Lycurgus (of Nemea)

1.9.13

Bias and Pero had a son Talaus, who married Lysimache, daughter of Abas, son of Melampus, and had by her Adrastus, Parthenopaeus, Pronax, Mecisteus, Aristomachus, and Eriphyle, whom Amphiaraus married. ... Pronax had a son Lycurgus; and Adrastus had by Amphithea, daughter of Pronax, three daughters, Argia, Deipyle, and Aegialia, and two sons, Aegialeus and Cyanippus.

1.9.14

Pheres, son of Cretheus, founded Pherae in Thessaly and begat Admetus and Lycurgus. Lycurgus took up his abode at Nemea, and having married Eurydice, or, as some say, Amphithea, he begat Opheltes, afterwards called Archemorus.¹

¹ See below, Apollod. 3.6.4.

3.6.4

Having come to Nemea, of which Lycurgus was king, they sought for water; and Hypsipyle showed them the way to a spring, leaving behind an infant boy Opheltes, whom she nursed, a child of Eurydice and Lycurgus.¹ For the Lemnian women, afterwards learning that Thoas had been saved alive,² put him to death and sold Hypsipyle into slavery; wherefore she served in the house of Lycurgus as a purchased bondwoman. But while she showed the spring, the abandoned boy was killed by a serpent. When Adrastus and his party appeared on the scene, they slew the serpent and buried the boy; but Amphiaraus told them that the sign foreboded the future, and they called the boy Archemorus.³ They celebrated the Nemean games in his honor; and Adrastus won the horse race, Eteoclus the footrace, Tydeus the boxing match, Amphiaraus the leaping and quoit-throwing match, Laodocus the javelin-throwing match, Polynices the wrestling match, and Parthenopaeus the archery match.

¹ As to the meeting of the Seven Champions with Hypsipyle at Nemea, the death of Opheltes, and the institution of the Nemean games, see Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. pp. 424ff. ed. Boeckh; Bacch. 8.10ff. [9], ed. Jebb; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.34, p. 29, ed. Potter, with the Scholiast; Hyginus, Fab. 74, 273; Statius, Theb. iv.646-vi.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.717; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode. vol. i. p. 123 （Second Vatican Mythographer 141）. The institution of the Nemean games in honour of Opheltes or Archemorus was noticed by Aeschylus in a lost play. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 49. The judges at the Nemean games wore dark-coloured robes in mourning, it is said, for Opheltes （Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. p. 425, ed. Boeckh）; and the crown of parsley bestowed on the victor is reported to have been chosen for the same sad reason （Serv. Verg. Ecl. 6.68）. However, according to another account, the crowns at Nemea were originally made of olive, but the material was changed to parsley after the disasters of the Persian war （Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. p. 425）. The grave of Opheltes was at Nemea, enclosed by a stone wall; and there were altars within the enclosure （Paus. 2.15.3）. Euripides wrote a tragedy Hypsipyle, of which many fragments have recently been discovered in Egyptian papyri. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 594ff.; A. S. Hunt, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta Papyracea nuper reperta （Oxford, no date, no pagination）. In one of these fragments (col. iv.27ff.) it is said that Lycurgus was chosen from all Asopia to be the warder （Κληδοῦχος） of the local Zeus. There were officials bearing the same title （κλειδοῦχοι） at Olympia （Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 1021, vol. ii. p. 168） in Delos （Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. i. p. 252, No. 170）, and in the worship of Aesculapius at Athens （E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardner, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Part ii. p. 410, No. 157）. The duty from which they took their title was to keep the keys of the temple. A fine relief in the Palazzo Spada at Rome represents the serpent coiled round the dead body of the child Opheltes and attacked by two of the heroes, while in the background Hypsipyle is seen retreating, with her hands held up in horror and her pitcher lying at her feet. See W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i.473; Baumeister, Denkmaler des klassichen Altertums, i.113, fig. 119. The death of Opheltes or Archemorus is also the subject of a fine vase-painting, which shows the dead boy lying on a bier and attended by two women, one of whom is about to crown him with a wreath of myrtle, while the other holds an umbrella over his head to prevent, it has been suggested, the sun's rays from being defiled by falling on a corpse. Amongst the figures in the painting, which are identified by inscriptions, is seen the mother Eurydice standing in her palace between the suppliant Hypsipyle on one side and the dignified Amphiaraus on the other. See E. Gerhard, “Archemoros,” Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Berlin, 1866- 1868) i.5ff., with Abbildungen, taf. i.; K. Friederichs, Praxiteles und die Niobegruppe （Leipzig, 1855）, pp. 123ff.; Baumeister, op. cit. i.114, fig. 120.

