Mopsus (Argonaut)

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In Greek mythology, Mopsus (/ˈmɒpsəs/; Ancient Greek: Μόψος, Mopsos), was the Lapith son of Ampyx and a nymph (sometimes named as Chloris [1] and sometimes named Aregonis [2] ), born at Titaressa in Thessaly, was also a seer and augur. In Thessaly the place name Mopsion recalled his own. [3] The earliest evidence of him is inscribed on the strap of a soldier's shield, found at Olympia and dated c.600–575 BC. [4]

Contents

Mythology

This Mopsus was one of two seers among the Argonauts, [5] and was said to understand the language of birds, having learned augury from Apollo. He had competed at the funeral-games for Jason's father [6] and was among the Lapiths who fought the Centaurs. While fleeing across the Libyan desert from angry sisters of the slain Gorgon Medusa, Mopsus died from the bite of a viper that had grown from a drop of Medusa's blood. Medea was unable to save him, even by magical means. The Argonauts buried him with a monument by the sea, and a temple was later erected on the site. [7]

Ovid places him also at the hunt of the Calydonian Boar, although the hunt occurred after the Argonauts' return and Mopsus' supposed death. [8]

Notes

  1. Hyginus, Fabulae 14; Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 881 & 980
  2. Argonautica Orphica 127 ff
  3. Lane Fox 2008:212.
  4. Lane Fox 2008:212.
  5. The other was Idmon.
  6. He was shown engaged in boxing on the 7th-century ivory Chest of Cypselus, in Pausanias' description (5.17.10).
  7. Argonautica 1.65-68 & 1502-1536; also Ovid, Metamorphoses IV 618- 621; Hyginus, Fabulae 14.2, 14.5, 128 & 173; Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 980
  8. Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.316

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