Dictionary
OICLES	100.00%
Son of Antiphates, grandson of Melampus, father of Amphiaraus. He fell as a companion of Heracles in the battle against Laomedon of Troy.
MELAMPUS	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Amythaon (see Ae0LUS, 1) and of Eidomene; brother of Bias, the oldest Greek seer, and ancestor of the family of seers called Melampodidae. The brothers went with their uncle Neleus froin Thessaly to Pylus in Messenia, where they dwelt in the country. Melampus owed his gift of soothsaying to some serpents, which he had saved from death and reared, and who in return cleansed his ears with their tongues when he slept; on awaking he understood the voices of birds and thus learnt what was secret. When Neleus would only give Bias his beautiful daughter Pero on condition that he first brought him the oxen of Iphiclus of Phylace in Thessaly, which were guarded by a watchful dog, Melampus offered to fetch the oxen for his brother, though he knew beforehand that he would be imprisoned for a year. He is caught in the act of stealing them, and kept in strict confinement. From the talk of the worms in the woodwork of the roof he gathers that the house will soon fall to pieces. He thereupon demands to be taken to another prison ; this is scarcely done, when the house breaks down. When, on account of this, Phylacus, father of Iphiclus, perceives his prophetic gifts, he promises him the oxen, if by his art he will find out some way of curing his son's childlessness. Melampus offers a bull to Zeus, cuts it in pieces, and invites the birds to the meal. From these he hears that a certain vulture, that had not come, knew how it could be effected. This vulture is made to appear, and relates, that the defect in Iphiclus was the result of a sudden fright at seeing a bloody knife, with which his father had been castrating some goats; he had dug the knife into a tree, which had grown round about it; if he took some of the rust scraped off it, for ten days, he would be cured. Melampus finds the knife, cures Iphiclus, obtains the oxen, and Bias receives Pero for his wife. Afterwards he went to Argos, because, according to Homer [Od. xv 225-240] Neleus had committed a serious offence against him in his absence, for which he had taken revenge; while, according to the usual account he had been asked by king Proetus to heal his daughter, stricken with madness for acting impiously towards Dionysus or Hera. He had stipulated that his reward should be a third of the kingdom for himself, another for Bias; besides which Iphianassa became his wife, and Lysippe that of Bias, both being daughters of Proetus. A descendant of his son Antiphates was Oicles, who was a companion of Heracles in the expedition against Troy, and was slain in battle by Laomedon; he again was ancestor of the seer and hero Amphiaraus. Descendants of his other son Mantius were Cleitus, whom Eos, the goddess of dawn, carried off on account of his beauty, and Polypheides, whom, after the death of Amphiaraus, Apollo made the best of seers. The son of Polypheides was the seer Theoclymenus, who, flying from Argos on account of committing a murder, met Telemachus at Pylus, was led by him to Ithaca, and announced to Penelope the presence in Ithaca of Odysseus, and to the suitors their approaching death. The seer Polyidus (q.v.) was also said to be a great-grandson of Melampus. At Argos Melampus was held to be the first priest of Dionysus, and originator of mysterious customs at festivals and at ceremonies of expiation.
CLITUS	96.09%
Son of Mantius, and grandson of Melampus: loved and carried off by Eos. SeeEos.
TALAUS	69.13%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Great-grandson of Cretheus, son of Bias and Pero, father of Adrastus, Parthenopaeus, Mecisteus, and Eriphyle. He was one of the Argonauts, and was killed by Melampus. (See ADRASTUS.)
THEOCLYMENUS	58.83%
Son of the soothsayer Polyphides , grandson of Melampus. When a fugitive from Argos, for a murder which he had committed, he met with Telemachus in Pylus, who succoured him and brought him to Ithaca. By means of his inherited gift of prophecy, he here made known to Penelope the presence of Odysseus in the island, and warned the suitors of their fate.
IPHICLUS	51.82%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Phylacus of Phylace in Thessaly, father of Podarces and Protesilaus. He took part in the Argonautic expedition and in the funeral games in honour of Pelias. Here he outstripped all his competitors, being so swift of foot that he could pass over a cornfield without bending the ears, and could run over the sea without wetting his feet. On his herds of cattle and his powers of healing, see MELAMPUS.
