Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
and history a
Phoenicia
Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...
n
king
King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
Sidon
Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...
. The
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
historian
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
(c. 484–425 BC), born in the city of
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus ( ; Latin: ''Halicarnassus'' or ''Halicarnāsus''; ''Halikarnāssós''; ; Carian language, Carian: 𐊠𐊣𐊫𐊰 𐊴𐊠𐊥𐊵𐊫𐊰 ''alos k̂arnos'') was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Caria, in Anatolia.
under the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...
, estimated that Agenor lived either 1000 or 1600 years prior to his visit to Tyre in 450 BC at the end of the
Greco-Persian Wars
The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Polis, Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world ...
(499–449 BC). He was said to have reigned in that city for 63 years.
Family
Agenor was born in
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Mem ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
to
Poseidon
Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...
and
Libya
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
and he had a twin brother named Belus. The latter remained in Egypt and reigned over there while Agenor departed to Phoenicia and reigned there. In a rare version of the myth, Agenor and Belus had another brother named Enyalios. According to other sources, he was the son of Belus and brother of
Phineus
In Greek mythology, Phineus (; ), was a king of Salmydessus in Thrace and seer, who appears in accounts of the Argonauts' voyage. Some accounts make him a king in PaphlagoniaScholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, 2.178, 237; Scholia ''ad eund'' 2.1 ...
Aegyptus
In Greek mythology, Aegyptus or Ægyptus (; ) was a legendary king of ancient Egypt. He was a descendant of the princess Io through his father Belus, and of the river-god Nilus as both the father of Achiroe, his mother and as a great, great-g ...
and
Danaus
In Greek mythology, Danaus (, ; ''Danaós'') was the king of Libya. His myth is a foundation legend of Argos, one of the foremost Mycenaean cities of the Peloponnesus. In Homer's ''Iliad'', " Danaans" ("tribe of Danaus") and " Argives" comm ...
. This tradition was followed by
Tzetzes
John Tzetzes (; , Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He is known for making significant contributions in preserving much valuable information from ancien ...
but he added
Ninus
Ninus (), according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was the founder of Nineveh (also called Νίνου πόλις "city of Ninus" in Greek), ancient capital of Assyria. The figure or figures with which he correspon ...
as one of the six brothers. The same author claimed that there were two Agenors, the first one being the brother of Belus while the second was the son of the latter, thus uncle of the first Agenor.
Sources differed also as to Agenor's children; he was said to have been the father of
Europa
Europa may refer to:
Places
* Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace
* Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro
* Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development
* Europa Cliffs, Alexan ...
,
Cadmus
In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; ) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes, Greece, Thebes. He was, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. Commonly stated to be a ...
,
Cilix
Cilix (; Ancient Greek: Κίλιξ ''Kílix'') was, according to Greek mythology, a Phoenician prince as the son of King Agenor and Telephassa or Argiope.
Etymology
In her book ''Who's Who in Classical Mythology'', author Adrian Room describes t ...
Phineus
In Greek mythology, Phineus (; ), was a king of Salmydessus in Thrace and seer, who appears in accounts of the Argonauts' voyage. Some accounts make him a king in PaphlagoniaScholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, 2.178, 237; Scholia ''ad eund'' 2.1 ...
,
Thasus
In Greek mythology, Thasus or Thasos ( or ; Ancient Greek: Θάσος) was a son of PoseidonApollodorus3.1.1/ref> (or, in other versions, Agenor, Pausanias5.25.12 Scholiast on ''Euripides, Phoenissae'6/ref> PhoenixConon, ''Narrations'32/ref> or ...
and sometimes,
Syros
Syros ( ), also known as Siros or Syra, is a Greece, Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is south-east of Athens. The area of the island is and at the 2021 census it had 21,124 inhabitants.
The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano S ...
and
Cepheus
Cepheus (Ancient Greek: Κηφεύς ''Kepheús'') may refer to:
In Greek mythology
* Cepheus (father of Andromeda), and King of Aethiopia
* Cepheus (son of Aleus), a king of Tegea, Arcadia
In astronomy
* Cepheus (constellation), one of the 88 m ...
. Agenor's wife was variously given as
Telephassa
Telephassa (; , ''Tēléphassa'', "far-shining"), also spelled Telephaassa (; ) and Telephe (; ), is a lunar epithet in Greek mythology that is sometimes substituted for Argiope the wife of Agenor, according to his name a "leader of men" in Phoen ...
Scholia
Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...
st on
Euripides
Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...
, ''Phoenician Women'' 5; Tzetzes, ''Chiliades' 7.165–166 /ref> and
Tyro
In Greek mythology, Tyro () was an Elean princess who later became Queen of Iolcus.
Tyro was the daughter of King Salmoneus of Elis and Alcidice. She married her uncle, King Cretheus of Iolcus, and had three sons with him, and also bore twin s ...
