dropped his lyre in fear of the Symplegades, _Med._ 348; played so sweetly that the Argonauts were not enchanted by the Sirens, _ibid._ *355; went to hades in search of his wife, Eurydice, and by the charm of his music persuaded the gods of the lower world to release her; but he lost her again, because he did not keep the condition imposed upon is everlasting, _H. Oet._ 1035, 1100; his tragic death at the hands of the Thracian women, _Med._ *625.
P PACTŌLUS, a river of Lydia, celebrated for its golden sands, _Phoen._ 604; _Oed._ 467.
PAEAN, an appellation given to Apollo, who gained the oracle at Delphi and earned a place in heaven by slaying the Python, _H. Oet._ 92.
PALAEMON, once a mortal, called Melicerta, son of Athamas and Ino, but changed by Neptune into a sea divinity, _Oed._ 448. SEE INO.
PALAMËDES, son of Nauplius, king of Euboea; he was put to death by the Greeks on false charges brought by Ulysses, and was avenged by his father, who displayed false lights to the Greek fleet, _Agam._ 568.
PALLAS, an appellation given to the goddess Minerva. She was the friend and helper of Hercules in his various labors, _H. Fur._ 900; the bearer of the terrible aegis upon which was set the horrible Medusa's head, _ibid._ 902; _Agam._ 530; the patroness of woman's handicrafts, _Hip._ 103; the patron goddess of the Athenians, _ibid._ 1149; helps to overthrow Troy, _Agam._ 370; stirs up the storm at sea against the Greek ships, _ibid._ 529; wields the thunderbolts of Jove, with which she destroys Ajax, the son of Oïleus, _ibid._ *532; hymn in praise of, _ibid._ 368-81; helped in the building of the Argo, _Med._ 2, 365.
PANDATARIA, a lonely island off the coast of Italy, used as a place of exile under the Empire, _Oct._ 972.
PANDĪON, a mythical king of Athens, father of Procne and Philomela, both of whom were changed to birds. These "Pandionian birds" are cited as types of grief-stricken beings, _Oct._ 8.
PARCAE, the three personified fates ("harsh sisters"), who spin out the threads of human life, _H. Fur._ 181; represented with the distaff in hand, _ibid._ 559. SEE CLOTHO and LACHESIS.
PARIS, son of Priam and Hecuba. He was doomed before birth to destroy his native land, _Tro._ 36; exposed to die on Mount Ida, but preserved by shepherds and brought up in ignorance of his true parentage, _Agam._ 733; the famous "judgment of Paris," _Tro._ 66; from Helen's standpoint, _ibid._ 920; Cassandra, in her inspired ravings, describes this scene, _Agam._ *730; goes to the court of Menelaüs and abducts PARRHASIAN (i. e., Arcadian) hind, captured by Hercules as his third 1281.
PASIPHAË, a daughter of the Sun and Perseïs, and wife of Minos, king of Crete; conceived an unnatural passion for a bull, _Hip._ 113, 143; mother of the bull-man monster, the Minotaur, _ibid._ *688.
PATRŌCLUS, one of the Grecian chiefs before Troy, beloved friend of Achilles; he fought in disguise in Achilles' armor, _Agam._ 617; was slain by Hector, _Tro._ 446.
PEGASUS, a winged horse, offspring of Neptune and Medusa; used to illustrate extreme speed, _Tro._ 385.
PELEUS, son of Aeacus, and king of Thessaly; married the sea-goddess, _Agam._ 616; one of the Argonauts, died in exile, _Med._ 657.
PELIAS, the usurping king of Iolchos in Thessaly, whence he drove the rightful king, Aeson, the father of Jason. It was he who proposed the Argonautic expedition, and for this he was doomed to suffer a violent death, _Med._ 664; tricked by Medea, his daughters slew him, cut him in pieces, and boiled these in a pot in the expectation that through the magic of Medea Pelias would come forth rejuvenated, _Med._ 133, 201, 258, 475. 913.
PELION, a range of mountains in Thessaly whose principal summit rises near Iolchos; the giants piled Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus, one on another, in their attempt to scale the heavens, _H. Fur._ 971; _Tro._ Chiron, who educated the young Achilles, _H. Fur._ 971; _Tro._ *830; furnished the timbers for the Argo, _Med._ 609.
