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Ogyges

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Traditions

Boeotian

According to the tradition followed by Pausanias, Ogygus was an autochthonous king of the Ectenes, who were the first to occupy the land surrounding Boeotian Thebes. The Ectenes were wiped out by a pestilence, and the rule of Thebes passed to other native Boeotian tribes, the Hyantes and Aones. Later a Phoenician army led by Cadmus conquered Thebes, and built the Cadmeia.

Another tradition has Ogygus as an early king of Boeotia, probably the son of Boeotus, but not the founder of Thebes, which was instead founded by Amphion and Zethus, twin sons of Zeus while a third tradition makes Cadmus the original founder of Thebes. Photius and the Suda have Cadmus (usually the son of Agenor) as the son of Ogyges.

Thebans were sometimes referred to as the Ogygidae (i.e. the descendants of Ogyges). The adjective "Ogygian" was applied to Thebes, and one of the seven gates of Thebes, which looked to Pausanias to be the oldest, was called the Ogygian. The western Boeotian village of Alalcomenae, located near Haliartus, was claimed to be named after Alalcomenia, a daughter of Ogyges. The Boeotian town of Aulis was also claimed to have been named after a daughter of Ogyges.

Praxidicae

• Pausanias, 9.33.3

"At Haliartus there is in the open a sanctuary of the goddesses they call Praxidicae (those who exact punishments)."

• Frazer, p. 168 note to 33.3 "the goddesses, whom the call Praxidicae

'Photius (Lexicon, s.v. ... and Sudias (s.v. ...) say: "Praxidice is a ... But Dionysius in his work on Foundations says that Ogyges had three daughters Alalcomenia, Thelxinoea, and Aulis, who were afterwards named Praxidicae." ... In some verses of Panyasis (quoted by Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. ...) Praxidice is called an Ogygian nymph who was married to Tremilus."

• See [1]:

"[page 23] ... Thebes is called Ogygia after Ogygos who was there first king. Korinna says that Ogygos was the son of Boiotos. From him also are called the gates of Thebes.³⁵

"Aside from Korinna, no late archaic or early classical source describes Ogygos"

"[page 24] The figure Ogygos ..."

"[page 237 Ogygia/Ogygos: 23–25"

• • Need to get this work

• See Vernant, p. 131

Attic

Ogyges also, at some point, became a part of Attic pre-history. One tradition, mentioned by Pausanias, made Ogyges the father of the eponymous hero of the Attic town of Eleusis, site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, while according to Sextus Julius Africanus, writing after 221 CE, Ogyges was the founder of Eleusis. And though Cecrops was usually considered to be the first king of Athens, according to Africanus, Ogyges was a pre-Cecropian king of Attica at the time of a great deluge, even earlier than the flood of Deucalion, which left Attica kingless for 189 years until Cecrops.

Other

Egyptian Thebes

Possibly due to a conflation with Boeotian Thebes, Ogyges was also associated with Egyptian Thebes. According to Tzetzes, Ogyges was a king of Eqyptian Thebes, and during the Hellenistic period the adjective "ogygian" could be a applied to Eqyptian as well as Boeotian Thebes.

Lycia

According to Stephanus Byzantius, Ogyges was the son of Termerus

• Bryce, p. 22 note 25

"Ὠγυγίην in line 2 should probably be interpreted as 'the daughter of Ogygos' (see Kalinka, 1920 (TAM. II/1), 97), and according to Steph. Byz., Ogygos was the son of Termera (s.v. Ὠγυγία)"

• Hare, p. 350

" The epithet ... The confusion of Ogyges with Jupiter Ogoa of the Carians, produced the geneaology by Steph. Byz. Ὠγυγία by which he was made the son of Temera."

See also Fontenrose p. 237:

"²⁷ ... The Lycians, who were related to the Lydians, were called Ogygioi, according to Steph. Byz. 473 Holst."

• Stephanus Byzantius, writing in the 6th century, says Ogyges was the first king of Lycia.