² See above, Apollod. 1.9.17.

³ That is, “beginner of doom”; hence “ominous,” “foreboding.” The name is so interpreted by Bacch. 8.14, ed. Jebb, σᾶμα μέλλοντος φόνου）, by the Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. pp. 424ff. ed. Boeckh, and by Lactantius Placidus in his commentary on Statius, Theb. iv 717.

3.10.3

... I found some who are reported to have been raised by [Aesculapius], to wit, Capaneus and Lycurgus,¹² as Stesichorus says in the Eriphyle;

¹² The resurrection of these two men by the power of Aesculapius is mentioned also, on the authority of Stesichorus, by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, and the Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96). Otherwise the event is apparently not noticed by ancient writers, and of the many legendary persons who bore the name of Lycurgus we do not know which is referred to. Heyne conjectured that the incident took place in the war of the Epigoni against Thebes, when Capaneus, one of the original Seven against Thebes, and Lycurgus, son of Pronax （as to whom see Apollod. 1.9.13） may have been restored to life by Aesculapius. This conjecture is confirmed by a passage of Sextus Empiricus （p. 658 ed. Bekker）, where we read: “Stesichorus in his Eriphyle says that he （Aesculapius） raised up some of those who fell at Thebes.”

Hypsipyle

test. iiia (Hypothesis) [= P. Oxy. 2455 frs. 14–15, 3652 cols. i and ii.1-15]

Hypsipyle, which begins: ‘(Dionysus), who with (thyrsuses) and fawnskins . . . ’; the plot (is as follows) . . . (about fourteen lines largely lost, perhaps including . . . Amphiaraus . . . arriving . . .) . . . (Hypsipyle) showed (them) the spring . . . (torn asunder by?) a [line 20] serpent . . . the sons born . . . arrived (in the) vicinity in search of their mother, and having lodged with Lycurgus’ wife wanted to compete in the boy’s funeral games; and she having received the [line 25] aforesaid youths as guests approved them, but (planned) to kill their mother (as) having killed (her) son on purpose. . But when Amphiaraus . . . (she?) thanked him . . . (several lines lost) . . . [line 30] the(ir?) mother . . . they found . . . (several lines lost) . . .

fr. 752h.20–32

Amphiaraus

... I saw this house in Zeus’s meadow here in Nemean territory. ... who is considered the owner of this pastoral dwelling in Phlius’ country?³

Hypsipyle

These are known as the wealthy halls of Lycurgus, who was chosen from all of Asopia⁴ to be the temple-keeper of our local Zeus.

³ The Nemean sanctuary lay between the small towns of Phlius and Cleonae.

⁴ The valley of the river Asopus, in which Phlius lay.

fr. 752e

<Hypsipyle>

(Our family) is (without) its master . . . the house . . .

Fabulae

15

The Women of Lemnos ... [Hypsipyle] was sold into the service of King Lucurgus.* [See below: Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 189]

74

Hypsipyle The seven generals were on their way to attack Thebes when they came to Nemea, where Hypsipyle, Thoas' daughter, was enslaved to King Lycurgus,* [See below: Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 189] whose son Archemorus (or Ophites) she was nursing. She had received an oracle that warned her not to put the boy down on the earth before he could walk. So the seven generals who were goimg to Thebes came to Hypsipyle in search of water and asked her to show them where they could find some. Afraid to put the boy down on the earth, she placed him instead in a deep patch of parsley that sat next to the spring. While she was drawing the water for them, the serpent that was guarding the spring devoured the boy. Adrastus and the others killed the serpent, appealed to Lycurgus on Hypsipyle's behaf, and established funeral games in the boy's honor. These games still occur every fourth year, and the winners receive a crown of parsley.

