Menoeceus

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In Greek mythology, Menoeceus (/məˈnsiəs, -sjs/; Ancient Greek: Μενοικεύς Menoikeús "strength of the house" derived from menos "strength" and oikos "house") was the name of two Theban characters. They are related by genealogy, the first being the grandfather of the second.

  • Menoeceus, father of
    Spartoi through his grandfather Echion.[1][2][3][4]
  • Menoeceus, son of Creon and possibly
    Seven Against Thebes, the play by Aeschylus. Some records say that that Menoeceus was the grandfather of Creon and Jocasta and his son (Creon and Jocasta's father) was named Oscalus. The Greek writer Pausanias visited the site of Menoeceus tomb in the 2nd century AD and recorded that Menoeceus committed suicide "in obedience to the oracle from Delphi, at the time when Polyneices and the host with him arrived from Argos. On the tomb of Menoeceus grows a pomegranate-tree. If you break through the outer part of the ripe fruit, you will then find the inside like blood. This pomegranate-tree is still flourishing."[8][9]

A later Menoeceus was a contemporary of Epicurus, to whom the philosopher wrote a letter summarizing his ethical doctrines.[10]

Notes

  1. ^ Apollodorus, 2.4.5 & 3.5.7
  2. ^ Euripides, Phoenician Women 10
  3. ^ Scholia ad Euripides, Phoenician Women 942
  4. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 67
  5. ^ Euripides, Phoenician Women 768
  6. ^ Euripides, Phoenician Women 913 & 930
  7. ^ Apollodorus, 3.6.7
  8. ^ Pausanias, 9.25.1
  9. ^ Statius, Thebaid 10.756
  10. ^ Epicurus. "Letter to Menoceus". The Internet Classics Archive, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved March 2, 2013.

References