References

• Stephens, Susan A., Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, University of California Press, 2003. ISBN 9780520927384.
• Bryce, Trevor, Jan Zahle, The Lycians, Museum Tusculanum Press, 1986. ISBN 9788772890234.

Current Text

Ogyges, Ogygus or Ogygos (Greek: Ὠγύγης or Ὤγυγος) is a primeval mythological ruler in ancient Greece, generally of Boeotia, but an alternative tradition makes him the first king of Attica.

Etymology

Though the original etymology and meaning are "uncertain", the name Ogyges may be related with the Greek Okeanos (Ὠκεανός, ocean) the Titan who personified the great world ocean/river, believed to surround the earth disc. The Greek word Ogygios (Ὠγύγιος), meaning Ogygian, came to mean "primeval, primal," or "from earliest ages" and also "gigantic".

Ancient sources

Ogyges is also known as king of the Ectenes or Hectenes who according to Pausanias were the first inhabitants of Boeotia, where the city of Thebes would later be founded. As such, he became the first ruler of Thebes, which was, in that early time, named Ogygia (Ὠγυγία) after him. Subsequently, poets referred to the Thebans as Ogygidae (Ὠγυγίδαι). Pausanias, writing from his travels in Boeotia in the 2nd century CE, said: "The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets."

But there are a number of competing stories about him in Greek mythology. According to the scholiast of Lycophron, it was the Egyptian Thebes that was the site of his kingdom similarly with Aeschylus. Stephanus Byzantius, writing in the 6th century, says Ogyges was the first king of Lycia. In yet another version of the story, the Boeotian tradition is combined with that of another part of Greece: Ogyges was king of the Ectenes, who were the first people to occupy Boeotia, but he and his people later settled the area then known as Acte (Akte). The land was subsequently called Ogygia in his honor but later known as Mount Athos. Sextus Julius Africanus, writing after 221 CE, adds that Ogyges founded Eleusis.

Stories of his descent also differ widely. Besides Ogyges being one of the aborigines of Boeotia, there are tales that regard him as the son of Poseidon, Boeotus, or even Cadmus. Theophilus, in the 4th century (ad Autol.), says he was one of the Titans.

He was the husband of Thebe, from whom the land of Thebes in Greece is said to derive its name. His children are listed variously as two sons: Eleusinus (for whom the city Eleusis was named) and Cadmus (noted above as his father in other traditions); and three daughters: Aulis, Alalcomenia, and Thelvinia.

According to Africanus, he lived at the time of the Exodus of the House of Israel from Egypt.

Ogyges is possibly the namesake for the phantom island Ogygia, mentioned in Homer's Odyssey. Another possibility for the island is the Niobid named Ogygia.

The historian Josephus mentions Ogyges as the name of the oak by which the Hebrew patriarch Abram dwelt while he lived near Hebron.

The deluge of Ogyges

Map of ancient Boeotia.The area around the Lake Copais down to Attica is related with the Ogygian deluge

The area outside of Attica including Boeotia was called by some ancient sources Graïke, the region where is mentioned the first worldwide flood in Greek mythology, the deluge of Ogyges. The Ogygian deluge occurred during his reign and derives its name from him, though some sources regard it as a local flood, such as an inundation of Lake Copais, a large lake once in the center of Boeotia. Other sources see it as a flood associated with Attica. This latter view was accepted by Africanus, who says "that great and first flood occurred in Attica, when Phoroneus was king of Argos, as Acusilaus relates."

When this deluge has been considered global, a similarity is noticed with Noah's flood in the Bible. Various dates have been assigned to the event, including 9500 BCE (Plato), 2136 BCE (Varro), and 1793 BCE (Africanus).

Ogyges survived the deluge but many people perished. After his death, due to the flood's devastation, Attica was without kings for 189 years, until the time of Cecrops (Cecrops Diphyes). Africanus says, "But after Ogyges, on account of the great destruction caused by the flood, what is now called Attica remained without a king one hundred and eighty-nine years until the time of Cecrops. For Philochorus asserts that that Actaeon who comes after Ogyges, and the fictitious names, never even existed."

