Apis of Argos
king of Argos in Greek mythology
Apis (; Ancient Greek: Ἄπις derived from apios "far-off" or "of the pear-tree") was a king of Argos in Greek mythology.
Family
Apis was a son of Phoroneus by the nymph Teledice, or Cinna, or Cerdo, or Perimede and brother of Niobe. According to a scholiast on Euripides's Orestes, he was the son of Phoroneus by his first wife Peitho ("Persuasion") and brother to Niobe, Aegialeus, and Europs.
Reign
Apollodorus reports that during his reign, Apis established a tyrannical government and called the Peloponnesus Apia, after his own name, and that he was eventually killed in a conspiracy headed by Thelxion and Telchis. In another passage Apollodorus states that Apis, the son of Phoroneus, was killed by Aetolus; Pausanias, however, gives the latter story in relation to Apis, son of Jason, who was killed by Aetolus during the funeral games celebrated in honor of Azanes. Argus Panoptes, a descendant of his sister Niobe, avenged his murder by putting Thelxion and Telchis to death.
Serapis
Apis, the son of Phoroneus, is said, after his death, to have been worshiped as a god under the name of Serapis (Σάραπις). This confusion is still more manifest in the tradition, that Apis gave his kingdom of Argos to his brother, and went to Egypt, where he reigned for several years afterwards. Apis is spoken of as one of the earliest lawgivers among the Greeks. Both these stories show that Egyptian myths were mixed up with the story of Apis, see Apis (Egyptian mythology).
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This entry incorporates text from “Apis of Argos” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.