Sybaris (mythology)

For other uses, see Sybaris (disambiguation).

Sybaris or Lamia of Mount Cirphis, Greece, was a legendary cave-dwelling giant beast that devoured both livestock and humans. It was hurled from an overhanging rock and killed by the hero Eurybatus. Though precise physical description is given in the primary source, it has been hypothesized by modern commentators that she must have been a dragon or an anguiped.

Mythology

According to the Greek myth, recorded by Antoninus Liberalis, Sybaris or Lamia was a giant beast (Greek: θηρίον μέγα και υπερφυές^[1]) that dwelled on Mount Cirphis and terrorized the countryside of Krisa, situated a little southwest of Delphi (although the Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo suggests that Krisa was the ancient name for Delphi^[2]), devouring livestock and people.

The people of the region asked the Oracle of Delphi how to end the depredations. The god Apollo answered that a young man should be offered to the beast to achieve peace from it. The young and handsome Alcyoneus, son of Diomos and Meganeira, was selected to be the victim, but the young hero Eurybatus (Eurybarus), son of Euphemos and a descendant of the river god Axios, and who by divine inspiration was passing through the region, was overcome with love for Alcyoneus and became determined to save him. He took his place as the victim and hurled the dragon from the mountainside, striking it against the rocks where a fountain sprung up.

This spring was later named "Sybaris" by the locals, and was the namesake of the city of Sybaris (in what is now Italy), founded by the Locrians.^[3]

Interpretations

Although the primary text only refers to the Lamia-Sybaris as a giant beast,^[1] and gives no particulars on her physical description regarding any serpentine features,^[4] modern commentators have given circumstantial evidence suggesting she was a dragoness, due to paralleling stories of the male dragon Python, that also despoiled the Delphi region.^[1][5]

Antoninus Liberalis gave "Lamia" as an alternate name for the creature, perhaps conflating Sybaris with the better known Lamia.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

1. Fontenrose (1959), pp. 44–45.
2. Hymn to Pythian Apollo, l. 254–74: Telphousa recommends to Apollo to build his oracle temple at the site of "Krisa below the glades of Parnassus".
3. Antoninus Liberalis, 8 as cited in Boeus' Ornithogonia, quoted by Ogden (2013), p. 105
4. Ogden (2013), p. 105.
5. Ogden (2013), p. 105 gives the parallel with the dragon at Thespiae.

References

• Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.

• Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 8
• Ogden, Daniel (2013). Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press. pp. 99–. ISBN 9780199925117. ISBN 0199323747
• Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy (1959). Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520040915.