Thamyris

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Thamyris

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Thamyris , son of Philammon

Philammon

In Greek mythology, Philammon was the son of Chione and Apollo . He was an excellent musician, a talent he received from his father. He had two children, Eumolpus and Thamyris....
and the nymph Argiope

Telephassa

In Greek mythology, Telephassa, "far-shining", is a lunar epithet like Telephae that is sometimes substituted for Argiope, the wife of Agenor, according to his name a "leader of men" in Phoenicia, and mother of Cadmus....
, was a Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. Today the name Thrace designates a region spread over southern Bulgaria , northeastern Greece , and European Turkey ....
singer who was so proud of his skill that he boasted he could outsing the Muses. He competed against them and lost. As punishment for his presumption they blinded him, and took away his ability to make poetry and to play the lyre. This outline of the story is told in the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
.

This allusion is taken up in Euripides

Euripides

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Philammon

Telephassa

Thrace

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
' Rhesus, in the Library
Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

The Bibliotheca , in three books, provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople:...
attributed to Apollodorus, and in the Scholia on the Iliad. These later sources add the details that Thamyris had claimed as his prize, if he should win the contest, the privilege of having sex with all the Muses (according to one version) or of marrying one of them (according to another); and that after his death he was further punished in Hades

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
. The story demonstrates that poetic inspiration, a gift of the gods, can be taken away by the gods.

According to Diodorus the mythical singer Linus

Linus (mythology)

Linus may refer to any of three sons of Apollo from Greek mythology:*Son of Apollo and Urania, he was killed by Apollo during a contest.*Son of Apollo and Psamathe, whose father was the King of Argos....
took three pupils, Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
, Thamyris and Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary figure, probably from Thracian origin, venerated by the Greeks and Thracians of the Classical age as a chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes....
, which neatly settles Thamyris's legendary chronology. When Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
briefly sketches the origins of music he credits Thamyris with inventing the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to two very different musical modes or diatonic scales....
and with being the first to play the cithara as a solo instrument with no voice accompaniment.

A lost epic, Titanomachy

Titanomachy (epic poem)

The Titanomachy is a lost epic poem, which is a part of Greek mythology. It deals with the struggle that Zeus and his siblings, the Twelve Olympians, had in overthrowing their father Cronus and his divine generation, the Titan ....
, attributed to the blind Thracian bard Thamyris, himself a legendary figure, was mentioned in passing in an essay On Music that was once attributed to Plutarch

Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
.

Thamyris is said to have been a lover of Hyacinthus

Hyacinthus

Hyacinthus can refer to:*Hyacinth *Hyacinth Excess long comment to prevent listing on...
and thus to have been the first man to have loved another male.

Thamyris is another name for the ancient Greek painter Timarete

Timarete

Timarete was an ancient Art in Ancient Greece Painting. She is the daughter of the painter Micon the Younger of Athens. According to Pliny the Elder, she "scorned the duties of women and practised her father's art." At the time of Archelaus I of Macedon she was best known for a panel painting of the goddess of Diana that was kept at Eph...
and also the name of a Theban who was killed by Actor

Actor (mythology)

Actor is a very common name in Greek mythology. Here is a selection of characters that share this name :#Actor, a king of Phthia, was said to be the son of King Deion of Phocis and Diomede, or of King Myrmidon and Peisidice, daughter of Aeolus....
.

External links

with literary references to Thamyris