[Grant:] The seven chieftains on their way to attack Thebes came to Nemea, where Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, as a slave, was caring for the boy Archemorus or Ophites, son of King Lycus. He had been warned by an oracle not to put the child on the ground until he could walk. When the seven leaders who were going to Thebes came to Hypsipyle in their search for water, and asked her to show them some, she, fearing to put the boy on the ground, . . . [found] some very thick parsley near the spring, and placed the child in it. But while she was giving them water, a dragon, guardian of the spring, devoured the child. Adrastus and the others killed the dragon, and interceded for Hypsipyle to Lycus, and established funeral games in honour of the boy. They take place every fifth year, and the victors receive a wreath of parsley.

273.6

Those Who Established Competitions up to Aeneas, the Fifteenth [1] ...

...

[6] Ninth is the competition held in Nemea for Archemorus, the son of Lycugus* [See below: Smith and Trzaskoma, pp. 189, 190, 191] and Eurydice, established by the seven generals who were on their way to sack Thebes. Later at these games Euneus and Deipylus, the sons of Jason and Hypsipyle, were victorious.

2.15.2

In Nemea is a noteworthy temple of Nemean Zeus, but I found that the roof had fallen in and that there was no longer remaining any image. Around the temple is a grove of cypress trees, and here it is, they say, that Opheltes was placed by his nurse in the grass and killed by the serpent.

2.15.3

The Argives offer burnt sacrifices to Zeus in Nemea also, and elect a priest of Nemean Zeus; moreover they offer a prize for a race in armour at the winter celebration of the Nemean games. In this place is the grave of Opheltes; around it is a fence of stones, and within the enclosure are altars. There is also a mound of earth which is the tomb of Lycurgus, the father of Opheltes. The spring they call Adrastea for some reason or other, perhaps because Adrastus found it.

3.18.9

Bathycles of Magnesia,1 who made the throne of the Amyclaean, dedicated, on the completion of the throne, Graces and an image of Artemis Leucophryene. Whose pupil this Bathycles was, and who was king of Lacedaemon when he made the throne, I pass over; but I saw the throne and will describe its details.

3.18.12

[Describing the Amyclae throne of Apollo] ... Adrastus and Tydeus are staying the fight between Amphiaraus and Lycurgus the son of Pronax.

Thebaid

4.746–749

At last as they wander in the forest (so Euhius himself had planned it) suddenly they see Hypsipyle, fair in her sadness. Opheltes, not hers but the ill-starred child of Inachian Lycurgus, hangs at her breast,

4.730–745

Therefore no longer do they have strength to carry hot shields or the tight fabric of corselets; so harsh thirst parches them. Not only are their mouths and constricted throats burnt up, an inner force convulses them. ... Adrastus sends scouts this way and that; are the Licymnian meres still there, does any of Amymone’s water survive? All stagnate, drained by hidden fires, nor is there hope of a watery sky. They might as well scour yellow Libya and the sandy deserts of Africa and Syene that no cloud ever shades.

4.775–789

The Lemnian answers, her face downcast: ‘How should I be a goddess for you, even though my origin be of heaven? Would that I had not transcended mortality by my sorrows! You see the bereaved foster mother of a child entrusted to my care. But heaven knows whether mine have bosom and breast—and yet I had a kingdom and a mighty father. But why do I talk and keep the weary from the waves they crave? Come with me now, let us see whether Langia keeps her perennial waters in their channel. Always she is wont to run, under the path of the raging Crab and though the hackle of the Icarian star 101 be blazing.’ The poor babe clings to her; and lest she be too slow a guide to the Pelasgi, alas, she places him on the ground nearby (so the Parcae ordained), and when he will not be put aside, consoles his sweet tears with bunches of flowers and loving murmurs: ...

5.505–533

Meanwhile an earthborn serpent arises in the meadow, holy horror of the Achaean wood, dragging his huge form in a loose slide and leaving it behind him. A livid fire is in his eyes, a green foam of swelling venom in his mouth. Threefold his tongue flickers, triple are the rows of his curving fangs, and the cruel splendour on his gilded brow stands forth. The husbandmen called him sacred to the Inachian Thunderer, who had care of the place and poor men’s offerings on woodland altars. Now gliding in a wavy circle he surrounds the god’s shrine, now he scrapes the ... The grasses fall where he brings his face, smitten by his hot breath, the plain dies at his hiss: large as the Serpent that divides the heavens on from the Arctic Wains and passes out to the South Winds and an alien hemisphere; or as he that moved the horns of sacred Parnassus as he twined them with his coils until you pierced him, Delian, and he bore an arrow forest with a hundred wounds.