PELOPĪA, a daughter of Thyestes, who became by him the mother of PELOPS, the son of Tantalus; he was slain by his father and served as a banquet to the gods, _Thy._ *144; restored by the gods to life, and Tantalus punished (see TANTALUS); Tantalus and Pelops models for outrageous sin, _ibid._ 242; his house doomed to sin, _ibid._ 22; degenerate and shameful, _ibid._ 625; supposed to have been the settler of the Peloponnesus (whence the name of the land), having come from at length, _Thy._ *641.
PELŌRUS, a promontory in Sicily opposite the coast of Italy; Sicilian Pelorus shall be one land with Italy--stated as type of the last extreme of improbability, _H. Oet._ 81; the sea-monster Scylla was supposed to dwell under this promontory, _Med._ 350.
PENTHESILĒA, a celebrated queen of the Amazons, who came to the aid of Priam; she was armed with battle-axe and moon-shaped shield, _Agam._ 217; her fierce struggles in battle described, _Tro._ 672; slain by PENTHEUS, a king of Thebes, son of Echion and Agave; he opposed the introduction of the worship of Bacchus into his kingdom; while spying on his mother and her sisters who were engaged in the worship of Bacchus on Mt. Cithaeron, he was torn in pieces by them whom Bacchus had driven to madness, _Phoen._ 15, 363; _Oed._ 441, 483; his shade comes up from hades, torn and bleeding still, _ibid._ 618.
PERICLYMENUS, a son of Neptune, who had power of changing into various forms; he was one of the Argonauts, and was slain by Hercules, _Med._ 635.
PERSEUS, son of Danaë whom Jove approached in the form of a golden shower, _H. Fur._ 13; earned a place in heaven by slaying the Gorgon, _H. Oet._ 51, 94.
PHAEDRA (_Hippolytus or Phaedra_), daughter of Minos, king of Crete, and Pasiphaë, daughter of the Sun, _Hip._ 155, 156, 678, 688, 888; the Minotaur is her brother, _ibid._ 174; Ariadne was her sister, _ibid._ 760, 245; bewails her exile from Crete, and her marriage to a foreign and a hostile prince (Theseus), _ibid._ 85; confesses to her nurse that she is swayed by an unnatural passion, _ibid._ 113; confesses her love to Hippolytus, _ibid._ 640; is scorned by him, _ibid._ *671; confesses her sin to her husband and slays herself, _ibid._ 1159.
PHAËTHON, son of Clymene and Phoebus; desiring to prove his sonship to Phoebus, he claimed the privilege of driving his father's chariot for one day; he was hurled from the car by the runaway steeds, _Hip._ 1090; and smitten to death by a thunderbolt of Jove, _H. Oet._ 854; he is a warning against over-ambition and impious daring, _ibid._ 677; _Med._ 599; gave a magic fire to Medea, _ibid._ 826.
PHAËTHONTIADES, the sisters of Phaëthon, who immoderately wept for his death where his charred body fell on the banks of the Po, and were changed into poplar trees, _H. Oet._ 188.
PHASIS, a river of Colchis, the country of Medea, _Med._ 44, 211, 451, PHERAE, a city in Thessaly, ruled over by Admetus, husband of Alcestis, who died herself that so she might redeem him from death, _Med._ 663; it was here that Apollo, being doomed to serve a mortal for a year, kept the flocks of Admetus, _H. Fur._ 451.
PHILOCTĒTES (_Hercules Oetaeus_), a Thessalian prince, son of Poeas, and a friend of Hercules; he appears upon the scene of the death of Hercules, _H. Oet._ 1604; receives the famous bow and arrows of Hercules, _ibid._ 1648; applies the torch to the pyre of his friend, _ibid._ 1727; describes in detail to the nurse the death of Hercules, _ibid._ *1610.
PHILIPPI, a city of Thrace, celebrated by the victory gained there by Antony and Octavianus over the forces of Brutus and Cassius, _Oct._ 516.
PHILOMĒLA, a daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, and sister of Procne, who had married Tereus, king of Thrace; she suffered outrage at his hands, and, with her sister, punished him by slaying his son Itys and serving him to the father; she was changed into a nightingale, and ever mourns for Itys, _Agam._ 670; _H. Oet._ 199; described, except for her name (_Thracia pellex_), purely as a nightingale singing at sunrise and hovering over her young, _H. Fur._ 146.
