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Apomyius, Greek for "driving away the flies," was an epithet of Zeus at Olympia. On one occasion, when Heracles was offering a sacrifice to Zeus at Olympia, he was annoyed by hosts of flies, and in order to get rid of them, he offered a sacrifice to Zeus Apomyius, whereupon the flies withdrew across the river Alpheius. From that time the Eleans sacrificed to Zeus under this name.
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References
- ↑ Robert Parker, On Greek Religion (Cornell University Press, 2011), pp. 105–106.
- ↑ Joseph William Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 19 (1908), p. 115.
- ↑ Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), vol. 1, p. 45.
- ↑ Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 115.
- ↑ Pausanias 4.3.9; the other source for the title for Zeus is Clement of Alexandria.
- ↑ James Roy, "The Frontier between Arkadia and Elis in Classical Antiquity," in Polis and Politics (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000), p. 153.
- 1 2 Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, p. 45.
- ↑ Pliny, Natural History 10.40 (=28): Elei Myacoren deum muscarum multitudine pestilentiam adferente, quae protinus intereunt quam litatum est ei deo.
- ↑ As for instance, the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia , vol. 2, p. 388, with other examples.