5.534–540

What god’s allotting, little one, gave you the burden of so great a fate? By this enemy do you lie low scarcely at life’s first threshold? Or was it to make you die sacred through the ages henceforth to the peoples of Greece, worthy of so grand a tomb? Grazed by the lash of the tail tip, you perish, child, and the snake knows not of it. Sleep fled your limbs straightway and your eyes opened only to death.

5.632–634

... bereaved Eurydice, a thing of hate—though my love and grief yield not to hers. Shall I bear this melancholy burden to pour into his mother’s lap?

5.638–649

And now a sudden report that ran through the dwelling of Lycurgus as he was at sacrifice filled himself and his house with tears—himself as he approached from the top of Perseus’ mountain where he had offered portions to the unfriendly Thunderer, shaking his head as he returned from the angry entrails. Here he was keeping himself, taking no part in the Argive war; not that he lacked courage, but temple and altars held him back. Nor yet had the gods’ oracle and warnings of old dropped from his mind, the word received from the depth of the shrine: ‘Lycurgus, you shall give first death⁶¹ to the Dircaean war.’ Of that he is aware; the dust of Mars close by saddens him, he winces at the trumpets, and wishes the doomed army ill.

⁶¹ Hence 'Archemorus.'

5.653–679

But great-hearted Lycurgus’ love for his son is up and doing. It takes strength from calamity; a father’s furious anger sucks back his tears, and with long strides he despatches the fields that stay him, shouting ‘And where is she to whom spilt blood of mine is a trifle or a pleasure? Does she live? Take her, thrust her, comrades, bring her quickly. I shall make her forget all her rigmarole of Lemnos, and her father, and the lie of race divine that she is so proud of.’ Snatching up a sword and advancing, he was about to deal death in his rage, when the hero son of Oeneus went into action, pushing back the other’s chest with blocking shield and gnashing his teeth: ‘Stop this madness, lunatic, whoever you are.’ Capaneus likewise was on the spot and fierce Hippomedon and the Erymanthian (sword drawn back the one, levelled the other), dazzling the young man with many a flash. From the other side a band of peasants rally to their king. Between them Adrastus in gentler style and Amphiaraus respecting the commerce of a fillet like his own: ‘Not so, I pray. Put away the steel. Our ancestry is one. Indulge not rage. And be you first.’ But Tydeus is not pacified. ‘Our guide,’ he cries, ‘saviour of the Inachian host, do you dare slaughter her for a grave before so many thousands of the thankless 62 —in vengeance for what a mighty death! She that was a queen, whom Thoas begot, whose grandsire was Euhan the shining? Coward, is it not enough that when your countrymen from every quarter have flocked to arms, you only amid the hurrying columns are at peace? Keep it, and let the victory of the Greeks find you still at the graveside bewailing this fatality.'

5.680–690

He spoke. The other’s anger pauses now and more mea­sured is his reply: 'For my part I did not think it was you outside the walls but that Thebes and her hostile troops had come hither. March in to destroy us if allied blood is so much your pleasure, flesh your weapons at home and let impious fire consume this Jove’s already unavailing temple—for what is not permitted?—seeing that as master and ruler I thought I had the right to deal with a worthless slave when such sorrow weighed upon my heart. But he sees it, he, the ruler of the gods, and his anger at your deeds, though late, abides.' So he spoke and looked to the heights.⁶³

5.691–703

There the dwellings are loud with another clash of arms. Recent Rumour had gone ahead of the swift squadrons, embracing twin tumults with her wings. Some say and say again that Hypsipyle, their benefactress, is being dragged to her doom, others that she is already suffering death. They believe and their anger tarries not. Now torches and weapons threaten the palace, they shout to overthrow the monarchy, to seize Lycurgus and carry him off along with Jupiter and his altars. The dwelling resounds with women’s screams and grief turns about, fleeing before terror.

But Adrastus, aloft in his chariot of coursers, carrying Thoas’ daughter alongside before the clamorous faces of the men, passes through their midst and cries: 'Enough, enough! No cruelty has been done, Lycurgus has not deserved such deadly usage. And she who found the grateful stream—behold!'

⁶³ The mountain and Jupiter’s temple from which he had just come down.

