Mopsus, a celebrated prophet, son of Manto and Apollo, during the Trojan war. He was consulted by Amphimachus king of Colophon, who wished to know what success would attend his arms in a war which he was going to undertake. He predicted the greatest calamities; but Calchas, who had been a soothsayer of the Greeks during the Trojan war, promised the greatest successes. Amphimachus followed the opinion of Calchas, but the opinion of Mopsus was fully verified. This had such an effect upon Calchas that he died soon after. His death is attributed by some to another mortification of the same nature. The two soothsayers, jealous of each other’s fame, came to a trial of their skill in divination. Calchas first asked his antagonist how many figs a neighbouring tree bore. “Ten thousand except one,” replied Mopsus, “and one single vessel can contain them all.” The figs were gathered, and his conjectures were true. Mopsus, now to try his adversary, asked him how many young ones a certain pregnant sow would bring forth. Calchas confessed his ignorance, and Mopsus immediately said that the sow would bring forth on the morrow 10 young ones, of which only one should be a male, all black, and that the females should all be known by their white streaks. The morrow proved the veracity of his prediction, and Calchas died by excess of the grief which this defeat produced. Mopsus after death was ranked among the gods; and had an oracle at Malia, celebrated for the true and decisive answers which it gave. Strabo, bk. 9.—Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 3.—Ammianus, bk. 14, ch. 8.—Plutarch, de Defectu Oraculorum.——A son of Ampyx and Chloris, born at Titaressa in Thessaly. He was the prophet and soothsayer of the Argonauts, and died at his return from Colchis by the bite of a serpent in Libya. Jason erected to him a monument on the sea-shore, where afterwards the Africans built him a temple where he gave oracles. He has often been confounded with the son of Manto, as their professions and their names were alike. Hyginus, fables 14, 128, 173.—Strabo, bk. 9.——A shepherd of that name in Virgil, Eclogues.
Morgantium (or ia), a town of Sicily, near the mouth of the Simethus. Cicero, Against Verres, bk. 3, ch. 18.
Morĭni, a people of Belgic Gaul, on the shores of the British ocean. The shortest passage to Britain was from their territories. They were called extremi hominum by the Romans, because situate on the extremities of Gaul. Their city, called Morinorum castellum, is now Mount Cassel, in Artois; and Morinorum civitas, is Terouenne, on the Lis. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 726.—Cæsar, bk. 4, Gallic War, ch. 21.
Moritasgus, a king of the Senones at the arrival of Cæsar in Gaul. Cæsar, Gallic War.
Morius, a river of Bœotia. Plutarch.
Morpheus, the son and minister of the god Somnus, who naturally imitated the grimaces, gestures, words, and manners of mankind. He is sometimes called the god of sleep. He is generally represented as a sleeping child of great corpulence, and with wings. He holds a vase in one hand, and in the other are some poppies. He is represented by Ovid as sent to inform by a dream and a vision the unhappy Alcyone of the fate of her husband Ceyx. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 11, fable 10.
Mors, one of the infernal deities born of Night, without a father. She was worshipped by the ancients, particularly by the Lacedæmonians, with great solemnity, and represented not as an actually existing power, but as an imaginary being. Euripides introduces her in one of his tragedies on the stage. The moderns represent her as a skeleton armed with a scythe and a scymetar.
Mortuum mare. See: [Mare Mortuum].
Morys, a Trojan killed by Meriones during the Trojan war. Homer, Iliad, bk. 13, &c.
Mosa, a river of Belgic Gaul falling into the German ocean, and now called the Maese or Meuse. The bridge over it, Mosæpons, is now supposed to be Maestricht. Tacitus, Histories, bk. 4, ch. 66.