, with the latter giving her name to the city of Tyre.Malalas 2.30 /ref> According to
Pherecydes of Athens
Pherecydes of Athens () (fl. c. 465 BC) was a Greek mythographer who wrote an ancient work in ten books, now lost, variously titled "Historiai" (''Ἱστορίαι'') or "Genealogicai" (''Γενελογίαι''). He is one of the authors (= '' FG ...
, his first wife was Damno, daughter of Belus, who bore him Phoenix and two daughters,
Isaia
Isaia is a Neapolitan tailoring luxury brand founded by Enrico Isaia in Casalnuovo di Napoli in 1920.
The brand is recognized by its tiny red coral logo, which is a good-luck charm in Naples. The brand describes its clientele as "passionate ...
and Melia, who married Aegyptus and Danaus, respectively; Agenor then fathered Cadmus with Argiope, daughter of the river-god Neilus.Gantz, p. 208; Pherecydes fr. 21 Fowler 2000, p. 289 = ''
FGrHist
''Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker'', commonly abbreviated ''FGrHist'' or ''FGrH'' (''Fragments of the Greek Historians''), is a collection by Felix Jacoby of the works of those ancient Greek historians whose works have been lost, but o ...
'' 3 F 21 = Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, ''Argonautica'' 3.1177-87f
In the ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...
'', however, Europa was clearly a daughter of Phoenix. Either Cadmus or Europa were confirmed as children of Phoenix by the ''Ehoeae'' attributed to
Hesiod
Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...
,
Bacchylides
Bacchylides (; ''Bakkhulides''; – ) was a Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets, which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been noted in Bacchylidea ...
,
Moschus
Moschus () was an ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace. He was born at Syracuse, Magna Graecia, and flourished about 150 BC. Aside from his poetry, he was known for his grammatical work, ...
and various
scholia
Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...
. Cilix and Phineus were also sons of Phoenix according to Pherecydes, who also added an otherwise unknown son named Doryclus.
Most later sources listed Cadmus and Cilix as sons of Agenor directly without mentioning Phoenix. On the rare occasions when he was mentioned, Phoenix was listed as the brother of Cadmus and Cilix. Whether he was included as a brother of Agenor or as a son, his role in mythology was limited to inheriting his father's kingdom and to becoming the eponym of the
Phoenicia
Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...
ns. All accounts agreed on a Phoenician king who has several children, including the two sons named Cadmus and Cilix and a daughter named Europa.
A certain Eidothea, wife of Phineus, was called the sister of Cadmus and thus maybe the daughter of Agenor.
Taygete
In Classical Greek mythology, Taygete , , ) was a nymph, one of the Pleiades according to the '' Bibliotheca'' (3.10.1) and a companion of Artemis, in her archaic role as '' potnia theron'', "Mistress of the animals", with its likely roots in pr ...
, usually one of the
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Zeus is the child ...
was also said to be the daughter of Agenor.
Mythology
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Zeus is the child ...
saw Agenor's daughter
Europa
Europa may refer to:
Places
* Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace
* Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro
* Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development
* Europa Cliffs, Alexan ...
gathering flowers and immediately fell in love with her. Zeus transformed himself into a white bull and carried Europa away to the island of
Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
. He then revealed his true identity and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Agenor, meanwhile, sent Europa's brothers, Cadmus and Cilix in search of her, telling them not to return without her. In some versions of the tale, Agenor sends her other brothers as well: Phineus or Thasus (and of course Phoenix in the versions in which Cadmus's father is Agenor).
As Europa could not be found, none of the brothers returned. Cadmus consulted the
oracle
An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination.
Descript ...
of
Delphi
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The A ...
and was advised to travel until encountering a
cow
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are called co ...
. He was to follow this cow and to found a city where the cow would lie down; this city became Thebes. Cilix searched for her and settled down in
Asia Minor
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
. The land was called
Cilicia
Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...
after him.
According to the chronicler Malalas, when Agenor was about to die, he ordered that all the land he had conquered be divided among his three sons. Phoenix took Tyre and its hinterland, and called the country Phoenicia after himself. Similarly, Syros call the country allotted to him Syria. Likewise, Cilix called the latitudes allotted to him Cilicia.
Identity and deeds
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...
called
Carthage
Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...
the city of Agenor, by which he alluded to the descent of
Dido
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (located ...
from Agenor. German
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
Philipp Karl Buttmann
Philipp Karl Buttmann (5 December 1764 – 21 June 1829) was a German philologist of French Huguenot ancestry (original family name "Boudemont"), born in Frankfurt am Main.
He was educated in his native town and at the University of Göttingen, ...
pointed out that the genuine
Phoenicia
Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...
n name of Agenor was ''Chnas'' or ''Khna'', which was the same as
Canaan
CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...