It seems the deluge of Deucalion of Greek-mythology is the Greek version of the older legend. Deucalion and Pyrrha were the only survivals after the great deluge. His son Hellen who became ruler of Phthia in southern Thessaly was the patriarch of Hellenes.

Sources

Ancient

Hesiod

• Theogony 806

" primeval (ὠγύγιον) water of Styx

Aeschylus 6th-5th c. BC

• Aeschylus, Persians 975

"They beheld ancient (ὠγυγίους) ... Athens"

• Persians 37

"ancient (ὠγυγίους) Thebes [in Egypt]"

• Eumenides 1039

"Under the primeval (ὠγυγίοισιν) caverns of the earth".

Apollonius Rhodius 3rd c. BC

Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica 3.1178

"Ogygian Thebes"

Nonnus

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 3.205 ff.

"Ogygos^b made proof of the first roaring deluge, as he cut the air through the highclimbing waters, when all the earth was hidden under the flood, when the tops of the Thessalian rocks were covered, when the summit of the Pythian rock near the clouds on high was bathed in the snow-cooled^c flood. There was a second deluge, when tempestuous waters covered the circuit of the round earth in a furious flood, when all mortal men perished, and Deucalion alone with his mate Pyrrha in a hollow ark cutting the swirling flood of infinite deluge went on his eddying voyage through the air turned water. When the third time rain from Zeus flooded the solid earth ..."

Pausanias

• Pausanias, 1.38.7

"The hero Eleusis, after whom the city is named, some assert to be a son of Hermes and of Daeira, daughter of Ocean; there are poets, however, who have made Ogygus father of Eleusis. Ancient legends, deprived of the help of poetry, have given rise to many fictions, especially concerning the pedigrees of heroes."

• Pausanias, 9.5.1

"The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners."

• Pausanias, 9.5.2

When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is called Cadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Cadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Cadmus made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.

• Pausanias, 9.8.5

"The Crenaean gate and the Hypsistan they so name for the following reason. . . and by the Hypsistan is a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Hypsistus （Most High）. Next after these gates is the one called Ogygian, and lastly the Homoloid gate. It appeared to me too that the name of the last was the most recent, and that of the Ogygian the most ancient."

• Pausanias, 9.19.6

"At this place the Euripus separates Euboea from Boeotia. On the right is the sanctuary of Mycalessian Demeter, and a little farther on is Aulis, said to have been named after the daughter of Ogygus."

• Pausanias, 9.33.3

"At Haliartus there is in the open a sanctuary of the goddesses they call Praxidicae (those who exact punishments)."

• Pausanias, 9.33.5

"Alalcomenae is a small village, and it lies at the very foot of a mountain of no great height. Its name, some say, is derived from Alalcomeneus, an aboriginal, by whom Athena was brought up; others declare that Alalcomenia was one of the daughters of Ogygus."

Polibius

• Polybius 2.41

"In the period before this the state of Achaia was as follows. It was ruled by kings from the time of Tisamenus, son of Orestes, who, being expelled from Sparta on the return of the Heraclidae, formed a kingdom in Achaia. The last of this royal line to maintain his power was Ogyges, whose sons so alienated the people by their unconstitutional and tyrannical government, that a revolution took place and a democracy was established."

(See also Strabo 8. Different Ogyges? see Walbank p28, Robinson p. 73)

Statius

• [2]

Strabo

• Strabo 9.2.4 (= Ephorus FGfH 70 f 119)

Eusebius

• AD 260/265 – 339/340 Eusebius, Chroicon 65, 66

Varro

• Varro, De Re Rustica 3.1.2

"For tradition has it that the oldest of all cities is a Greek one, Thebes in Boeotia, founded by King Ogygus;"

Suda

• s.v. ὼγύγια χαχα (ogygia kaka)

"Said of troublesome things; for it happened that Cadmus, the son of Ogygus,[1] fell into evils on account of his daughters.[2] But better to say that 'Ogygian evils' [means] ancient [ones]: for this is what the phrase indicates.[3]"

