Lophis (river)
River in ancient Boeotia associated with a myth of its origin
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Lophis (Ancient Greek: Λοφίς) was a river in the territory of Haliartus in ancient Boeotia. According to a tradition recorded by Pausanias, the river was formed from the blood of a young man named Lophis, who was killed by his father following an oracle at Delphi.[1]
Mythology
According to Pausanias, the land around Haliartus was originally arid and without water. One of its rulers therefore went to Delphi to ask how water could be obtained. The Pythia instructed him to kill the first person he encountered on his return to Haliartus. The first person he met was his son Lophis, whom he struck with his sword.[1]
Lophis remained alive after being wounded and ran about, and wherever his blood flowed, water rose from the ground. The resulting river was named Lophis after him.[1]
Geography
Several streams were associated with the territory of Haliartus, including the Ocalea, Hoplites, Permessus and Olmeius.[2]
The remains of Haliartus are situated near the modern village of Mazi, Boeotia. The 19th-century geographer William Martin Leake identified the stream on the western side of the ancient city with the Hoplites of Plutarch and considered it apparently identical with the Lophis of Pausanias.[3]
Identification with the Hoplites
Lophis has traditionally been identified with the stream called the Hoplites (Ὁπλίτης) by Plutarch in his account of the death of the Spartan commander Lysander at the Battle of Haliartus in 395 BC. Plutarch states that Lysander was attacked after crossing the Hoplites, which a Phocian identified as the stream flowing past Haliartus.[4]
Plutarch connects the stream with an oracle that Lysander had supposedly received before the battle, which warned him of a "sounding Hoplites" and an "earthborn dragon". The Haliartian who killed Lysander, Neochorus, was said to have carried a dragon as the emblem on his shield, which was interpreted as the fulfilment of the oracle.[4]
Plutarch also records an alternative tradition according to which the Hoplites was a winter torrent near Coroneia, where it joined the Philarus, rather than a stream flowing past Haliartus.[4] The identification of the Hoplites with Lophis is therefore uncertain.
Pausanias records both the river Lophis and the tomb of Lysander at Haliartus, but does not explicitly identify Lophis with the Hoplites.[5][1]