Sperchīa, a town of Thessaly, on the banks of the Sperchius. Ptolemy.
Sperchīus, a river of Thessaly, rising on mount Œta, and falling into the sea in the bay of Malia, near Anticyra. The name is supposed to be derived from its rapidity (σπερχειν, festinare). Peleus vowed to the god of this river the hair of his son Achilles, if ever he returned safe from the Trojan war. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 198.—Strabo, bk. 9.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 23, li. 144.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 13.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 557; bk. 2, li. 250; bk. 7, li. 230.
Spermatophăgi, a people who lived in the extremest parts of Egypt. They fed upon the fruits that fell from the trees.
Speusippus, an Athenian philosopher, nephew, as also successor, of Plato. His father’s name was Eurymedon, and his mother’s Potone. He presided in Plato’s school for eight years, and disgraced himself by his extravagance and debauchery. Plato attempted to check him, but to no purpose. He died of the lousy sickness, or killed himself, according to some accounts, B.C. 339. Plutarch, Lysander.—Diogenes Laërtius, bk. 4.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 4, ch. 1.
Sphacteriæ, three small islands opposite Pylos, on the coast of Messenia. They are also called Sphagiæ.
Spherus, an arm-bearer of Pelops son of Tantalus. He was buried in a small island near the isthmus of Corinth, which, from him, was called Sphetia. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 10.——A Greek philosopher, disciple to Zeno of Cyprus, 243 B.C. He came to Sparta in the age of Agis and Cleomenes, and opened a school there. Plutarch, Agis.—Diodorus.
Sphinx, a monster which had the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the paws of a lion, and a human voice. It sprang from the union of Orthos with the Chimæra, or of Typhon with Echidna. The Sphinx had been sent into the neighbourhood of Thebes by Juno, who wished to punish the family of Cadmus, which she persecuted with immortal hatred, and it laid this part of Bœotia under continual alarms by proposing enigmas, and devouring the inhabitants if unable to explain them. In the midst of their consternation the Thebans were told by the oracle, that the Sphinx would destroy herself as soon as one of the enigmas she proposed was explained. In this enigma she wished to know what animal walked on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening. Upon this, Creon king of Thebes promised his crown and his sister Jocasta in marriage to him who could deliver his country from the monster by a successful explanation of the enigma. It was at last happily explained by Œdipus, who observed that man walked on his hands and feet when young, or in the morning of life, at the noon of life he walked erect, and in the evening of his days he supported his infirmities upon a stick. See: [Œdipus]. The Sphinx no sooner heard this explanation than she dashed her head against a rock, and immediately expired. Some mythologists wish to unriddle the fabulous traditions about the Sphinx, by the supposition that one of the daughters of Cadmus, or Laius, infested the country of Thebes by her continual depredations, because she had been refused a part of her father’s possessions. The lion’s paw expressed, as they observe, her cruelty, the body of the dog her lasciviousness, her enigmas the snares she laid for strangers and travellers, and her wings the despatch she used in her expeditions. Plutarch.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 326.—Hyginus, fable 68.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 5.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Ovid, Ibis, li. 378.—Strabo, bk. 9.—Sophocles, Œdipus Tyrannus.
Sphodrias, a Spartan who, at the instigation of Cleombrotus, attempted to seize the Piræus. Diodorus, bk. 15.
Sphragidium, a retired cave on mount Cithæron in Bœotia. The nymphs of the place, called Sphragitides, were yearly honoured with a sacrifice by the Athenians, by order of the oracle of Delphi, because they had lost few men at the battle of Platæa. Pliny, bk. 35, ch. 6.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 3.—Plutarch, Aristeides.
Spicillus, a favourite of Nero. He refused to assassinate his master, for which he was put to death in a cruel manner.