Opheltes

[ uh-fel-teez ]

noun

, Classical Mythology.

1. the son of King Lycurgus of Nemea who was killed in infancy by a serpent and in whose memory the Nemean games were held.

Example Sentences

Many objects dug from the earth or drawn from the legends of Nemea could be used to promote the ancient Greek site: the mythological Nemean Lion slain by Hercules in the first of his seven feats; weights lifted by competitors during its ancient athletics; the bronze statue of the baby Opheltes, whose death is said to have inspired the games which rivaled those at Olympia further west.

From Time

Opheltes is ruined, and, in words which Greene nearly copied, "Phœmonoe not brooking the cumbersome haunt of so beggerly a guest, with outragious tearms flatly forbad him her house."

From Project Gutenberg

Not thus did my warrior father Opheltes rear and nurture me amid the Argive terror and the agony of Troy, nor thus have I borne myself by thy side while following noble Aeneas to his utmost fate.

From Project Gutenberg

There is also a mound of earth said to be the tomb of Lycurgus, the father of Opheltes.

From Project Gutenberg

Lycurgus is the same as Lycus, Lycaon, Lycoreus, the Sun: and Opheltes, his supposed offspring, is of the same purport.

From Project Gutenberg