Set III-5-oph-001. In Greek mythology, Opheltes was the infant son of the Nemean king Lycurgos, whom the oracle at Delphi instructed not to allow the child to touch the ground until he had learned to walk. One day his nursemaid Hypsipyle met the Seven Argive generals marching against Thebes and went to show them the nearest wellspring. Meanwhile a monstrous serpent appeared and killed Opheltes left unattended lying on the ground. The child was posthumously renamed Archemoros ("Beginner of Doom").
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“ They [the Seven against Thebes and Hypsipyle?] wept as the suckling babe [Opheltes] of violet-crowned Eurydice [the wife of the king Lycurgos] breathed out its sweet soul. „
● Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC), Uncertain poem (in Lyra Graeca II, LCL, Fragment № 30, Athenaeus (fl. late 100s-early 200s AD), Deipnosophistae (Doctors at Dinner) IX, 396e) | Translated by John Maxwell Edmonds. Copyright © 1922-1927.
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“ Ye Graces of the golden distaff, deign to bestow the repute that winneth men; for a divine spokesman of the violet-eyed Muses is ready to sing praise of Phlius and the thriving plain of Nemean Zeus, where white-armed Hera reared the ravening roaring lion that was the first of Heracles' renowned labours. There the crimson-shielded demi-gods that were the flower of the Argives [the Seven against Thebes] held the earliest jousts, held them for the sake of Archemoros slain in slumber by a huge and yellow-eyed serpent [δράκων], an omen of coming slaughter. „
● Bacchylides (518-451 BC), For Automedes of Phlius Victor in the Five-Events at Nemea (in Lyra Graeca III, LCL, Fragment № 36 (viii)) | Translated by John Maxwell Edmonds. Copyright © 1922-1927.
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“ When they [the Seven against Thebes] arrived at Nemea, which was then under the rule of of Lycourgos, they went in search of water; and Hypsipyle showed them the way to a spring, leaving behind a young child, Opheltes. This was a son of Eurydice and Lycourgos who was being reared by Hypsipyle; for when the Lemnian women had discovered that [her father] Thoas had been spared, they had killed him and sold Hypsipyle abroad, and for that reason she was serving with Lycourgos as a purchased slave. As she was pointing the way to the spring, the child who had been left behind was killed by a snake [δράκων]; and when Adrastos and his companions reappeared, they killed the snake [δράκων] and buried the child. Amphiaraos told them that this was a sign foretelling what would happen in the future: so they named the child Archemoros. And in his honour, they founded the Isthmian Games. The horse race was won by Adrastos, the foot-race by Eteoclos, the boxing by Tydeus, the jumping and discus-throwing by Amphiaraos, the javelin-throwing by Laodocos, the wrestling by Polyneices, and the archery by Parthenopaios. „
● Pseudo-Apollodorus (100s AD?), Bibliotheca III: 6, 064-066 | Translated by Robin Hard. Copyright © 1997.
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“ The seven generals were on their way to attack Thebes when they came to Nemea, where Hypsipyle, Thoas' daughter, was enslaved to King Lycurgus, 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 going 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 [draco] that was guarding the spring devoured the boy. Adrastus and the others killed the serpent [draco], appealed to Lycurgus on Hypsipyle's behalf, and established funeral games in the boy's honor. These games still occur every fourth year, and the winners receive a crown of parsley. „
● Hyginus (100s AD?), Fabulae: 74, Hypsipyle | Translated by Stephen M. Trzaskoma. Copyright © 2007.
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“ There are two roads from Kleonai to Argos {...} In these mountains they still show you the lion's cave. Nemea itself is about two miles away. The temple of Nemean Zeus there is worth seeing except that the roof has collapsed and there was not a statue left. There is a grove of cypresses around the temple, where they say Opheltes was killed by the snake [δράκων] when his nurse put him down in the grass. The Argives have the right to sacrifice to Zeus at Nemea, and to choose the priest of Nemean Zeus; they even put on a race for men in armour at the Nemean winter festival. Here is the grave of Opheltes with a coping of stones around it and altars inside the enclosure. A tumulus marks the grave of his father Lykourgos. They call the spring Adrasteia, maybe because Adrastos discovered it. „
● Pausanias (110-180 AD), Description of Greece II Corinth: 15, 2-3 | Translated by Peter Levi. Copyright © 1971.
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“ On the West Side. The recognition of Eunous and Thoas, the children of Hypsipyle, by their mother. They are showing her the golden vine, the token of their birth, and saving her from her punishment at the hands of Eurydice for the death of Archemorus. Show, Thoas, this plant of Bacchus, for so shalt thou save from death thy mother, the slave Hypsipyle, who suffered from the wrath of Eurydice, since the earth-born snake [ὕδρος] slew Archemorus. And go thou too, Eunous, leaving the borders of the Asopian land, to take thy mother to pleasant Lemnos. „
● Attalus and Eumenes (Uncertain dates), The Cyzicene Epigrams: 10 (in The Greek Anthology I: III, LCL) | Translated by William Roger Paton. Copyright © 1915-1918.
| Editorial notes: {...} - Omitted text; [...] - Translation back to the original, clarification, or curator's commentary. |
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