Editing Mopsus

{{Short description|Seer in Greek mythology}}
{{other uses}}

'''Mopsus''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɒ|p|s|ə|s}}; [[Ancient Greek]]: Μόψος, ''Mopsos'') was the name of one of two famous seers in [[Greek mythology]]; his rival being [[Calchas]]. A historical or legendary ''Mopsos'' or ''Mukšuš'' may have been the founder of a house in power at widespread sites in the coastal plains of [[Pamphylia]] and [[Cilicia]] (in today's [[Turkey]]) during the early [[Iron Age]].

== Mythological figures ==

* [[Mopsus (son of Manto)|Mopsus]], son of [[Manto (daughter of Tiresias)|Manto]] either by [[Rhacius]] or [[Apollo]].<ref>Apollodorus; Mythological Library; E; VI; 3 to 5 / VI; 19</ref>
* [[Mopsus (Argonaut)|Mopsus]], an [[Argonauts|Argonaut]] and son of [[Ampyx]] by a [[nymph]].<ref>''[[Argonautica]]'' I, pp. 65–68, 1502–1536); also [[Ovid]], ''Metamorphoses'' IV, pp. 618–621; [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'', pp. 14, 128, 172; [[John Tzetzes|Tzetzes]], ''Ad Lycophronem'', pp. [https://topostext.org/work/860#881 881], [https://topostext.org/work/860#980 980].</ref>{{AI-generated source|date=November 2024}}
* Mopsus, a [[Thracians|Thracian]] commander who had lived long before the [[Trojan War]]. Along with Sipylus the [[Scythia]]n, this Mopsus had been driven into exile from [[Thrace]] by its king [[Lycurgus of Thrace|Lycurgus]]. Sometime later, he and Sipylus defeated the Libyan [[Amazons]] in a pitched battle, in which their queen [[Myrine]] was slain, and the Thracians pursued the surviving Amazons all the way to Libya.
* Mopsus is also the name chosen by [[Virgil]] for the young singer who makes a song about the death of [[Daphnis]] in [[Eclogue 5]]. The name recurs in [[Eclogue 8]] as the rival who is to marry Nysa, beloved of the singer Damon.

==Historical person==
The Christian chronicler [[Eusebius of Caesarea]] was as convinced of Mopsus' historicity as his pagan predecessors and contemporaries: in his parallel chronologies he entered under the year corresponding to 1184/83 ''Mopsus reigned in Cilicia''.<ref>''Mopsus regnauit in Cilicia a quo Mopsicrenae et Mopsistae'' (i.e. Mopsucrene and Mopsuestia): Eusebius, quoted by Jerome, noted in Lane Fox 2008:215 and note 23.</ref> In the early 16th century, German chronicler [[Johannes Aventinus]] placed him in the reign of [[Ingaevone]], in ca. 22nd century BC, along the [[Sava|Sava River]], where, allegedly, he defeated Myrine.<ref>Aventinus, Johannes / Riezler, Sigmund von / Lexer, Matthias von: Johannes Turmair's, genannt Aventinus, sämmtliche Werke, Bd. 4,1, Bayerische Chronik; Buch I, München, 1882: 100-101: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00016721/images/index.html?id=00016721&groesser=&fip=193.174.98.30&no=&seite=106; See also German first edition of J. Aventinus' Bavarian Chronicles, Frankfurt, 1566: XXIXr</ref>

Names similar to ''Mopsos'', whether Greek or Anatolian, are also attested in Near Eastern languages. Since the discovery of a bilingual [[Hieroglyphic Luwian]]-[[Phoenician language|Phoenician]] inscription in [[Karatepe]] (in [[Cilicia]]) in 1946–7, it has been conjectured that Mopsos was a historical person.<ref>Barnett 1953; Hammond 1975: 679-680; Burkert 1992: 52; Finkelberg 2005: 140-159; Jasink & Marino, forthcoming. The Phoenician text has been republished in K. Lawson Younger 1998.</ref> The inscription is dated to c. 700 BC, and the person speaking in it, ’-z-t-w-d (Phoenician) / Azatiwada (Luwian), professes to be king of the d-n-n-y-m / Hiyawa, and describes his dynasty as "the house of M-p-š / Muksa". Apparently, he is a descendant of Mopsus. The relationship between the earlier form Muksa, preserved in Luwian transmission, and the later form M-p-š / Mopsos, preserved in Phoenician transmission, is indicative of the evolution of Greek labiovelars and can hardly be explained otherwise.<ref>Yakubovich 2015:37</ref> The Phoenician name of the people recalls one of the [[Homer]]ic names of the Greeks, ''[[Danaans|Danaoi]]'' with the ''-m'' plural, whereas the Luwian name ''Hiyawa'' probably goes back to Hittite ''Ahhiyā(wa)'', which is, according to most interpretations, the "[[Achaeans (Homer)|Achaean]]", or [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean Greek]], settlement in [[Asia Minor]]. Ancient Greek authors ascribe a central role to Mopsus in the colonization of [[Pamphylia]].<ref>[[Theopompus]], ''FGrH'' 115 F 103; [[Callisthenes]], ''FGrH'' 124 F 32. According to [[Eusebius of Caesarea|Eusebius]], ''De laudibus Constantini'' 13.5, the Cilicians worshipped Mopsus as a god, possibly as the mythical founder. A statue base of the Roman age found in Sillyum in Pamphylia bears Mopsus' name ({{lang|grc|ΜΟΨΟΥ}}).</ref>