PHINEUS, king of Salmydessus on the coast of Thrace; blind and tormented by the Harpies, _Thy._ 154; still in hades, as on earth, PHLEGETHON, a river in the lower world, flowing with streams as of fire, _Oed._ 162; _Thy._ 73, 1018; it encircles the guilty with its fiery streams, _Hip._ 1227; mentioned instead of the Styx, as the river over which Charon rows his boat, _Agam._ 753; connotes hades in PHLEGRA, a vale in Thrace where the giants fought with the gods, _Thy._ 810; Hercules assisted the gods in this struggle, _H. Fur._ 444.
PHOEBUS, one of the names of Apollo as the "shining one." Under this name he is most frequently conceived of as the sun-god, driving his fiery chariot across the sky, seeing all things, darkening his face or withdrawing from the sky at sight of monstrous sin, lord of the Phoebus, is frequently used merely of the sun, its bright light, its burning heat, etc., without personification, _H. Fur._ 25, 940; _Tro._ more intimately concerned in the affairs of men, and appears on earth; he is the grandfather of Medea, _Med._ 512; the father of Pasiphaë, _Hip._ 126, 154, 654, 889; the lover and inspirer of Cassandra, _Tro._ 978; _Agam._ 255, 722; he is god of prophesy, giving oracles to _Agam._ 588; Cilla is dear to him, _Tro._ 227; he is the beautiful god of the flowing locks, _Hip._ 800; worshiped under the name of Smintheus, _Agam._ 176; hymn in praise of, _ibid._ 310; slew the Python with his arrows, _H. Fur._ 454; exposed the shame of Venus and for this cause Venus' wrath is upon his descendants, _Hip._ 126; he kept the flocks of Admetus, king of Pherae, for a year, _ibid._ 296.
PHORBAS (_Oedipus_), an old man, head shepherd of the royal flocks, forced by Oedipus to tell the secret of the king's birth, _Oed._ 867.
PHRIXUS, son of Athamas and Nephele, and brother of Helle; persecuted by his stepmother, Ino, he fled away through the air with his sister upon a golden-fleeced ram obtained from Mercury, _Tro._ 1034; on the way Helle fell into the sea, called Hellespont from this incident, _H.
Oet._ 776; for this same reason the Aegean Sea is called Phrixian Sea, _Agam._ 565; Phrixus fared on alone to Colchis, where he sacrificed the ram and presented the golden fleece to Aeëtes; the golden fleece was the object of the quest of the Argonauts, _Med._ 361, 471.
PIRITHOÜS, a son of Ixion, _Hip._ 1235; a close friendship existed between him and Theseus, and they shared all their adventures; when Pirithoüs formed the mad project of stealing Proserpina from hades, Theseus accompanied him thither, _ibid._ 94, 244, 831.
PISA, an ancient city of Elis where the Olympic games, sacred to Jove, PISCES, the zodiacal constellation of the Fish, _Thy._ 866.
PLEÏADES, called also Atlantides, the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, three of whom, Electra, Maia, and Taÿgete, were beloved of Jove, _H. Fur._ 10; spoken of as a constellation which pales before the moon, _Med._ 96.
PLISTHENES, a son of Thyestes, slain by Atreus, _Thy._ 726.
PLUTO, brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and lord of the under world of Jove," _H. Fur._ 608, and the "dark Jove," _H. Oet._ 1705; he obtained his kingdom by drawing lots with his two brothers, _H. Fur._ 833; his wife is Proserpina, _ibid._ 658; Theseus and Pirithoüs try to steal his wife, _Hip._ 95; they are punished by being placed upon an enchanted rock, _ibid._ 625; he is prevailed upon by Hercules to give up Cerberus to be led to the upper world, _H. Fur._ 805; _H. Oet._ 559; at the same time he gives up Theseus to Hercules, _H. Fur._ 805; _Hip._ 1152; he is the uncle of Hercules, _H. Oet._ 328; and of Pallas, _Hip._ 1152; unmoved by tears, _H. Fur._ 578; conquered by the music of Orpheus, _ibid._ 582; his court and appearance described, _ibid._ *721.
POLLUX, see CASTOR.
