Apomyius (Ancient Greek: Ἀπόμυιος, lit. 'driving away the flies') was an epithet of Zeus at Olympia. On one occasion, when Heracles was offering a sacrifice to Zeus at Olympia, he was annoyed by hosts of flies, and in order to get rid of them, he offered a sacrifice to Zeus Apomyius, whereupon the flies withdrew across the river Alpheius. From that time the Eleans sacrificed to Zeus under this name.1
According to a fragment of Antiphanes, during the festival which included the ancient Olympic Games, the sacrifice of an ox was performed to prevent the flies from encroaching upon the site. Aelian writes in his De Natura Animalium, though, that the flies did not come across to Olympia's side of the Alfeios river, even if a sacrifice had not been performed.2
References
References
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, Volume II: Books 3-5 (Laconia, Messenia, Elis 1), translated by W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library No. 188, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1926. ISBN 978-0-674-99207-8. Harvard University Press. Perseus Digital Library.
- Schwabl, Hans, "Zeus I. Epiklesen", in Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, pp. 253–376, Band X, Halbband A, edited by Konrat Ziegler, Stuttgart, J. B. Metzler, 1972. Wikisource.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). "Apomyius". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 247.