Onchestos (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Onchestos or Onchestus (Ancient Greek: Ογχηστός) was the eponymous founder of the city of Onchestus in Boeotia, where the Onchestian Poseidon had a temple and a statue.[1][2]

Onchestus
Eponym of Onchestus
Member of the Royal House of Onchestus
Other namesOnchestos
AbodeBoeotia (Onchestus)
ParentsPoseidon
OffspringAbrota and Megareus

Family

Little is known about Onchestos and only two literary sources (Plutarch in Quaestiones Graecae and Pausanias in Description of Greece) gave information about him. In these accounts, he was described as the Boeotian son of Poseidon[3] and father of Megareus and Abrota, wife of King Nisos.[4] Onchestus's son and son-in-law were listed as kings of Megara.

In some traditions, Onchestus was called the son of Boeotus.

Mythology

Plutarch's account

When Nisus, from whom Nisaea acquired its name, was king, he took a wife from Boeotia, Habrotê, daughter of Onchestus, the sister of Megareus, a woman who, as it appears, was both exceptionally intelligent and remarkably discreet.

Pausanias' account

Distant from this mountain fifteen stades are the ruins of the city Onchestus. They say that here dwelt Onchestus, a son of Poseidon. In my day there remained a temple and image of Onchestian Poseidon, and the grove which Homer too praised.

Grove of Onchestus

In ancient times the city of Onchestus was famous for its sanctuary of Poseidon and is mentioned in the famous "Catalogue of Ships" in Homer's Iliad where it is referred to as the god's "bright grove."[5]

In the Homeric Hymns to Apollo the grove is also mentioned:[6]

And further still you went, O far-shooting Apollo, and came to Onchestus, Poseidon's bright grove: there the new-broken colt distressed with drawing the trim chariot gets spirit again, and the skilled driver springs from his car and goes on his way. Then the horses for a while rattle the empty car, being rid of guidance; and if they break the chariot in the woody grove, men look after the horses, but tilt the chariot and leave it there; for this was the rite from the very first. And the drivers pray to the lord of the shrine; but the chariot falls to the lot of the god.

Notes
  1. Pausanias, 9.26.5
  2. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Onchestos
  3. Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.605
  4. Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae 16; Pseudo-Scymnos, Circuit de la terre 500 ff.
  5. Homer, Iliad 2.480
  6. Anonymous. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (Hymn 3 to Apollo, 230 ff) with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.

References
  • Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. ISBN 978-0674995796. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Homer, Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. ISBN 978-0198145318. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Moralia with an English Translation by Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
  • Pausanias, 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. ISBN 0-674-99328-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
  • Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.


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