POLYBUS, king of Corinth, who adopted and reared the exposed infant, Oedipus, _Oed._ 12, 270; his peaceful death announced by messenger to POLYNĪCES (_Phoenissae_), son of Oedipus and Jocasta; wronged by his brother Eteocles in the matter of the kingdom of Thebes, he fled to Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him refuge and made him his son-in-law. To avenge Polynices, Adrastus marched against Thebes with an army headed by seven famous chiefs of Greece, _Phoen._ 58, 320; Oedipus prophesies this fraternal strife and predicts that the brothers will slay each other, _ibid._ 273, 334, 355; remains in exile at the court of Adrastus three years before returning against Thebes to enforce his rights, _ibid._ 370, *502; the hardships of his exile described, _ibid._ *586; appears before the walls of Thebes at the head of an army, _ibid._ 387; the battle pauses while Jocasta appeals to her sons, _ibid._ 434. See ETEOCLES.
POLYXENA, a daughter of Priam and Hecuba, one of the captive Trojan women; the ghost of Achilles, who in life had been enamored of her, and with whom both Priam and Hector had had negotiations touching the maiden, appears to the Greeks and demands that she be now sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, _Tro._ 170; Calchas ratifies her doom, _ibid._ 360; Helen announces this fate to her, and she receives it with joy, _ibid._ 945; her death described in detail by a messenger, _ibid._ *1117; she is described as gaily leading the Trojan maidens in a dance about the wooden horse, unconscious of the doom so soon to come to her, _Agam._ 641.
POPPAEA (_Octavia_), one of the most beautiful and unscrupulous women of her time; she was first married to Rufus Crispinus, a prefect of pretorian cohorts under Claudius; she abandoned him for Otho, and him, in turn, she left to become the mistress of Nero, and the rival of Nero's wife, Octavia, _Oct._ 125; in order to further her schemes she influenced Nero to murder his mother, _ibid._ 126; demanded the death of Octavia, _ibid._ 131; with child by Nero, _ibid._ 188, 591; her rejection by Nero prophesied, _ibid._ 193; her beauty lauded by Nero, who announced her as his next wife, _ibid._ 544; her wedding with Nero cursed by the ghost of Agrippina, _ibid._ 595; her marriage described, _ibid._ *698; is terrified by strange dream of Agrippina's ghost, and of her former husband, Crispinus, _ibid._ *712.
PRIAM, king of Troy; in his youth, at the first taking of Troy, he was spared by Hercules and allowed to retain the throne, _Tro._ 719; pictured as viewing the contending hosts from the battlements of Troy in company with his little grandson, Astyanax, _ibid._ *1068; sues to Achilles for the dead body of Hector, _ibid._ 315, 324; his city destroyed through the baleful power of love, _Oct._ 817; description of his death at the hands of Pyrrhus, _Tro._ *44; _Agam._ 655; he fell before the altar of Hercean Jove, _Agam._ 448, 792; pathetic contrast of his death with his former greatness, _Tro._ 140.
PROCNE, daughter of Pandion, and wife of Tereus, king of Thrace; she, in revenge for the outrage upon her sister, Philomela, committed by her husband, served to him his own son, Itys, _H. Oet._ 953; _Agam._ 673; _Thy._ 275.
PROCRUSTES, a famous robber of Attica, killed by Theseus, _Hip._ 1170; _Thy._ 1050.
PROETIDES, daughters of Proetus, king of Argolis; they counted themselves more beautiful than Juno, and also refused to worship Bacchus. The god drove them to a madness in which they thought themselves cows, and went wandering through the woods. This act won for him the favor of Juno, _Oed._ 486.
PROMĒTHEUS, a son of Iapetus and Clymene; he gave the gift of fire to mortals, _Med._ 821; for this act he was bound by Jove's command to a crag of Mount Caucasus, where an eagle fed upon his ever-renewed PROSERPINA, daughter of Ceres and Jupiter; stolen away by Pluto and made his queen in hades, _Med._ 12; _H. Fur._ 1105; sought in vain by her mother over the whole world, _ibid._ 659; Pirithoüs and Theseus attempted to steal her away from the lower world, _Hip._ 95.
PROTEUS, son of Oceanus and Tethys, shepherd and guardian of the PYLADES, son of Strophius, king of Phocis, and one of the sisters of Agamemnon; he accompanied his father as charioteer on the occasion of Strophius' visit to Argos just after Agamemnon's murder; they take Orestes away and so save him from death, _Agam._ 940.
