In Greek mythology, Pieris was one of the names given for the slave who was the mother, by Menelaus, of Megapenthes.[1] Homer's Odyssey, and the geographer Pausanias, mention that Megapenthes was the illegitimate son of Menelaus, king of Mycenaean Sparta, by a slave, without naming her.[2] But according to the mythographer Apollodorus:
- Menelaus had ... by a female slave Pieris, an Aetolian, or, according to Acusilaus, by Tereis, he had a son Megapenthes"[3]
Other sources give other names for the slave who bore Megapenthes.[4]
Notes
editReferences
edit- Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Fowler, R. L., Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0198147411.
- Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1.
- Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Tripp, Edward, Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). ISBN 069022608X.