Mopsus (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: Μόψος, ''Mopsos'') was the name of one of two famous seers in

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 ...

; his rival being

Calchas Calchas (; , ''Kalkhas'') is an Argive mantis, or " seer," dated to the Age of Legend, which is an aspect of Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the ''Iliad'', which is believed to have been based on a war conducted by t ...

. A historical or legendary ''Mopsos'' or ''Mukšuš'' may have been the founder of a house in power at widespread sites in the coastal plains of

Pamphylia Pamphylia (; , ''Pamphylía'' ) was a region in the south of Anatolia, Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (all in modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the ...

and

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 ...

(in today's

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

) during the early

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

Mythological figures

* Mopsus, son of Manto either by Rhacius or

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

. * Mopsus, an Argonaut and son of Ampyx by a

nymph A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

. * Mopsus, a

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

commander who had lived long before the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

. Along with Sipylus the

Scythia Scythia (, ) or Scythica (, ) was a geographic region defined in the ancient Graeco-Roman world that encompassed the Pontic steppe. It was inhabited by Scythians, an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people. Etymology The names ...

n, this Mopsus had been driven into exile from

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

by its king

Lycurgus Lycurgus (; ) was the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, credited with the formation of its (), involving political, economic, and social reforms to produce a military-oriented Spartan society in accordance with the Delphic oracle. The Spartans i ...

. Sometime later, he and Sipylus defeated the Libyan

Amazons The Amazons (Ancient Greek: ', singular '; in Latin ', ') were a people in Greek mythology, portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, Labours of Heracles, the ''Argonautica'' and the ''Iliad''. ...

in a pitched battle, in which their queen Myrine was slain, and the Thracians pursued the surviving Amazons all the way to Libya. * Mopsus is also the name chosen by

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 ...

for the young singer who makes a song about the death of Daphnis in Eclogue 5. The name recurs in Eclogue 8 as the rival who is to marry Nysa, beloved of the singer Damon.

Historical person

The Christian chronicler

Eusebius of Caesarea Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

was as convinced of Mopsus' historicity as his pagan predecessors and contemporaries: in his parallel chronologies he entered under the year corresponding to 1184/83 ''Mopsus reigned in Cilicia''. In the early 16th century, German chronicler Johannes Aventinus placed him in the reign of Ingaevone, in ca. 22nd century BC, along the

Sava River The Sava, is a river in Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. From its source in Slovenia it flows through Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally reaches Serbia, fee ...

, where, allegedly, he defeated Myrine. Names similar to ''Mopsos'', whether Greek or Anatolian, are also attested in Near Eastern languages. Since the discovery of a bilingual

Hieroglyphic Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian languages, Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya ...

- Phoenician inscription in Karatepe (in

) in 1946–7, it has been conjectured that Mopsos was a historical person. The inscription is dated to c. 700 BC, and the person speaking in it, ’-z-t-w-d (Phoenician) / Azatiwada (Luwian), professes to be king of the d-n-n-y-m / Hiyawa, and describes his dynasty as "the house of M-p-š / Muksa". Apparently, he is a descendant of Mopsus. The relationship between the earlier form Muksa, preserved in Luwian transmission, and the later form M-p-š / Mopsos, preserved in Phoenician transmission, is indicative of the evolution of Greek labiovelars and can hardly be explained otherwise. The Phoenician name of the people recalls one of the

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 ...

ic names of the Greeks, '' Danaoi'' with the ''-m'' plural, whereas the Luwian name ''Hiyawa'' probably goes back to Hittite ''Ahhiyā(wa)'', which is, according to most interpretations, the " Achaean", or

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...

, settlement 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 ...

. Ancient Greek authors ascribe a central role to Mopsus in the colonization of

. A 13th-century date for the historical Mopsus may be confirmed by a Hittite tablet from

Boğazkale Boğazkale ("Gorge Fortress") is a town of Çorum Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey, located from the city of Çorum. It is the seat of Boğazkale District.Madduwattaš of

Arzawa Arzawa was a region and political entity in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. In Hittite texts, the term is used to refer both to a particular kingdom and to a loose confederation of states. The chief Arzawan state, whose capital wa ...

and Attarsiya of Ahhiyā. This text is dated to the reign of Arnuwandaš III. Therefore, some scholars associate Mopsus' activities along the coast of Asia Minor and the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

with the

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...

