Aphareus

• A king of the Messenians; hence his sons Lynceus and Idas are called Ăphărēïa proles, Ov. M. 8, 304.—
• II A centaur, Ov. M. 12, 341 sq.

(Ἀφαρεύς), a son of the Messenian king Perieres and Gorgophone, the daughter of Perseus. (Apollod. 1.9.5.) His wife is called by Apollodorus (3.10.3) Arene, and by others Polydora or Laocoossa. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 1.152; Theocrit. 22.106.) Aphareus had three sons, Lynceus, Idas, and Peisus. He was believed to have founded the town of Arene in Messenia, which he called after his wife. He received Neleus and Lycus, the son of Pandion, who had fled from their countries into his dominions. To the former he assigned a tract of land in Messenia, and from the latter he and his family learned the orgies of the great gods. (Paus. 4.2.3, &c.) Pausanias in this passage mentions only the two sons of Aphareus, Idas and Lynceus, who are celebrated in ancient story under the name of Ἀφαρητίδαι or Ἀφαρητιάδαι, for their fight with the Dioscuri, which is described by Pindar. (Nem. 10.111, &c.) Two other mythical personages of this name occur in Hom. Il. 13.541; Ov. Met. 12.341. [L.S]

(Ἀφαρεύς), an Athenian orator and tragic poet, was a son of the rhetorician Hippias and Plathane. After the death of his father, his mother married the orator Isocrates, who adopted Aphareus as his son. He was trained in the school of Isocrates, and is said to have written judicial and deliberative speeches (λόγοι δικανικοὶ καὶ συμβουλευτικοί). An oration of the former kind, of which we know only the name, was written and spoken by Aphareus on behalf of Isocrates against Megacleides. (Plut. Vit. X. Orat. p. 839 ; Dionys. Isocr. 18, Dinarch. 13; Eudoc. p. 67 ; Suid. s.v. Phot. Bibl. 260.) According to Plutarch, Aphareus wrote thirty-seven tragedies, but the authorship of two of them was a matter of dispute. He began his career as a tragic writer in B. C. 369, and continued it till B. C. 342. He gained four prizes in tragedy, two at the Dionysia and two at the Lenaea. His tragedies formed tetralogies, i. e. four were performed at a time and formed a didascalia; but no fragments, not even a title of any of them, have come down to us. [L.S]

• Apollod. 1.9.2
• king of Messenia: Paus. 3.1.4, Paus. 4.2.4ff.
• founds Arene: Paus. 4.2.4ff., Paus. 4.3.7
• receives Tyndareus: Paus. 3.1.4and Neleus: Paus. 4.2.5
• father of Idas and Lynceus: Apollod. 1.8.2, Apollod. 1.9.17, Paus. 4.2.7
• father of Lynceus, Idas, and Pisus: Apollod. 3.10.3, Apollod. 3.10.4, Apollod. 3.11.2
• his sons slain by Dioscuri: Paus. 4.3.1and not buried at Sparta: Paus. 3.14.7
• tomb of A. at Sparta: Paus. 3.11.11
• A. and his children invoked as heroes by Messenians: Paus. 4.27.6
• their portraits: Paus. 4.31.11