Opheltes is a boy from Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, the son of the Nemean

Nemea

Nemea is an ancient site near the head of the valley of the River Elissos in the northeastern part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. Formerly part of the territory of Cleonae in Argolis, it is today part of the prefecture of Corinthia...

 king Lycurgus and Queen Eurydice.

"When their son was born, Lykourgos consulted the oracle at Delphi in order to find out how he might insure the health and happiness of his child. The priestess replied that the child must not touch the ground until he had learned to walk."

One day his nursemaid, Hypsipyle

Hypsipyle

In Greek mythology, Hypsipyle was the Queen of Lemnos, daughter of Thoas and Myrina.During her reign, Aphrodite cursed the women of the island for having neglected her shrines. All the women developed extreme body odor that made them repugnant to the men of the nation. The men took up with...

, was walking with the young Opheltes in her arms. She met the Seven Argive generals marching against Thebes

Seven Against Thebes

The Seven against Thebes is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to as the Oedipodea. It concerns the battle between an Argive army led by Polynices and the army of Thebes led by Eteocles and his supporters. The trilogy won...

. They ask her where the nearest wellspring was. Hypsipyle put Opheltes on the ground in a bed of wild celery and walked away with them, to show them where it was. While she was away, a snake strangled Opheltes.

"After this incident the generals held a funeral celebration for Opheltes and they arranged sport games to honor him. According to one myth this was the beginning of the famous Nemean Games

Nemean Games

The Nemean Games were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were held at Nemea every two years ....

."

After the child's death, he was renamed Archemoros ("the forerunner of death").

The University of California at Berkeley's excavations at Nemea since 1973 have uncovered the likely site of the shrine of Opheltes, an open air structure rebuilt several times since the 6th c. BC.

Opheltes was also a shipmate of Acoetes

Acoetes

Acoetes was the name of two men in Greek and Roman mythology. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus. Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon, who warned about the Trojan Horse.-Bacchic myth:...

 who was opposed to kidnapping Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

.

Opheltes was also a son of Peneleus

Peneleus

In Greek mythology, Peneleus, son of Hippalcimus and Asterope, was an Achaean soldier in the Trojan War.Prior to the beginning of the war, he was said to have sailed with the Argonauts; he also was one of the suitors of Helen, which obliged him to join in the campaign against Troy. He came from...

, who died in the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

, and the father of Damasichthon

Damasichthon (King of Thebes)

In Greek mythology, Damasichthon, King of Thebes, was son to Opheltes of Thebes, purported to be son to Peneleus , the son of Hippalcimus, son of Itonus, son to Boeotus. As Autesion, king of Thebes, left the city in obedience to an oracle, Damasichthon was designated as his successor...

, a King of Thebes

Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)

See Thebes, Greece for the modern city built on the ancient ruins.Ancient Thebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain...

, and Euryalus

Nisus and Euryalus

Nisus and Euryalus are a pair of friends serving under Aeneas in the Aeneid, the Augustan epic by Vergil. Their foray among the enemy, narrated in Book 9, demonstrates their stealth and prowess as warriors, but ends as a tragedy: the loot Euryalus acquires attracts attention, and the two die...

, who accompanied Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

to Italy.