Tropæa, a town of the Brutii.——A stone monument on the Pyrenees, erected by Pompey.——Drusi, a town of Germany where Drusus died, and Tiberius was saluted emperor by the army.
Trophonius, a celebrated architect, son of Erginus king of Orchomenos in Bœotia. He built Apollo’s temple at Delphi, with the assistance of his brother Agamedes, and when he demanded of the god a reward for his trouble, he was told by the priestess to wait eight days, and to live during that time with all cheerfulness and pleasure. When the days were passed, Trophonius and his brother were found dead in their bed. According to Pausanias, however, he was swallowed up alive in the earth; and when afterwards the country was visited by a great drought, the Bœotians were directed to apply to Trophonius for relief, and to seek him at Lebadea, where he gave oracles in a cave. They discovered this cave by means of a swarm of bees, and Trophonius told them how to ease their misfortunes. From that time Trophonius was honoured as a god; he passed for the son of Apollo, a chapel and a statue were erected to him, and sacrifices were offered to his divinity when consulted to give oracles. The cave of Trophonius became one of the most celebrated oracles of Greece. Many ceremonies were required, and the suppliant was obliged to make particular sacrifices, to anoint his body with oil, and to bathe in the waters of certain rivers. He was to be clothed in a linen robe, and, with a cake of honey in his hand, he was directed to descend into the cave by a narrow entrance, from whence he returned backwards after he had received an answer. He was always pale and dejected at his return, and thence it became proverbial to say of a melancholy man, that he had consulted the oracle of Trophonius. There were annually exhibited games in honour of Trophonius at Lebadea. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 37, &c.—Cicero, Tusculanæ Disputationes, bk. 1, ch. 47.—Plutarch.—Pliny, bk. 34, ch. 7.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 3, ch. 45.
Tros, a son of Ericthonius king of Troy, who married Callirhoe the daughter of the Scamander, by whom he had Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymedes. He made war against Tantalus king of Phrygia, whom he accused of having stolen away the youngest of his sons. The capital of Phrygia was called Troja from him, and the country itself Troas. Virgil, bk. 3, Georgics, li. 36.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 20, li. 219.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 12.
Trossŭlum, a town of Etruria, which gave the name of Trossuli to the Roman knights who had taken it without the assistance of foot soldiers. Pliny, bk. 32, ch. 2.—Seneca, ltrs. 86 & 87.—Persius, bk. 1, li. 82.
Trotilum, a town of Sicily. Thucydides, bk. 6.
Truentum, or Truentinum, a river of Picenum, falling into the Adriatic. There is also a town of the same name in the neighbourhood. Silius Italicus, bk. 8, li. 434.—Mela, bk. 2.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 13.
Trypherus, a celebrated cook, &c. Juvenal, bk. 11.
Tryphiodorus, a Greek poet and grammarian of Egypt in the sixth century, who wrote a poem in 24 books on the destruction of Troy, from which he excluded the α in the first book, the β in the second, and the γ in the third, &c.
Tryphon, a tyrant of Apamea in Syria, put to death by Antiochus. Justin, bk. 36, ch. 1.——A surname of one of the Ptolemies. Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 14, li. 31.——A grammarian of Alexander in the age of Augustus.
Tubantes, a people of Germany. Tacitus, bk. 1, ch. 51.