ABSTRACT
Son of Phyleus, king of Dulichium (later named Leucas). He was among Helen’s suitors and led forty ships to the Trojan War, but was shipwrecked off Euboea on his way home.
(‘black foot’) A great seer, who founded an important family of prophets. Melampus was the son of the Thessalians Amythaon and Idomene, who migrated to Messenia: he and his brother Bias were brought up in Pylos. When Melampus accompanied King Polyphantes into the country, a serpent bit one of the king’s slaves, and the king killed it. Melampus, however, found the nest containing its young in an oak-tree. He piously cremated the parent’s body and reared the young snakes, who repaid him by licking his ears when he
was asleep, so that, when he awoke, he found that he could understand the speech of animals and birds. Melampus also had relations with Apollo, whom he met beside the River Alpheius, and with Dionysus, whose cult he helped to propagate. As a result he became an expert prophet.
