Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, Delphus (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: Δέλφος, ''Delphos'') was the person from whom the town of

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...

was believed to have derived its name.

Biography

Delphus was said to be the son of

Poseidon Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ch ...

and

Melantho In Greek mythology, Melantho (; Ancient Greek: Μελανθώ) may refer to the following women: * Melantho, also called Melanthea, a Phthian princess as the daughter of King Deucalion and Pyrrha, daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora. She was not ...

( Melantheia), daughter of

Deucalion In Greek mythology, Deucalion (; grc-gre, Δευκαλίων) was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene, Hesione, or Pronoia.A scholium to ''Odyssey'' 10.2 (='' Catalogue'' fr. 4) reports that Hesiod called Deucalion ...

. In other accounts, he was the son of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

Celaeno In Greek mythology, Celaeno (; grc, Κελαινώ ''Kelaino'', lit. 'the dark one', also Celeno or Kelaino, sometimes isspelledCalaeno) referred to several different figures. * Celaeno, one of the Pleiades. She was said to be mother of Lycus a ...

, the daughter of

Hyamus In Greek mythology, Hyamus (Ancient Greek: Ὕαμος) was a son of Lycorus and possibly Evadne. It was related of him that after the Great Deluge, he became king over a people dwelling around Mount Parnassus, and founded Hyampolis. He was married ...

and granddaughter of

Lycorus In Greek mythology, Lycorus or Lycoreus (Ancient Greek: Λυκωρεύς) may refer to the following personages: * Lycoreus or Lycorus, was a son of Apollo and the nymph Corycia. After him a city was named Lycoreia (later Delphi, after Delphus, grea ...

, and, according to others, by

Thyia In Greek mythology, Thyia (; grc, Θυία ''Thuia'' derived from the verb ''θύω'' "to sacrifice") was a female figure associated with cults of several major gods. Mythology In the Delphic tradition, Thyia was also the naiad of a spring ...

, the daughter of the autochthon

Castalius ''Castalius'' is a butterfly genus in the family Lycaenidae. They are commonly known as Pierrots. This name is also often used for the very closely related genus '' Tarucus''. In fact, the delimitation of ''Castalius'' versus ''Tarucus'' is not y ...

, or by

Melaina In Greek mythology, Melaena or Melena ( grc, Μέλαινα, Mélaina, feminine grc, μέλᾱς, mélās "black, dark"), Melane ( grc-x-koine, Μελανή, Melanḗ) or MelanisScholia on Euripides, ''Orestes'' 1094 was a Corycian nymph, or mem ...

, the daughter of Cephissus. He is further said to have had a son, Pythis, who ruled over the country about

Mount Parnassus Mount Parnassus (; el, Παρνασσός, ''Parnassós'') is a mountain range of central Greece that is and historically has been especially valuable to the Greek nation and the earlier Greek city-states for many reasons. In peace, it offers ...

, and from whom the oracle received the name of Pytho. In yet another version, his mother is Melanis, a daughter of Hyamus and Melantheia, and father is not mentioned; Delphus is said to have inherited his grandfather's kingdom in the neighborhood of Mount Parnassus, to have married

Castalia Castalia ( grc, Κασταλία), in Greek mythology, was a naiad-nymph, a daughter of Achelous who inhabited the Castalian spring in Delphi. In older traditions, Castalian spring already existed by the time Apollo came to Delphi searching f ...

, and to have had two children, a son Castalius and a daughter

Phemonoe In Greek mythology, Phemonoe ( ; grc, Φημονόη) was a Greek poet of the ante-Homeric period. She was said to have been the daughter of Apollo, his first priestess at Delphi, or of his possible son Delphus, and the inventor of the hexameter ve ...

, the first person to write

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

s. His grandson through Castalius was Laphrius, and his great-grandson through Laphrius was Noutius.

Scholia Scholia (singular scholium or scholion, from grc, σχόλιον, "comment, interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of th ...

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...

, ''

Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; grc-gre, Ὀρέστης ) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and ...

'', 1094

Notes

References

Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to: *Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium'' *Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC * Pausanias of Sicily, physician of t ...

, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Publius Ovidius Naso Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...

'' translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses.'' Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892
Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library
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