Amphily̆tus, a soothsayer of Acarnania, who encouraged Pisistratus to seize the sovereign power of Athens. Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 62.
Amphimăche, a daughter of Amphidamus, wife of Eurystheus. Apollodorus, bk. 2.
Amphimăchus, one of Helen’s suitors, son of Cteatus. He went to the Trojan war. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 10.—Hyginus, fable 97.——A son of Actor and Theronice. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 3.
Amphimĕdon, a Libyan killed by Perseus, in the court of Cepheus. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, li. 75.——One of Penelope’s suitors, killed by Telemachus. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 22, li. 283.
Amphinŏme, the name of one of the attendants of Thetis. Homer, Iliad, bk. 18, li. 44.
Amphinŏmus, one of Penelope’s suitors, killed by Telemachus. Homer, Odyssey, bks. 16 & 22.
Amphinŏmus and Anapius, two brothers, who, when Catana and the neighbouring cities were in flames, by an eruption from mount Ætna, saved their parents upon their shoulders. The fire, as it is said, spared them while it consumed others by their side; and Pluto, to reward their uncommon piety, placed them after death in the island of Leuce, and they received divine honours in Sicily. Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 4.—Strabo, bk. 6.—Silius Italicus, bk. 14, li. 197.—Seneca, de Beneficiis.
Amphīon, was son of Jupiter, by Antiope daughter of Nycteus, who had married Lycus, and had been repudiated by him when he married Dirce. Amphion was born at the same birth as Zethus, on mount Citheron, where Antiope had fled to avoid the resentment of Dirce; and the two children were exposed in the woods, but preserved by a shepherd. See: [Antiope]. When Amphion grew up, he cultivated poetry and made such an uncommon progress in music, that he is said to have been the inventor of it, and to have built the walls of Thebes at the sound of his lyre. Mercury taught him music, and gave him the lyre. He was the first who raised an altar to this god. Zethus and Amphion united to avenge the wrongs which their mother had suffered from the cruelties of Dirce. They besieged and took Thebes, put Lycus to death, and tied his wife to the tail of a wild bull, which dragged her through precipices till she expired. The fable of Amphion’s moving stones and raising the walls of Thebes at the sound of his lyre, has been explained by supposing that he persuaded, by his eloquence, a wild and uncivilized people to unite together and build a town to protect themselves against the attacks of their enemies. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 11.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, chs. 5 & 10.—Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 6; bk. 6, ch. 20; bk. 9, chs. 5 & 17.—Propertius, bk. 3, poem 15.—Ovid, de Ars Amatoria, bk. 3, li. 323.—Horace, bk. 3, ode 11; Art of Poetry, li. 394.—Statius, Thebiad, bk. 1, li. 10.——A son of Jasus king of Orchomenos, by Persephone daughter of Mius. He married Niobe daughter of Tantalus, by whom he had many children, among whom was Chloris the wife of Neleus. He has been confounded by mythologists with the son of Antiope, though Homer in his Odyssey speaks of them both, and distinguishes them beyond contradiction. The number of Amphion’s children, according to Homer, was 12, six of each sex; according to Ælian, 20; and according to Ovid, 14, seven males and seven females. When Niobe boasted herself greater, and more deserving of immortality than Latona, all her children, except Chloris, were destroyed by the arrows of Apollo and Diana; Niobe herself was changed into a stone, and Amphion killed himself in a fit of despair. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 11, lis. 261 & 282.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 12, li. 36.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, fable 5.——One of the Argonauts. Hyginus, fable 14.——A famous painter and statuary, son of Acestor of Gnossus. Pliny, bk. 36, ch. 10.——One of the Greek generals in the Trojan war. Homer, Iliad, bk. 13, li. 692.
Amphipŏles, magistrates appointed at Syracuse by Timoleon, after the expulsion of Dionysius the younger. The office existed for above 300 years. Diodorus, bk. 16.
Amphipŏlis, a town on the Strymon, between Macedonia and Thrace. An Athenian colony, under Agnon son of Nicias, drove the ancient inhabitants, called Edonians, from the country, and built a city, which they called Amphipolis, i.e. a town surrounded on all sides, because the Strymon flowed all around it. It has been also called Acra, Strymon, Myrica, Eion, and the town of Mars. It was the cause of many wars between the Athenians and Spartans. Thucydides, bk. 4, ch. 102, &c.—Herodotus, bk. 5, ch. 126; bk. 7, ch. 114.—Diodorus, bks. 11, 12, &c.—Cornelius Nepos, Cimon.