, and upon these facts he built the hypothesis that Agenor or Chnas was the same as the Canaan in the books of
Moses
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...
.
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus (; ) was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, ''Historiae Alexandri Magni'', "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully ''Historiarum Alex ...
considered Agenor to have been the founder of
Sidon
Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...
, and he was also popularly supposed to have introduced the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...
, which was later taught by
Cadmus
In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; ) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes, Greece, Thebes. He was, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. Commonly stated to be a ...
to the Greeks and became the foundation of their own writing system.
Argive family tree
Notes
References
*
Aeschylus
Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...
Antoninus Liberalis
Antoninus Liberalis () was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between the second and third centuries AD. He is known as the author of ''The Metamorphoses'', a collection of tales that offers new variants of already familiar myths ...
Apollodorus
Apollodorus ( Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to:
:''Note: A ...
Apollonius Rhodius
Apollonius of Rhodes ( ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; ; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek author, best known for the ''Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. The poem is ...
, ''
Argonautica
The ''Argonautica'' () is a Greek literature, Greek epic poem written by Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only entirely surviving Hellenistic civilization, Hellenistic epic (though Aetia (Callimachus), Callim ...
Bacchylides
Bacchylides (; ''Bakkhulides''; – ) was a Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets, which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been noted in Bacchylidea ...
Dictys Cretensis
Dictys Cretensis, i.e. Dictys of Crete (, ; ) of Knossos was a legendary companion of Idomeneus during the Trojan War, and the purported author of a diary of its events, that deployed some of the same materials worked up by Homer for the ''Iliad'' ...
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...
Charles Henry Oldfather
Charles Henry Oldfather (13 June 1887 – 20 August 1954) was an American professor of Greek and Ancient History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He was born in Tabriz, Qajar dynasty, Persia.
Parentage
Oldfather's parents, Jeremiah and Feli ...
. Twelve volumes.
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...
Euripides
Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...
, ''The Tragedies of Euripides'' translated by T. A. Buckley. Bacchae. London. Henry G. Bohn. 1850 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. * Euripides, ''Euripidis Fabulae.'' ''vol. 3''. Gilbert Murray. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1913 Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Fowler, R. L. (2000), ''Early Greek Mythography: Volume 1: Text and Introduction'', Oxford University Press, 2000. .
*
Gaius Julius Hyginus
Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Augustus, and reputed author of the '' Fabulae'' and the '' De astronomia'', although this is disputed.
Life and works ...
, ''Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus'' translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies Online version at the Topos Text Project. *
Gaius Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus (; died ) was a 1st-century Roman poet who flourished during the "Silver Age" under the Flavian dynasty, and wrote a Latin ''Argonautica'' that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic.Online version at theio.com. * Gaius Valerius Flaccus, ''Argonauticon.'' Otto Kramer. Leipzig. Teubner. 1913 Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library. * Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2).
*
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
Hesiod
Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...
, ''Catalogue of Women'' from ''Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica'' translated by Evelyn-White, H G. Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. London: William Heinemann, 1914 Online version at theio.com *
Homer
Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient 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. Despite doubts about his autho ...
Lucian of Samosata
Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syria (region), Syrian satire, satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with whi ...
Maurus Servius Honoratus
Servius, distinguished as Servius the Grammarian ( or ), was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries o ...
, ''In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii;'' recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*
Moschus
Moschus () was an ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace. He was born at Syracuse, Magna Graecia, and flourished about 150 BC. Aside from his poetry, he was known for his grammatical work, ...
Nonnus of Panopolis
Nonnus of Panopolis (, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century AD) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid and probably lived in the 5th century AD. He is ...
Publius Ovidius Naso
Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three ...
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...
Publius Papinius Statius
Publius Papinius Statius ( Greek: Πόπλιος Παπίνιος Στάτιος; , ; ) was a Latin poet of the 1st century CE. His surviving poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the ''Thebaid''; a collection of occasional poetry, the '' ...
Publius Vergilius Maro
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' ...
, ''Aeneid.'' Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. * Publius Vergilius Maro, ''Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics''. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900 Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*{{cite encyclopedia, last=Schachter, first=A., editor1-last=Hornblower, editor1-first=Simon, editor2-last=Spawforth, editor2-first=Antony, editor3-last=Eidinow, editor3-first=Esther, dictionary=The Oxford Classical Dictionary, date=2012, publisher=OUP Oxford, isbn=978-0-19-954556-8, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bVWcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 , language=en, entry=Agenor, page=38
*
Sophocles
Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...
, ''The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles e''dited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. *Sophocles, ''Sophocles. Vol 1: Oedipus the king. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone''. With an English translation by F. Storr. The Loeb classical library, 20. Francis Storr. London; New York. William Heinemann Ltd.; The Macmillan Company. 1912 Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*
Suida
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...