PYROMANTĪA, soothsaying by means of fire, practiced by Tiresias in his effort to discover the murderer of Laïus, _Oed._ *307.
PYRRHA, the sister of Deucalion, saved with him from the flood, _Tro._ 1038. See DEUCALION.
PYRRHUS (_Troades_), a son of the young Achilles and Deïdamia, the daughter of Lycomedes, king of Scyros; born on the island of Scyros, _Tro._ 339; quarreled with Ulysses inside the wooden horse, _Agam._ PYTHON, a huge serpent or dragon that sprang from the slime of the earth after the flood had subsided; slain by Apollo, _H. Oet._ 93; _Med._ 700.
R RHADAMANTHUS, a son of Jupiter and Europa, and brother of Minos; he was made one of three judges in hades, _H. Fur._ 734.
RHESUS, a king of Thrace who came, late in the Trojan War, to the aid of Priam; there was an oracle that Troy could never be taken if the horses of Rhesus should drink the waters of the Xanthus, and feed upon the grass of the Trojan plain; this oracle was frustrated by Ulysses and Diomedes, _Agam._ 216.
S SATURN, son of Coelus and Terra, who succeeded to his father's kingdom of the heavens and earth; the golden age was said to have been in his reign, _Oct._ 395; had been dethroned by his three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, who divided up his kingdom among themselves; he is conceived of as chained in hades by Pluto, _H. Oet._ 1141; Hercules threatens to unchain him against Jove unless the latter grant him a place in heaven, _H. Fur._ 965.
SCALES (_Libra_), the zodiacal constellation marking the autumnal SCIRON, a celebrated robber in Attica, who threw his victims over the cliffs into the sea; he was slain by Theseus, _Hip._ 1023, 1225.
SCORPION, one of the zodiacal constellations, _Thy._ 859.
SCYLLA, one of the two shipwrecking monsters in the Sicilian Strait, CHARYBDIS.
SCYTHIA, a name given by the ancients to a portion of northern Asia of indefinite extent; a description of its nomadic tribes, frozen streams, changing aspect of the country with the changing seasons, _H. Fur._ *533.
SEMELE, a Theban princess, daughter of Cadmus, beloved of Jove by whom she became the mother of Bacchus, _H. Fur._ 16; she was blasted by a thunderbolt while the child, Bacchus, was still unborn, _H. Fur._ 457; SENECA (_Octavia_), introduced into the play in the character of Nero's counselor, _Oct._ 377; he recalls his life in exile in Corsica, and considers it far happier and safer than his present life, _ibid._ 381; he strives in vain to prevent the marriage of Nero and Poppaea, _ibid._ 695.
SERES, a nation of Asia, supposed to be identical with the Chinese; they gather silken threads (spun by the silkworm) from trees, _H. Oet._ 666; _Hip._ 389.
SILĀNUS, L. Junius, praetor in A.D. 49; he was the betrothed husband of Octavia, but put out of the way by court intriguers that Octavia might marry Nero, _Oct._ 145.
SILĒNUS, a demigod, the foster-father and constant attendant of SINIS, a giant robber of the Isthmus of Corinth, who bent down treetops and, fixing his victims to these, shot them through the air; he was SINON, a Greek warrior, who deceived the Trojans as to the character and purpose of the wooden horse, and so procured the downfall of Troy, SIPYLUS, a mountain in Phrygia, on whose top Niobe, changed to stone, was said to sit and weep eternally over her lost children, _H. Oet._ SIRENS, mythical maidens dwelling on an island of the ocean, whose beautiful singing lured sailors to destruction, _H. Oet._ 190; they were passed in safety by the Argonauts because Orpheus played sweeter music, _Med._ 355.
SISYPHUS, the son of Aeolus, was said to have been the founder of ancient Corinth, and father of Creon, _Med._ 512, 776; _Oed._ 282; for his disobedience to the gods he was set to rolling a huge stone up a hill in hades, which ever rolled back again and so renewed his toil, 622; _H. Oet._ 942, 1010; the stone followed the magical music of SMINTHEUS, an epithet of Phoebus Apollo, _Agam._ 176.
