Mopsus (;

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 p ...

: Μόψος, ''Mopsos'') was the name of one of two famous seers in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...

; his rival being

Calchas Calchas (; grc, Κάλχας, ''Kalkhas'') is an Argive mantis, or " seer," dated to the Age of Legend, which is an aspect of Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the ''Iliad'', which is believed to have been based on a wa ...

. A historical or legendary ''Mopsos'' or ''Mukšuš'' may have been the founder of a house in power at widespread sites in the coastal plains of

Pamphylia Pamphylia (; grc, Παμφυλία, ''Pamphylía'') was a region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (all in modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north b ...

and

Cilicia Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian language, Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from th ...

(in today's

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

) during the early

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

Mythological figures

* Mopsus, son of Manto either by Rhacius or

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= ...

. * Mopsus, an Argonaut and son of

Ampyx In Greek mythology, Ampyx (Ancient Greek: Ἄμπυξ) or Ampycus (Ἄμπυκος ''Ampykos'' means 'woman's diadem, frontlet') was the name of the following figures: * Ampyx, also called Ampycus or AmpyceHesiod, ''Shield of Heracles'' 180 was a ...

by a

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

. * Mopsus, a

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...

commander who had lived long before the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ha ...

. Along with Sipylus the

Scythia Scythia ( Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe. ...

n, this Mopsus had been driven into exile from

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...

by its king Lycurgus. Sometime later, he and Sipylus defeated the Libyan Amazons in a pitched battle, in which their queen Myrine was slain, and the Thracians pursued the surviving Amazons all the way to Libya.

Historical person

The Christian chronicler Eusebius of Caesarea was as convinced of Mopsus' historicity as his pagan predecessors and contemporaries: in his parallel chronologies he entered under the year corresponding to 1184/83 ''Mopsus reigned in Cilicia''. In the early 16th century, German chronicler Johannes Aventinus placed him in the reign of

Ingaevone The Ingaevones were a West Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Frisia in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Frisii, Chauci, Saxons, ...

, in ca. 22nd century BC, along the Sava River, where, allegedly, he defeated Myrine. Names similar to ''Mopsos'', whether Greek or Anatolian, are also attested in Near Eastern languages. Since the discovery of a bilingual Hieroglyphic Luwian- Phoenician inscription in Karatepe (in

) in 1946–7, it has been conjectured that Mopsos was a historical person. The inscription is dated to c. 700 BC, and the person speaking in it, ’-z-t-w-d (Phoenician) / Azatiwada (Luwian), professes to be king of the d-n-n-y-m / Hiyawa, and describes his dynasty as "the house of M-p-š / Muksa". Apparently, he is a descendant of Mopsus. The relationship between the earlier form Muksa, preserved in Luwian transmission, and the later form M-p-š / Mopsos, preserved in Phoenician transmission, is indicative of the evolution of Greek labiovelars and can hardly be explained otherwise. The Phoenician name of the people recalls one of the

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...

ic names of the Greeks, '' Danaoi'' with the ''-m'' plural, whereas the Luwian name ''Hiyawa'' probably goes back to Hittite ''Ahhiyā(wa)'', which is, according to most interpretations, the " Achaean", or

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for the ...

, settlement in

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

. Ancient Greek authors ascribe a central role to Mopsus in the colonization of

. A 13th-century date for the historical Mopsus may be confirmed by a Hittite tablet from Boğazkale which mentions a person called ''Mukšuš'' in connection with Madduwattaš of Arzawa and Attarsiya of Ahhiyā. This text is dated to the reign of Arnuwandaš III. Therefore, some scholars associate Mopsus' activities along the coast of Asia Minor and the

Levant The Levant () is an approximation, approximate historical geography, historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology an ...

with the

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the F ...

' attacking

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

in the beginning of the 12th century BC, one of those peoples being the ''

Denyen The Denyen ( Egyptian: ''dꜣjnjnjw'') is purported to be one of the groups constituting the Sea Peoples. Origin They are mentioned in the Amarna letters from the 14th century BC as possibly being related to the "Land of the Danuna" near Ugarit ...