AMPHIARAUS	51.65%
of Argos, the son of Oicles and Hypermnestra, great-grandson of the seer, Melampus. In Homer he is a favourite of Zeus and Apollo, alike distinguished as a seer and a hero, who takes part in the Calydonian boar-hunt, in the voyage of the Argonauts, and the expedition of the Seven against Thebes. Reconciled to Adrastus after a quarrel, and wedded to his sister Eriphyle, he agrees that any future differences between them shall be settled by her. She, bribed by Polyneices with the fatal necklace of his ancestress Harmonia, insists on her husband joining the war against Thebes, though he foresees that it will end fatally for him, and in departing charges his youthful sons Alcmaeon and Amphilochus (q.v.) to avenge his coming death. His wise warnings are unheeded by the other princes; his justice and prudence even bring him into open strife with the savage Tydeus; yet in the fatal closing contest he loyally avenges his death on the Theban Melanippus. In the flight, just as the spear of Periclymenus is descending on him, Zeus interposed to save the pious prophet and make him immortal by cleaving the earth open with his thunderbolt, and bidding it swallow up Amphiaraus, together with his trusty charioteer Baton, like himself a descendant of Melampus. From that time forth Amphiaraus was worshipped in various places as an oracular god, especially at Oropus on the frontier of Attica and Boeotia, where he had a temple and a famous oracle for the interpretation of dreams, and where games were celebrated in honour of him.
POLYIDUS	49.94%
Son of Coeranus, grandson of Abas, great-grandson of Melampus, father of Euchenor, Astycratia, and Manto; like his ancestor, a celebrated seer, who flourished, according to different accounts, either at Corinth or Argos or Megara. To his son he prophesied his death before Troy; and the son of Minos, Glaucus (q.v., 2), he raised from the dead. At Megara he cleansed Alcathous from the murder of his son Callipolis, and erected the temple of Dionysus.
NELEUS	49.93%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Poseidon and Tyro the daughter of Salmoneus, brother of Pelias. The brothers are exposed after birth by their mother, who afterwards married Cretheus of Iolcus: they are found by a herdsman and brought up by him until they grow up and are acknowledged by their mother. After Cretheus' death they quarrel about the possession of Iolcus, and Neleus, together with Melampus and Bias, the sons of his half-brother Amythaon, retires into exile in Messenia, where Aphareus, Tyro's cousin, allows them to occupy Pylus. By Chloris, daughter of Amphion, the king of the Minyan Orchomenus (it is only a later myth that identifies him with Amphion of Thebes) he is father of twelve sons, of whom Periclymenus and Nestor (q.v.) are the most celebrated, and one daughter, the beautiful Pero, bride of Bias (see MELAMPUS). On his refusing to purify Heracles from the murder of Iphitus, Heracles invades his country and slays all his sons except Nestor, who chances to be absent from home at the time. Nestor becomes the champion and avenger of the aged Neleus when the Epeans and their king Augeas, emboldened by his misfortune, venture on acts of injustice towards him. According to one account it was Neleus who renewed the Olympian games and died at Corinth, where, it was said, he was buried at the isthmus; according to others, he was slain along with his sons by Heracles.
PROETUS	37.35%
Son of Abas of Argos, and twin brother of Acrisius. Expelled from his home by his brother, he fled to the king of the Lycians, Iobates, who gave him in marriage his daughter Anteia (in the tragedians, Stenoboea), and compelled Acrisius to resign in his favour the sovereignty of Tiryns. Here the Cyclopes built him a town of impregnable strength. His daughters were punished with madness either for their opposition to the worship of Dionysus or (according to another account) for their disrespect for Hera. This madness spread to the other women of the land, and was only cured by the interposition of Melampus (q.v.). His son Megapenthes exchanged with Perseus the rule of Tiryns for that of Argos. (Cp. BELLEROPHON.)
GLAUCUS	23.93%
Son of the Cretan Minos and Pasiphae. When playing in his infancy he fell into a jar of honey, and was stifled. His father, after a vain search for him, was told by the Curetes that only one person could find the child and bring him to life again. That was the man who should devise a suitable comparison for a cow in his herd, which became white, red, and black, alternately at intervals of four hours. The seers of the country being unable to solve the difficulty, Minos called in the seer Polyidus of Argos, the, great-grandson of Melampus. He read the riddle by comparing the cow to a blackberry or mulberry, which is white, red, and black at various stages of its growth. The corpse of the child he found by aid of the flight of a bird. Professing himself unable to revive the corpse, Minos, in anger, ordered him to be shut up with it in a vault. A snake crept up to the corpse, and Polyidus killed it: he then saw another snake revive its dead fellow by laying a herb upon it. With this herb he brought the dead child to life again. Finally Minos compelled him to teach the boy the art of prophecy. But on his return to Argos, Polyidus made the child spit into his mouth, which caused him to forget all that he bad learned.