• s.v. Ὠγύγιον (Ogygian)

"Ancient,[1] old; or exceedingly large; or because Ogygos was the first to rule Thebes.[2]"

• s.v. Πραξιδίκη (Penalty-Exacter, Punisher)

"A deity,[1] whose head alone is venerated.[2] Mnaseas in his [treatise] On Europe [says] that Soter and his sister Praxidike ['Penalty-Exacter'] had a son Ktesios and daughters Homonoia and Arete, who were called Penalty-Exacters.[3] Dionysios in Foundations [sc. says that it was] daughters of Ogygos -- Alkomeneia, Thelxineia, Aulis -- who were afterwards named Penalty-Exacters.[4]

• s.v. Θελεξίνεια (Thelexineia)

"A daughter of Ogygos."

Perseus

• [3]
• [4]

Modern

• 1841 Anthon, pp. 918–919

• Hare, p. 350

" The epithet ... The confusion of Ogyges with Jupiter Ogoa of the Carians, produced the geneaology by Steph. Byz. Ὠγυγία by which he was made the son of Temera."

• Smith

"Ogygus (Ὠγύγης), or OGYGES, is sometimes called a Boeotian autochthon, and sometimes a son of Boeotus, and king of the Hectenes, and the first ruler of the territory of Thebes, which was called after him Ogygia. In his reign the waters of lake Copais rose above its banks, and inundated the whole valley of Boeotia. This flood is usually called after him the Ogygian. (Paus. 9.5.1; Apollon. 3.1177; Serv. ad Virg. Eel. 6.41.) The name of Ogyges is also connected with Attic story, for in Attica too an Ogygian flood is mentioned, and he is described as the father of the Attic hero Elensis, and as the father of Daeira, the daughter of Oceanus. (Paus. 1.38.7.) In the Boeotian tradition he was the father of Alalcomenia, Thelxinoea and Aulis (Suid. s. v. Πραξιδίκη ; Paus. 9.33.4.) Polybius (4.1) and Strabo (viii. p.384) call Ogyges the last king of Achaia, and some traditions even described him as an Egyptian king. (Tzetz. ad Lyc. 1206.)

• Smith, A Smaller Classical Dictionary p. 276 "OGYGES"

"OGYGES (-is), or OGYGUS (-i), son of Boeotus, and the first ruler of Thebes, which was called after him OGYGIA. In his reign a great deluge is said to have occurred. The name Ogyges is also connected with Attica story, for in Attica an Ogygian flood is likewise mentioned. From Ogyges the Thebans are called by the poets Ogygidae, and Ogygius is used in the sense of Theban."

• Seyffert, A Dictionary of Ancient Antiquities p. 426

"One of the Boeotian autochthones, or aborigines, son of Boeotus or (according to another account) of Poseidon. He was king of the Hectenes, the oldest inhabitants of Boetia, which was visited during is reign by an inundation of Lake Copais, named after him the Ogygian flood"

• Fontenrose, p. 236

"In fact his name is but a synonym of Okeanos, ..."

• Black Athena pp. 83 ff.

• Buck, Robert J., A History of Boeotia, University of Alberta, 1979. ISBN 9780888640512 [5]

• Frazer Apollodorus 3.4 Note 1

"Varro says （Varro, Re Rust. iii.1） that Thebes in Boeotia was the oldest city in the world, having been built by King Ogyges before the great flood."

• Frazer Apollodorus 3.14 Note 1

"Philochorus said, with great probability, that there never was any such person as Actaeus; according to him, Attica lay waste and depopulated from the deluge in the time of Ogyges down to the reign of Cecrops."

• 1986 Bryce, p. 22 note 25

"^25. Ὠγυγίην in line 2 should probably be interpreted as 'the daughter of Ogygos' (see Kalinka, 1920 (TAM. II/1), 97), and according to Steph. Byz., Ogygos was the son of Termera (s.v. Ὠγυγία)"

See

• Praxidike