A 13th-century date for the historical Mopsus may be confirmed by a [[Hittite language|Hittite]] tablet from [[Boğazkale]] which mentions a person called ''Mukšuš'' in connection with [[Maduwatta|Madduwattaš]] of [[Arzawa]] and [[Attarsiya]] of [[Achaeans (Homer)#Hittite documents|Ahhiyā]]. This text is dated to the reign of [[Arnuwanda III|Arnuwandaš III]]. Therefore, some scholars<ref>e.g. Finkelberg 2005: 140-159.</ref> associate Mopsus' activities along the coast of Asia Minor and the [[Levant]] with the [[Sea Peoples]]' attacking [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] in the beginning of the 12th century BC, one of those peoples being the ''[[Denyen]]''—comparable to the ''d-n-n-y-m'' of the Karatepe inscription. The Sea People identification is, however, questioned by other scholars.<ref>e.g. Drews 1993: 48-72.</ref>

The name of the king erecting the Karatepe inscription, Azatiwada, is probably related to the toponym ''Aspendos'', the name of a city in [[Pamphylia]] founded by the [[Argives]] according to [[Strabo]] (14.4.2). The name of the city is written {{lang|grc|ΕΣΤFΕΔΙΙΥΣ}} (Estwediius) on coins of the 5th century BC. Presumably, it was an earlier Azatiwada, the ancestor of our king, that gave his name to the city. The name does not appear to be Greek of origin (= Luwian "Lover of the Sun God [Wa(n)da]"?,<ref>Barnett 1953.</ref> or "Sun-god (Tiwad) love (him)", according to a more recent interpretation<ref>Yakubovich 2010:112</ref>). The ethnicity of Mopsus himself is not clear: The fragmentary Lydian historiographer [[Xanthus (historian)|Xanthus]] made him a Lydian campaigning in Phoenicia.<ref>Xanthus, ''FGrH'' 765 F 17.</ref> If the transmission of [[Nicolaus of Damascus]], who quotes him, is believable, Xanthus wrote the name with ''-ks-'', like in the Hittite and Luwian texts. Given that [[Lydian language|Lydian]] also belongs to the [[Anatolian languages|Anatolian language family]], it is possible that Xanthus relied on a local non-Greek tradition according to which Mukšuš was a Luwian.{{citation needed|date=February 2012}}

The name Mopsus or Mopsos is also mentioned in the more recently discovered [[Çineköy inscription]]. This is also a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual inscription, similar to the [[Karatepe inscription]].

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
*Anna Margherita Jasink and Mauro Marino, forthcoming. "[http://kubaba.univ-paris1.fr/recherche/antiquite/mopsoinglesem.pdf The West Anatolian origins of the Que kingdom dynasty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090117144351/http://kubaba.univ-paris1.fr/recherche/antiquite/mopsoinglesem.pdf |date=2009-01-17 }}", in: ''Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Hittitology, Roma 5-9 settembre 2005''.
*[[Charles Anthon]], ''A Classical Dictionary'' (1842).
*[[John Lemprière]], 1850. [[Lemprière's Bibliotheca Classica|''Lemprière's Classical Dictionary'']]. ("Mopsus," p.&nbsp;422). (London. Bracken Books) Reprint 1994. paperback. {{ISBN|1-85891-228-8}}
* Ilya Yakubovich, 2010. ''Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language''. Leiden: Brill.
* Ilya Yakubovich, 2015. Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia, ''Anatolian Studies'' 65, pp.&nbsp;35–53.
* K. Lawson Younger, 1998. "The Phoenician Inscription of Azatiwada: An Integrated Reading", ''Journal of Semitic Studies'' 43, pp.&nbsp;11–47.
*[[Margalit Finkelberg]], 2005. ''Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic Tradition'' (Cambridge University Press).
*[[N. G. L. Hammond]], 1975. "The End of Mycenaean Civilization and the Dark Age. (b) The Literary Tradition for the Migrations", in: ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', vol. II, part 2, ed. by J.E.S. Edwards, C.J. Gadd, N.G.L. Hammond and E. Sollberger, (Cambridge University Press), pp.&nbsp;678–712.
* R. D. Barnett, 1953. "Mopsos", in: ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 73 (1953), pp.&nbsp;140–143.
* [[Robert Drews]], 1994: ''The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.'' (Princeton University Press).
*Robin Lane Fox, 2008. ''Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer'', pp.&nbsp;206–26.
*[[Scholia]] to [[Lycophron|Lycophron's]] ''Alexandra'', marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes and others from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881). [https://topostext.org/work/860 Online version at the Topos Text Project.]. [[iarchive:lycophronisalexa02lycouoft/page/n5/mode/2up|Greek text available on Archive.org]]
*[[Walter Burkert]], 1992. ''The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Early Archaic Greece'' (Cambridge:Harvard University Press).

==External links==
*{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Mopsus}}

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[[Category:Argonauts]]
[[Category:Characters in the Argonautica]]
[[Category:Denyen]]
[[Category:Greek mythology of Anatolia]]
[[Category:Characters in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Archaeological sources on Greek mythology]]