5.731–753

Then spoke the pious son of Oecles as soon as the softening anger of the multitude gave silence and tranquil ears allowed approach: ‘Hear, ruler of Nemea and sons of Inachus, chosen chiefs, what sure Apollo manifests for us to do. This sorrow is owed to Argive arms from time long past, the Parcae come down in a straight line. The thirst from the perishing of the streams, the death-bearing snake, and the boy marked, alas, by our destiny’s name, Archemorus, all these flow down from the supreme will of the High Ones. Hold your anger, lay by your hasty weapons. The child must be accorded lasting honours. And he has deserved them. Let Valour make fair libation to the dead that is her own 68 and, Phoebus, may you go on to weave more delays and we be barred from war by ever new chances and may deadly Thebes ever further recede. 69 But you, 70 fortunate ones, who have passed beyond the destiny of great parents, whom long fame awaits through the ages while Lerna’s swamp and father Inachus shall flow, while Nemea shall cast her quivering shadows over the fields, violate not the rite with weeping, bewail not the gods. For a god he is, a god, nor would he rather be fated to a Pylian eld or to live longer than Phrygian years.’ 71 He ended, and night wrapped hollow darkness round the sky.

p. 107

The play is the earliest attestation of several other figures in the Opheltes legend, most prominently Hypsipyle, the former queen of Lemnso, who comes to be a slave in Nemea.³⁷ There she serves as nurse in the household of Lykourgos. Details about him emerge from an exchange between Hypsipyle and Amphiaraos in an early scene (F 752h.24-28 = T 10):

..

(Amph.) To which man of the land of Philous is this house

With flocks of sheep reckoned to belong, O Stranger?

(Hyps.) The prosperous halls of Lykourgos are these called,

Who by selection from all Asopia

Is priest of the local Zeus.

³⁸ ...

Lykourgos is a ... of Zeus, that is to say, a priest who holds the key to his temple. Although in later accounts he is reckoned a king (e.g. Hyginus, discussed below), there is no evidence that Euripides represents him as such, although modern scholars discussing this play often call him one³⁸ Moreover, he is said to come from

p. 119

When the Seven meet Hypsipyle, she is carrying him [Opheltes] at her breast: ... (4.746-750 = T 44).¹⁰⁴ Statius at once clarifies that the child is not her own, but rather the son of Inachian, i.e. Argive, Lykourgos.¹⁰⁵ Later we learn that his mother is Eurydike (e.g. 5.632). Hence Statius follows the tradition we observed in Euripides and elswhere, but as in the scholia to Pindar, Opheltes is of Archive blood.

Lycurgos, we learn, is both a priest of Zeus and a king. In fact it is his priestly role that keeps him from joining the Archive expedition, for he must stay behind to tend Zeus' altars and shrines (5.643-644). Moreover Lycurgos is said to be away making sacrifices on Mount Apesas when the Seven find Hypsipyle and Opheltes meets his end. (5.640-641). That Lycurgos is also a king is apparent in numerous passages; Amphiaros, for instance, addresses him as ductor Nemeae (5.733 = T 49; cf. 5.667, 716, 719). He is ruler of Nemea, which in this epic is a populous city (5.690ff), a fabrication with no basis in ancient history or archaeology.

¹⁰⁴ C.f. also Hypsipyle's words at 5.617-618: sic ... dabam, "Thus indeed would I comfort my sorrows and give the small one my breast, already maternal."

¹⁰⁵

p. 121

Whereas in Uripides' play this comes in the context of Defending Hypsipyle against Eurydice's wrath, in Statius' epic, as in Hyginus, it is Lycurgos who must be appeased;