SOL, the sun personified as the sun-god, used with the same force as SOMNUS, the god of sleep, brother of death, _H. Fur._ 1069; called the son of Astraea, _ibid._ 1068; characteristics, symbols, and powers described at length, _ibid._ *1065.
SPHINX, a fabulous monster with the face of a woman, the breast, feet, and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird; sent to harass Thebes, slaying everyone who passed her and who could not answer her riddle, _Oed._ 246; _Phoen._ 120, 131; Oedipus' encounter with her described, _Oed._ *92; slain by Oedipus, _ibid._ 641; seen by Creon among the shapes in hades, called by him the "Ogygian (i. e., Boeotian or Theban) pest," _ibid._ 589; used as type of winged speed, _Phoen._ 422.
STROPHIUS (_Agamemnon_), see PYLADES.
STYMPHALIAN BIRDS, monstrous creatures haunting a pool near the town of Stymphalus in Arcadia; they were killed by Hercules as his sixth labor, type of winged speed, _Phoen._ 422.
STYX, a river of hades, _H. Fur._ 780; _Oed._ 162; over which spirits must pass into the world of the dead, the river of death; in Seneca, this conception is not confined to the Styx, but is used of that river in common with the Acheron, _H. Fur._ *713; _Hip._ 1180; Phlegethon, _Agam._ *750; it is upon the Styx alone, however, that the gods swear their inviolable oaths, _H. Fur._ 713; _Hip._ 944; _Thy._ 666; _H. Oet._ 1066; from meaning the river of death, it comes to mean death itself, _H. Fur._ 185, 558; in its most frequent use, the river signifies the lower world in general, the land of the dead; so are found Stygian "shades," "homes," "caverns," "ports," "gates," 594; Cerberus is the "Stygian dog" and "Stygian guardian," _Agam._ 13; _Hip._ 223; _H. Oet._ 79, 1245; the "deep embrace of Styx" is the pit which Andromache prays may open up beneath Hector's tomb and hide Astyanax, _Tro._ 520; the boat on which Agrippina was to meet her death is called the Stygian boat, _Oct._ 127.
SYMPLEGADES (the "clashers"), two rocks or crags at the entrance of the Euxine Sea which, according to tradition, clashed together when any object passed between them; escaped by the Argo, _Med._ 341, 456, 610; Hercules prays that he may be crushed to death between these rocks, _H.
T TAENARUS (also written TAENARA), a promontory on the southernmost point of the Peloponnesus, near which was a cave, said to be the entrance TAGUS, a river of Spain, celebrated for its golden sands, _H. Fur._ TANTALUS (_Thyestes_) (1), a king of Lydia, son of Jupiter and the nymph, Pluto, father of Pelops and of Niobe, _H. Fur._ 390; _Oed._ 613; against the gods (see PELOPS) he was doomed to suffer in hades endless pangs of hunger and thirst, with fruit and water almost within reach of 621; his sin described and punishment portrayed in detail, _Thy._ *137; his ghost appears, describes his sufferings in hades, and is incited by a fury to urge on his house to greater crimes, _ibid._ 1; Deianira prays that she may take his punishment upon herself, _H. Oet._ 943; Medea prays that he may come and drink of the waters of Corinth, and that Creon may take his place in hades, _Med._ 745; used as type of outrageous sinner, _Thy._ 242; he forgets his thirst in his grief for the disasters which threaten his house, _Agam._ 769; he forgets his thirst under the influence of Orpheus' music, _H. Oet._ 1075.
TANTALUS (_Thyestes_) (2), one of the sons of Thyestes, great-grandson of Tantalus (1), encourages his father to hope for reconciliation with his brother, Atreus, _Thy._ 421; slain by Atreus, _ibid._ 718.
TARTARUS (also written TARTARA), in its strict sense, that portion of the lower world devoted to the punishment of the wicked, hell, the abode of the furies and of those like Tantalus, Ixion, etc., who are in the great majority of cases, however, Tartarus is the lower world in general, whence ghosts come back to earth, _Agam._ 2; _Oct._ 593; to which Orpheus went in search of his wife, _Med._ 632; _H. Oet._ 1064; to which Hercules went to bring thence Cerberus, _H. Oet._ 461; _Hip._ 844; where was the palace of Dis, _ibid._ 951; _Agam._ 751; where Cerberus stands guard, _H. Fur._ 649; _H. Oet._ 1770; where are the "Tartarian pools," _Hip._ 1179; and so in general, _H. Fur._ 436, 710, TAURUS, the second zodiacal constellation, the Bull, which poets feign was the bull in the form of which Jupiter bore Europa from Phoenicia to TELEPHUS, a king of Mysia, wounded by Achilles' spear, and afterward cured by application of the rust scraped from its point, _Tro._ 215.