' attacking

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 ...

in the beginning of the 12th century BC, one of those peoples being the '' Denyen''—comparable to the ''d-n-n-y-m'' of the Karatepe inscription. The Sea People identification is, however, questioned by other scholars. The name of the king erecting the Karatepe inscription, Azatiwada, is probably related to the toponym ''Aspendos'', the name of a city in

founded by the

Argives Argos (; ; ) is a city and former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and the oldest in Europe. It is the largest city in Argolis and a major center in the same pr ...

according to

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

(14.4.2). The name of the city is written (Estwediius) on coins of the 5th century BC. Presumably, it was an earlier Azatiwada, the ancestor of our king, that gave his name to the city. The name does not appear to be Greek of origin (= Luwian "Lover of the Sun God a(n)da?, or "Sun-god (Tiwad) love (him)", according to a more recent interpretation). The ethnicity of Mopsus himself is not clear: The fragmentary Lydian historiographer Xanthus made him a Lydian campaigning in Phoenicia.Xanthus, ''FGrH'' 765 F 17. If the transmission of Nicolaus of Damascus, who quotes him, is believable, Xanthus wrote the name with ''-ks-'', like in the Hittite and Luwian texts. Given that Lydian also belongs to the Anatolian language family, it is possible that Xanthus relied on a local non-Greek tradition according to which Mukšuš was a Luwian. The name Mopsus or Mopsos is also mentioned in the more recently discovered Çineköy inscription. This is also a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual inscription, similar to the Karatepe inscription.

Notes

References

*Anna Margherita Jasink and Mauro Marino, forthcoming.
The West Anatolian origins of the Que kingdom dynasty
", in: ''Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Hittitology, Roma 5-9 settembre 2005''. *

Charles Anthon Charles Anthon (November 19, 1797 – July 29, 1867) was an American classical scholar. Anthon was a professor at Columbia College and became headmaster of its grammar and preparatory school. He produced classical works for schools, which contai ...

, ''A Classical Dictionary'' (1842). *

John Lemprière John Lemprière ( in Jersey – 1 February 1824 in London) was an English classical scholar, lexicographer, theologian, teacher and headmaster. Life John Lemprière was the son of Charles Lemprière (died 1801), of Mont au Prêtre, Jersey. H ...

, 1850. ''Lemprière's Classical Dictionary''. ("Mopsus," p. 422). (London. Bracken Books) Reprint 1994. paperback. * Ilya Yakubovich, 2010. ''Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language''. Leiden: Brill. * Ilya Yakubovich, 2015. Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia, ''Anatolian Studies'' 65, pp. 35–53. * K. Lawson Younger, 1998. "The Phoenician Inscription of Azatiwada: An Integrated Reading", ''Journal of Semitic Studies'' 43, pp. 11–47. * Margalit Finkelberg, 2005. ''Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic Tradition'' (Cambridge University Press). * N. G. L. Hammond, 1975. "The End of Mycenaean Civilization and the Dark Age. (b) The Literary Tradition for the Migrations", in: ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', vol. II, part 2, ed. by J.E.S. Edwards, C.J. Gadd, N.G.L. Hammond and E. Sollberger, (Cambridge University Press), pp. 678–712. * R. D. Barnett, 1953. "Mopsos", in: ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 73 (1953), pp. 140–143. * Robert Drews, 1994: ''The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.'' (Princeton University Press). *Robin Lane Fox, 2008. ''Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer'', pp. 206–26. *

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 ...

to Lycophron's ''Alexandra'', marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes and others from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881)
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Greek text available on Archive.org *

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of student ...

, 1992. ''The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Early Archaic Greece'' (Cambridge:Harvard University Press).

External links

* {{Authority control Argonauts Characters in the Argonautica Denyen Greek mythology of Anatolia Characters in Greek mythology Archaeological sources on Greek mythology