Pierus of Emathia

In Greek mythology, Pierus (Ancient Greek: Πίερος), was the king of Emathia[1] in Macedonia. He was the eponym of Pieria and Mt. Pierus.[2] Pierus was credited to be the first to write in the praise of the Muses.[3]

For other uses, see Pierus.

Family

According to Marsyas of Pella (c. 330 BC), Pierus was the son of Makednos[4] by a local woman and brother of Amathus (Emathus), eponym of Emathia but Solinus (9.10) contradicts this idea because according to him Pierus was unrelated and older than Makednos.

In the Suda, he was described as a son of Linus, the son of Thracian Aethusa and in turn Pierus was the father of Oeagrus making him the grandfather of the musician Orpheus.[5] Her wife was known to be Methone, a nymph[6] while others called her Pierus' sister.[7] In the account of Antoninus Liberalis, Pierus sprung from the soil (an autochthon).[1]

Most of the myths recounted Pierus to have fathered the Pierides by Antiope, nymph of Pieria[8] or Euippe of Paionia.[9] An unnamed daughter of Pierus was said to be the mother of Orpheus, not the Muse Calliope as what the Greeks believed according to Pausanias.[10]

Comparative table of Pierus' family
Relation Name Sources
Homer Marsyas Cicero Ovid Pausanias Antoninus Suda Tzetzes
Parentage Linus ✓ ✓
Macednos ✓
autochthon ✓
Wife Methone ✓
Antiopa ✓
Euippe ✓
Sibling Amathus ✓
Methone ✓
Children Oeagrus ✓ ✓
Pierides ✓ ✓ ✓
mother of Orpheus ✓
Linus ✓

Mythology

Pierus was famous for his daughters, the Emathides, nine maidens whom he named after the nine Muses. These girls, believing that their skills were a great match to the Muses, afterwards entered into a contest with the Muses. Being conquered, they were transformed into birds called Colymbas, Iyngx, Cenchris, Cissa, Chloris, Acalanthis, Nessa, Pipo, and Dracontis.[11]

In the account of Pausanias, Pierus has emigrated from Thrace into Boeotia and established the worship of the Muses at Thespiae.[2]

See also

References
  1. Antoninus Liberalis. Metamorphoses Chapter 9: Emathides
  2. Pausanias. Description of Greece, Book 9.29.3
  3. Pseudo-Plutarch. De musica, section 3
  4. Chatzopoulos, Miltiadēs V. Macedonian Institutions Under the Kings: a historical and epigraphic study. Kentron Hellēnikēs kai Rōmaïkēs Archaiotētos, 1996, ISBN 960-7094-89-1, p. 240. "This substitution of Emathia for what was practically in Classical times Bottia, and its joint use with Pieria in order to describe the original cradle of the Macedonian kingdom and not Polybios' innovations, but can be traced back at least to the second half of the fourth century, when Marsyas of Pella made Amathos and Pieros the eponymous of these two subdivisions..."
  5. Suda Encyclopedia s.v. Homer.
  6. Of the Origin of Homer and Hesiod and their Contest, Fragment 1. Translated by Evelyn-White.
  7. John Tzetzes. Chiliades, 6.53 line 933
  8. Cicero. De Natura Deorum 3.21
  9. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5.268
  10. Pausanias. Description of Greece, Book 9.30.4
  11. Ovid. Metamorphoses 5.677–78

Sources
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