TEREUS, a king of Thrace, whose barbarous feast upon his own son, Itys, is called the "Thracian crime," _Thy._ 56. See PHILOMELA and PROCNE.
TETHYS, the goddess of the sea, used frequently for the sea itself, in which the sun sets and from which it rises, _Hip._ 571, 1161; _H. Fur._ THEBES, the capital city of Boeotia, founded by Cadmus, _H. Fur._ 268; its walls built by the magic of Amphion's lyre, _ibid._ 262; famed for frequent visits of the gods, especially of Jove, _ibid._ 265; plague-smitten under Oedipus, who laments the disaster, _Oed._ *37; plague described at length by the chorus, _ibid._ *125; a curse fell upon Thebes from the time of Cadmus, _ibid._ *709; conquered by Lycus, the usurper, who slew King Creon, the father of Megara, _H. Fur._ 270; scene of the _Hercules Furens_, _Oedipus_, and _Phoenissae_ (in part).
THESEUS (_Hercules Furens_, _Hippolytus_), king of Athens, son of Aegeus and Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, king of Troezene; according to tradition also reputed the son of Neptune, who had granted him three wishes, _Hip._ 942, 943, 1252; the last of which he used against his son, Hippolytus, _ibid._ 945; went to Crete to slay the Minotaur; his beautiful appearance described, _ibid._ *646, 1067; finds his way out of the labyrinth by aid of a thread given him by Ariadne, _ibid._ 650, 662; fled with Ariadne, but deserted her on Naxos, _Oed._ 488; was the cause of his father's death, since he did not display the white sail on his return to Athens from slaying the Minotaur, _Hip._ 1165; married Antiope, the Amazon, who became the mother of Hippolytus, but afterward went to hades with his bosom friend, Pirithoüs, to assist the latter in carrying away Proserpina, _ibid._ 91, 627; the two were apprehended by Dis and set upon an enchanted rock which held them fast, _H. Fur._ THESPIADES, the fifty daughters of Thespius, loved by Hercules, _H.
Oet._ 369.
THETIS, a sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus; she was given as wife to Peleus, _Med._ 657; _Oct._ 707; and became by him the mother of Achilles, _Tro._ 346, 880; _Agam._ 616; to keep her son from the Trojan War she hid him disguised in garments of a girl at the court of King Lycomedes, _Tro._ 213; but this ruse was discovered and exposed by THULE, the farthest known land, differing with different stages of development of human knowledge; the time will come when all lands will be known, and there will be no _ultima Thule_, _Med._ 379.
THYESTES (_Thyestes_, _Agamemnon_), see ATREUS.
TIPHYS, the pilot of the Argo, _Med._ 3, 318; picture of his management of the vessel, _ibid._ *318; grew pale at sight of the Symplegades, _ibid._ 346; his tragic death, *617.
TIRESIAS (_Oedipus_), a celebrated prophet of Thebes, father of Manto; blind and old, he is led by his daughter into the presence of Oedipus, where he attempts by various processes to discover the murderer of Laïus, _Oed._ 288; practices _pyromantia_, _capnomantia_, _hieroscopia_, and later _necromantia_, _ibid._ *307; discovers by the last process that Oedipus himself slew Laïus, _ibid._ *530.
TISIPHONE, one of the furies who seems to appear to the distracted Deianira, _H. Oet._ 1012; seems to appear to the mad Hercules, guarding the door of hell since Cerberus has been removed, _H. Fur._ 984. See FURIES.
TITANS, a name given to the sons of Coelus and Terra, one of whom was Hyperion, identified by Homer with the sun. The Titans warred against one of their own number, Saturn, who had succeeded to the throne of his father. The word is, however, frequently confounded with the Giants, who banded together to dethrone Jove; they piled up mountains in their attempt to scale heaven, but were overthrown by Jove's thunderbolt and Oet._ 144, 1212, 1309; in all other passages in Seneca, Titan means the sun, more or less completely personified as the sun-god, lord and