Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "ITHOMI Acropolis MESSINIA" .
ITHOMI (Acropolis) MESSINIA
Lyciscus (Lukiskos). A Messenian, descended from Aepytus. In the first Messenian
war, the Messenians, having consulted the Delphic oracle, were told that to save
their country, they must offer by night, to the gods below, an unstained virgin
of the blood of the Aepytidae. The lot fell on the daughter of Lyciscus; but Epebolus,
the seer, pronounced her to be unfit for the sacrifice, as being no daughter of
Lyciscus at all, but a supposititious child. Meanwhile, Lyciscus, in alarm, took
the maiden with him and withdrew to Sparta. Here she died; and several years after,
as he was visiting her tomb, to which he often resorted, he was seized by some
Arcadian horsemen, carried back to Ithome, and put upon his trial for treason.
His defence was, that he had fled, not as being hostile to his country or indifferent
to her fate, but in the full belief of what Epebolus had declared. This being
unexpectedly confirmed by the priestess of Hera, who confessed that she was herself
the mother of the girl, Lyciscus was acquitted. (Paus. iv. 9, 12.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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