p. 251

Hypsipyle was one of Euripides’ latest and most elaborate tragedies. Its heroine was the daughter of Thoas, a son of the god Dionysus and king of the island of Lemnos. As a young woman she had borne twin sons to Jason during the Argonauts’ visit to Lemnos, but Jason took these sons with him to Colchis and Hypsipyle later had to flee the island after refusing to kill her father when the other women of Lemnos massacred their menfolk. Seized by marauders, she was sold as a slave to Lycurgus, priest at the rural sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea, and later became nurse to Opheltes, son of Lycurgus and his wife Eurydice. Meanwhile Jason died, probably at Colchis, and left his sons to be raised by his comrade Orpheus in Thrace. They were eventually reunited there with their grandfather, returned with him to Lemnos, and set out to find their mother. In the play, they reach Nemea just as the army of the Seven is passing by on its march to Thebes, and Hypsipyle admits them to the house without recognizing them. She also agrees to guide the Argive seer Amphiaraus to a spring where he can find fresh water for a sacrifice, but at the spring she negligently allows the infant Opheltes to be killed by a serpent. His mother wishes to punish Hypsipyle with death, but Amphiaraus persuades Eurydice to accept the boy’s fate, interpreting it as a portent for the Seven and advising that a funeral should be celebrated with games; these will be perpetuated as the Nemean Games and the boy remembered in cult as Archemorus, ‘First to die’ (see F 757.908–18 with note 4). Hypsipyle’s sons compete in the games, a recognition is effected, and thus redeemed she returns with them to Lemnos at the end of the play.

Hypsipyle’s involvement in the events at Nemea seems to have been invented by Euripides, for earlier sources connect her only with events on Lemnos (especially Homer, [cont.]

p. 238

In the sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea, also in the Peloponnese ... a hero shrine to the baby Opheltes, mythical prince of the city, has been unearthed close to the temple.¹⁰⁰ Here, as at Athens, a child of the local king dies, is buried near the local temple, and is honored in funeral games. The son of King Lykourgos, Opheltes was born under a dark prophecy. Death would come to the child if any part of his body touched ground before he learned to walk. One day when in a leafy grove with his nurse Hypsipyle, Opeltes met his fate when seven Archive warriors passed by and asked for a drink of water. Hypsipyle laid the baby down in a bed of celery, whereupon a snake sprang out and fatally bit the child. The warriors killed the snake and instituted funeral games in the boys honor, changing his name to Archemoros.¹⁰¹

Pausanias saw the heroön of Opheltes and the tomb of his father, King Lykourgos, during his visit to Nemea in the second century A.D.¹⁰² Excavations have revealed a pentagonal, open-air precinct, identified as the enclosure for the tomb and altar of Opheltes-Archemoros.¹⁰³ It represents the Helenistic phase of the shrine already established in the Archaic period, when the Nemean Games were inaugurated (573 B.C.) and the first temple of Zeus was built.¹⁰⁴ Not far from Opheltes's shrine, twenty-three planting pits for fir or cypress trees have been unearthed, constituting a sacred grove that memorialized the spot where Opheltes died among celery plants.¹⁰⁵

p. 511

The loss of Aischylos' play is the greater because Euripides in his patially preserved Hypsipyle offers us quite a different mother for the same child, one Eurydike, wife of Lykourgos, a priest of Nemean Zeus; ... The [Nemeian Odes]] hypothesis' one other significant variation lies in the presenting a third set of parents, Euphetes and Kreousa.

...

Elsewhere there is some scant evidence that might relate to the Euripidean parents, ... Pausanias tells us that on the Amyklai Throne Adrastos and Tydeus halt a fight between Amphiaraos and Lykourgos, son of Pronax (3.18.12). The same scene is apparently represented on the elbow guard of a shield-strap from Olympia where a central figure named as Adrastos stands with raised arm between two warriors closing in battle; ... if this is the Lykourgos of the Hypsipyle, and if he was present to [cont.]

p. 512

witness or hear of his son's death in some accounts (in Euripides, he is out of town), he might well blame Ampiaraos for the tragedy and seek vengeance. But against this possibility is the fact that the shield-relief offers no sign of a woman or child, although there is certainly room for them. We saw too, that in the Nemean Odes scholia Pronax is the son of Talaos and brother of Adrastus, and this arrangement occurs also in Apollodorus (ApB 1.9.13). Thus, if Pausanias' information is right, the Lykourgas of the Throne would be Adrastos' nephew, and more likely a part of the expedition setting out from Argos than someone encountered along the way at Nemea. For what it is worth, Apollodorus himself distinguishes two Lykourgoi in his discussion of these legends, the one a son of Pronax of whom we hear nothing more, the other a son of Pheres (and brother of Admentos) who marries Eurydike and begets Opheltes (ApB 1.9.14). How early this figure might be we cannot say; or Archaic sources neither mention or exclude him.

