Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/19



ABAEUS (🇬🇷), a surname of Apollo derived from the town of Abae in Phocis, where the god had a rich temple. (Hesych. s. v. 🇬🇷; Herod. viii. 33; Paus. x. 35. § 1, &c.)

 ABAMMON MAGISTER. [.]

 ABANTI’ADES (🇬🇷) signifies in general a descendant of Abas, but is used especially to designate Perseus, the great-grandson of Abas (Ov. Met. iv. 673, v. 138, 236), and Acrisius, a son of Abas. (Ov. Met. iv. 607.) A female descendant of Abas, as Danaë and Atalante, was called Abantias.

 ABA’NTIAS. [.]

 ABA’NTIDAS (🇬🇷), the son of Paseas, became tyrant of Sicyon after murdering Cleinias, the father of Aratus, B. C. 264. Aratus, who was then only seven years old, narrowly escaped death. Abantidas was fond of literature, and was accus­tomed to attend the philosophical discussions of Deinias and Aristotle, the dialectician, in the agora of Sicyon: on one of these occasions he was mur­dered by his enemies. He was succeeded in the tyranny by his father, who was put to death by Nicocles. (Plut. Arat. 2. 3; Paus. ii. 8. § 2.)

 ABARBA’REA (🇬🇷), a Naiad, who bore two sons, Aesepus and Pedasus, to Bucolion, the eldest but illegitimate son of the Trojan King Laomedon. (Hom. Il. vi. 22, &c.) Other writers do not mention this nymph, but Hesychius (s. v.) mentions 🇬🇷 or 🇬🇷 as the name of a class of nymphs.

 A’BARIS (🇬🇷), son of Seuthes, was a Hyperborean priest of Apollo (Herod. iv. 36), and came from the country about the Caucasus (Ov. Met. v. 86) to Greece, while his own country was visited by a plague. He was endowed with the gift of prophecy, and by this as well as by his Scythian dress and simplicity and honesty he created great sensation in Greece, and was held in high esteem. (Strab. vii. p. 301.) He travelled about in Greece, carrying with him an arrow as the symbol of Apollo, and gave oracles. Toland, in his History of the Druids, considers him to have been a Druid of the Hebrides, because the arrow formed a part of the costume of a Druid. His history, which is entirely mythical, is related in various ways, and worked up with extraordinary particulars: he is said to have taken no earthly food (Herod. iv. 36), and to have ridden on his arrow, the gift of Apollo, through the air. (Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 314.) He cured diseases by incantations (Plat. Charmid. p.158, B.), delivered the world from a plague (Suidas, s. v. 🇬🇷), and built at Sparta a temple of 🇬🇷. (Paus. iii. 13. § 2.) Suidas and Eudocia ascribe to him several works, such as incantations, Scythian oracles, a poem on the marriage of the river Hebrus, expiatory formulas, the arrival of Apollo among the Hyperboreans, and a prose work on the origin of the gods. But such works, if they were really current in ancient times, were no more genuine than his reputed correspondence with Phalaris the tyrant. The time of his appearance in Greece is stated differently, some fixing it in Ol. 3, others in Ol. 21, and others again make him a contemporary of Croesus. (Bentley, On the Epist. of Phalaris, p. 34.) Lobeck places it about the year B. C. 570, i. e. about Ol. 52. Respecting the perplexing traditions about Abaris see Klopfer, Mythologisches Wörterbuch, i. p. 2; Zapf, Disputatio historica de Abaride, Lips. 1707; Larcher, on Herod. vol. iii. p. 446.

 ABAS (🇬🇷). 1. A son of Metaneira, was changed by Demeter into a lizard, because he mocked the goddess when she had come on her wanderings into the house of her mother, and drank eagerly to quench her thirst. (Nicander, Theriaca; Natal Com. v. 14; Ov. Met. v. 450.) Other traditions relate the same story of a boy, Ascalabus, and call his mother Misme. (Antonin. Lib. 23.)

2. The twelfth King of Argos. He was the son of Lynceus and Hypermnestra, and grand­son of Danaus. He married Ocaleia, who bore him twin sons, Acrisius and Proetus. (Apollod, ii. 2. § 1 ; Hygin. Fab. 170.) When he informed his father of the death of Danaus, he was re­warded with the shield of his grandfather, which was sacred to Hera. He is described as a successful conqueror and as the founder of the town of Abae in Phocis (Paus. x. 35. § 1), and of the Pelasgic Argos in Thessaly. (Strab. ix. p. 431.) The fame of his warlike spirit was so great, that even after his death, when people<section end="Abas (mythology)"/>