''—comparable to the ''d-n-n-y-m'' of the Karatepe inscription. The Sea People identification is, however, questioned by other scholars. The name of the king erecting the Karatepe inscription, Azatiwada, is probably related to the toponym ''Aspendos'', the name of a city in

founded by the Argives according to Strabo (14.4.2). The name of the city is written (Estwediius) on coins of the 5th century BC. Presumably, it was an earlier Azatiwada, the ancestor of our king, that gave his name to the city. The name does not appear to be Greek of origin (= Luwian "Lover of the Sun God

a(n)da A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name ...

?, or "Sun-god (Tiwad) love (him)", according to a more recent interpretation). The ethnicity of Mopsus himself is not clear: The fragmentary Lydian historiographer Xanthus made him a Lydian campaigning in Phoenicia.Xanthus, ''FGrH'' 765 F 17. If the transmission of

Nicolaus of Damascus Nicolaus of Damascus (Greek: , ''Nikolāos Damaskēnos''; Latin: ''Nicolaus Damascenus'') was a Greek historian and philosopher who lived during the Augustan age of the Roman Empire. His name is derived from that of his birthplace, Damascus. He ...

, who quotes him, is believable, Xanthus wrote the name with ''-ks-'', like in the Hittite and Luwian texts. Given that Lydian also belongs to the Anatolian language family, it is possible that Xanthus relied on a local non-Greek tradition according to which Mukšuš was a Luwian. The name Mopsus or Mopsos is also mentioned in the more recently discovered Çineköy inscription. This is also a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual inscription, similar to the

Karatepe inscription The Karatepe bilingual (8th century BC), also known as the Azatiwada inscription, is a bilingual inscription on stone slabs consisting of Phoenician and Luwian text each, which enabled the decryption of the Anatolian hieroglyphs. The artifact ...

Notes

References

* Charles Anthon, ''A Classical Dictionary'' (1842). * R. D. Barnett, 1953. "Mopsos", in: ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 73 (1953), pp. 140–143. *

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of student ...

, 1992. ''The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Early Archaic Greece'' (Cambridge:Harvard University Press). * Robert Drews, 1994: ''The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.'' (Princeton University Press). * Margalit Finkelberg, 2005. ''Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic Tradition'' (Cambridge University Press). * Robin Lane Fox, 2008. ''Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer'', pp. 206–26. *

N. G. L. Hammond Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, (15 November 1907 – 24 March 2001) was a British historian, geographer, classicist and an operative for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in occupied Greece during the Second World War. Hamm ...

, 1975. "The End of Mycenaean Civilization and the Dark Age. (b) The Literary Tradition for the Migrations", in: ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', vol. II, part 2, ed. by J.E.S. Edwards, C.J. Gadd, N.G.L. Hammond and E. Sollberger, (Cambridge University Press), pp. 678–712. * Anna Margherita Jasink and Mauro Marino, forthcoming.
The West Anatolian origins of the Que kingdom dynasty
, in: ''Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Hittitology, Roma 5-9 settembre 2005''. *

John Lemprière John Lemprière (c. 1765, Jersey – 1 February 1824, London) was an English classical scholar, lexicographer, theologian, teacher and headmaster. Life John Lemprière was the son of Charles Lemprière (died 1801), of Mont au Prêtre, Jersey. ...

, 1850. ''Lemprière's Classical Dictionary''. ("Mopsus," p. 422). (London. Bracken Books) Reprint 1994. paperback. * Ilya Yakubovich, 2010. ''Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language''. Leiden: Brill. * Ilya Yakubovich, 2015. Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia, ''Anatolian Studies'' 65, pp. 35–53. * K. Lawson Younger, 1998. "The Phoenician Inscription of Azatiwada: An Integrated Reading", ''Journal of Semitic Studies'' 43, pp. 11–47.

External links

* {{Authority control Archaeological sources on Greek mythology Argonauts Characters in Greek mythology Characters in the Argonautica Denyen Greek mythology of Anatolia