s.v. Lycurgus 3

Another Lycurgus, sometimes called Lycus, was a king of Nemea. He was one of Pheres' sons (or alternatively of PRONAX) and either by Amphithea or Eurydice he had a child called Opheltes. This child was put in the charge of its nurse Hypsipyle, but was strangeled by a serpent near a spring (see AMPHIARUS). The tomb of this Lycurgus was to be seen at Nemea in Zeus' sacred wood.

p. 405

Lycurgus ... (3) Hyg Fab15; 74; 273; Apollod. Bibl. 1,9,4; 3,6,4; Paus. 2,15,3; 3,18,12; Stat. Theb. 5,660.

p. 318

The death of Opheltes and the embassy of Tydeus

As Adrastos and his army were marching toward the Isthmus they passed through Nemea in the northern Argolid, where they became involved in a strange incident that led to the founding of the Nemean Games. The city was ruled at that time by Lykourgos, son of Pheres, an immigrant from Thessaly (see p. 426), who had appointed HYPSIPYLE, the former queen of Lemnos, to act as nursemaid to his infant son OPHELTES. As we will see, the Lemnian women had onspired together to kill all their menfolk, but Hypsipyle had broken the agreement by sparing her aged father Thoas (see p. 384); and when the other women had discovered this, they sold her into slavery. Or in another version, she had escaped abroad after her action had been discovered, but had then been captured by pirates who had sold her to Lykourgos.¹³⁹ Adrastos and his companions now encountered her in Nemea and asked her to show them the way to a spring, for they were thirsty after their long journey (or else needed water for a sacrifice). So she placed the infant Opheltes on a bed of parsley and led them to water. Although an oracle had warned that Opheltes should never be placed on the ground until he could walk, she thought that he would be safe because he would not actually be in contact with the ground. On returning from the spring, however, she found that the child had been killed by a snake. Adrastos and his followers killed the snake, and interceded with Lykourgos on Hypsipyle's behalf; and they then gave little Opheltes a magnificent funeral, renaming him Archemoros (Beginning of Doom) becaus Amphiaros declared that his death was an evil sign that indicated that many members of the army would lose their lives in the forthcoming conflict. They also held funeral games in honour of the dead child, so founding the Nemean Games, at which the judges wore dark clothing as a sign of mourning and the victors were awarded a crown of wild parsley.

p. 425

PHERES [son of Kretheus] founded the Thessalian city of Pherai, which lay to the west of Iolkos. He married Periklymene, daughter of Minyas, who bore him two sons, Admentos and Lycurgos.

p. 426

LYKOURGOS, the younger son of Pheres, departed to the north-western corner of the Argolid to become king of Nemea. He was best remembered as the father of Opheltes, who was killed by a snakewhile Adrastos and his followere were passing through Memea on their way to Thebes (see p. 318); as we have seen, this legend explained the the origin of the Nemean Games, one of the four great athletic festivals of ancient Greece. The suppossed tomb of Lykourgos could be seen at Nemea in historical times.

s.v. Lycurgus 3 (Lycus 11.)

King of Nemea.

•Pheres 1 ∞

••a)Ampithea 2.

••b)Eurydice 1.

•••a)b)Opheletes 1.

D.-Apd. 3.6.4. •-••a)b)- •••)a)b)Apd 1.9.14.

s.v. Lycurgus 4.

•Pronax ∞

♇Raised from the dead by Asclepius.

•Apd. 1.9.13, ♇Apd. 3.10.3.

s.v. Lycurgus 4

A son of Pheres and Periclymene, a brother of Admetus, was king of the country about Nemea, and married to Eurydice or Amphithea, by whom he became the father of Opheltes (Apollod. 1.9.14, 3.6.4). His tomb was believed to exist in the grove of the Nemean Zeus. (Paus. 2.15.3.)

p. 189

15. King Lycurgus, We hesitantly have restored Lycurgus for Lycus in the belief that it is an error of transmission and not a mistake on the part of Hyginus (See Lact. Plac. ad Stat. Theb. 5.29 [noted in Marshall] and esp. First Vatican Mythographer 2.31).

s.v. Lycurgus 3

or Lycus. A son of Pheres. Migrating to Argolis from Thessaly, Lycurgus became king of Nemea and married Eurydice or Amphithea. She bore him a son, OPHELTES, who was killed by a snake.