Thya, a daughter of the Cephisus.——A place near Delphi.
Thyădes (singular, Thyas), a name of the Bacchanals. They received it from Thyas daughter of Castalius, and mother of Delphus by Apollo. She was the first woman who was priestess of the god Bacchus. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 302.—Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 4.
Thyămis, a river of Epirus falling into the Ionian sea. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 11.—Cicero, bk. 7, Letters to Atticus, ltr. 2.
Thyana, a town of Cappadocia. Strabo.
Thyatira, a town of Lydia, now Akisar. Livy, bk. 37, chs. 8 & 44.
Thybarni, a people near Sardes. Diodorus, bk. 17.
Thyesta, a sister of Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse.
Thyestes, a son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and grandson of Tantalus, debauched Ærope the wife of his brother Atreus, because he refused to take him as his colleague on the throne of Argos. This was no sooner known, than Atreus divorced Ærope, and banished Thyestes from his kingdom; but soon after, the more effectually to punish his infidelity, he expressed a wish to be reconciled to him, and recalled him to Argos. Thyestes was received by his brother at an elegant entertainment, but he was soon informed that he had been feeding upon the flesh of one of his own children. This Atreus took care to communicate to him by showing him the remains of his son’s body. This action appeared so barbarous, that, according to the ancient mythologists, the sun changed his usual course, not to be a spectator of so bloody a scene. Thyestes escaped from his brother, and fled to Epirus. Some time after he met his daughter Pelopea in a grove sacred to Minerva, and he offered her violence without knowing who she was. This incest, however, according to some, was intentionally committed by the father, as he had been told by an oracle, that the injuries he had received from Atreus would be avenged by a son born from himself and Pelopea. The daughter, pregnant by her father, was seen by her uncle Atreus and married, and some time after she brought into the world a son, whom she exposed in the woods. The life of the child was preserved by goats; he was called Ægysthus, and presented to his mother, and educated in the family of Atreus. When grown to years of maturity, the mother gave her son Ægysthus a sword, which she had taken from her unknown ravisher in the grove of Minerva, with hopes of discovering who he was. Meantime Atreus, intent to punish his brother, sent Agamemnon and Menelaus to pursue him, and when at last they found him, he was dragged to Argos, and thrown into a close prison. Ægysthus was sent to murder Thyestes, but the father recollected the sword, which was raised to stab him, and a few questions convinced him that his assassin was his own son. Pelopea was present at this discovery, and when she found that she had committed incest with her father, she asked Ægysthus to examine the sword, and immediately plunged it into her own breast. Ægysthus rushed from the prison to Atreus, with the bloody weapon, and murdered him near an altar, as he wished to offer thanks to the gods on the supposed death of Thyestes. At the death of Atreus, Thyestes was placed on his brother’s throne by Ægysthus, from which he was soon after driven by Agamemnon and Menelaus. He retired from Argos, and was banished into the island of Cythera by Agamemnon, where he died. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Sophocles, Ajax.—Hyginus, fable 86, &c.—Ovid, Ibis, li. 359.—Lucan, bk. 1, li. 544; bk. 7, li. 451.—Seneca, Thyestes.
Thymbra, a small town of Lydia near Sardes, celebrated for a battle which was fought there between Cyrus and Crœsus, in which the latter was defeated. The troops of Cyrus amounted to 196,000 men, besides chariots, and those of Crœsus were twice as numerous.——A plain in Troas, through which a small river, called Thymbrius, falls in its course to the Scamander. Apollo had there a temple, and from thence he is called Thymbræus. Achilles was killed there by Paris, according to some. Strabo, bk. 13.—Statius, bk. 4, Sylvæ, poem 7, li. 22.—Dictys Cretensis, bk. 2, ch. 52; bk. 2, ch. 1.
Thymbræus, a surname of Apollo. Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 323; Æneid, bk. 3, li. 85. See: [Thymbra].