User:Paul August/Thoas (king of Lemnos)

Thoas (king of Lemnos)

To Do

Look at

• Aristophanes, Lemnian Women, fr. 373 with note
• Add meeting his grandsons and taking them back to Lemnos, in Euripides' Hypsipyle.
• Collard and Cropp
• Euripides' Hypsipyle fragments
• Grimal
• Parada

Find

• Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica
  • 1.624 (see Smith s.v. Thoas 2)
  • 3.997 (see Smith s.v. Thoas 2)

• Tzetzes ad Lycophron 1374 (see Smith s.v. Thoas 2)

Sources

Ancient

Aeschylus

The Libation Bearers

631-638

Chorus

Indeed the Lemnian¹ holds first place among evils in story: it has long been told with groans as an abominable calamity. Men compare each new horror to Lemnian troubles; and because of a woeful deed abhorred by the gods a race has disappeared, cast out in infamy from among mortals. [635] For no man reveres what is hated by the gods. Is there one of these tales I have gathered that I do not justly cite?

¹ The women of Lemnos, jealous of Thracian slaves, killed their husbands, so that when the Argonauts visited the island they found no men.

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

1.609-626 [Seaton translation on Internet archive: 1.609-626]

There, all at once, the whole male population had been ruthlessly slain by the heinous actions of the women in the previous year. For the men had come to loathe their legitimate wives and rejected them, whereas they maintained a violent passion for the captive women whom they themselves brought back when pillaging Thrace on the opposite shore. For the terrible wrath of Cypris [Aphrodite] was afflicting them, because they had for a long time deprived her of honors. O wretched women, sad victims of insatiable jealousy! Not only did they kill their own husbands along with the women for making love, but the entire race of men as well, to avoid paying any retribution later for the atrocious murder. Alone of all the women, Hypsipyle saved her aged father Thoas, who in fact was ruling over the people. She set him to drift on the sea in a hollow chest, in the hope that he might escape. And fishermen pulled him ashore at what was formerly the island of Oenoe, but later called Sicinus, from that Sicinus whom the water nymph Oenoe bore after making love to Thoas.

4.423–427 [Seaton translation on Internet archive: 4.423–427]

a sacred robe of Hypsipyle, a purple one, which the divine Graces themselves had made for Dionysus on sea-girt Dia. He gave it to his son Thoas thereafter, who in turn left it to Hypsipyle, who gave it among many other treasures to Jason

Apollodorus

1.9.17

These with Jason as admiral put to sea and touched at Lemnos.¹ At that time it chanced that Lemnos was bereft of men and ruled over by a queen, Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, the reason of which was as follows. The Lemnian women did not honor Aphrodite, and she visited them with a noisome smell; therefore their spouses took captive women from the neighboring country of Thrace and bedded with them. Thus dishonored, the Lemnian women murdered their fathers and husbands, but Hypsipyle alone saved her father Thoas by hiding him. So having put in to Lemnos, at that time ruled by women, the Argonauts had intercourse with the women, and Hypsipyle bedded with Jason and bore sons, Euneus and Nebrophonus.

¹ As to the visit of the Argonauts to Lemnos, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.607ff.; Orphica, Argonautica 473ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. vii.468; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. ii.77ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 15. As to the massacre of the men of Lemnos by the women, see further Hdt. 6.138; Apostolius, Cent. x.65; Zenobius, Cent. iv.91; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.609, 615. The visit of the Argonauts to Lemnos was the theme of plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 79, 215ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.51ff. The Lemnian traditions have been interpreted as evidence of a former custom of gynocracy, or the rule of men by women, in the island. See J. J. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht （Stuttgart, 1861）, pp. 84ff. Every year the island of Lemnos was purified from the guilt of the massacre and sacrifices were offered to the dead. The ceremonies lasted nine days, during which all fires were extinguished in the island, and a new fire was brought by ship from Delos. If the vessel arrived before the sacrifices to the dead had been offered, it might not put in to shore or anchor, but had to cruise in the offing till they were completed. See Philostratus, Her. xx.24.

3.6.4

For the Lemnian women, afterwards learning that Thoas had been saved alive,² put him to death and sold Hypsipyle into slavery;

² See above, Apollod. 1.9.17.

E.1.9

There Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and having brought her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.⁴

⁴ Compare Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.997. Others said that Ariadne bore Staphylus and Oenopion to Theseus （Plut. Thes. 20）.

Diodorus Siculus

5.79.1–2

1 Of Rhadamanthys the Cretans say that of all men he rendered the most just decisions and inflicted inexorable punishment upon robbers and impious men and all other malefactors. He came also to possess no small number of islands and a large part of the sea coast of Asia, all men delivering themselves into his hands of their free will because of his justice. Upon Erythrus, one of his sons, Rhadamanthys bestowed the kingship over the city which was named after him Erythrae, and to Oenopion, the son of Minos' daughter Ariadnê, he gave Chios, we are told, although some writers of myths state that Oenopion was a son of Dionysus and learned from his father the art of making wine. 2 And to each one of his other generals, the Cretans say, he made a present of an island or a city, Lemnos to Thoas, Cyrnus to Enyeus, Peparethos to Staphylus, Maroneia to Euanthes, Paros to Alcaeus, Delos to Anion, and to Andreus the island which was named after him Andros. Moreover, because of his very great justice, the myth has sprung up that he was appointed to be judge in Hades, where his decisions separate the good from the wicked. And the same honour has also been attained by Minos, because he ruled wholly in accordance with law and paid the greatest heed to justice.

Euripides

Hypsipyle

test. iiia (Hypothesis) [= P. Oxy. 2455 frs. 14–15, 3652 cols. i and ii.1-15]

Hypsipyle, which begins: ‘(Dionysus), who with (thyrsuses) and fawnskins . . . ’; the plot (is as follows) . . . (about fourteen lines largely lost, perhaps including . . . Amphiaraus . . . arriving . . .) . . . (Hypsipyle) showed (them) the spring . . . (torn asunder by?) a [line 20] serpent . . . the sons born . . . arrived (in the) vicinity in search of their mother, and having lodged with Lycurgus’ wife wanted to compete in the boy’s funeral games; and she having received the [line 25] aforesaid youths as guests approved them, but (planned) to kill their mother (as) having killed (her) son on purpose. . But when Amphiaraus . . . (she?) thanked him . . . (several lines lost) . . . [line 30] the(ir?) mother . . . they found . . . (several lines lost) . . .

fr. 752a

<Hypsipyle>

. . . Staphylos . . . Peparethos . . . of these . . . seasons . . . Hera(’s?) . . . Dionysus . . . a third . . . ::Dionysus . . . Chios . . .5 (one line) . . . [line 5]

Lemnos . . . and I . . .¹ [line 10]

¹ Hypsipyle probably listed four sons of Dionysus (F 752) and Ariadne (cf. Apollodorus, Epit. 1.9): Staphylos (personification of the grape-bunch), Peparethos (identified with the wine-producing island of that name, now Skopelos), Oenopion (‘Son of Wine-face’, often associated with Chios), and Thoas (Hypsipyle’s father, ruler of Lemnos). Alternatively, Peparethos was named as Staphylos’ island (cf. Diodorus 5.79).

fr. 759a

Hypsipyle

(singing her replies)

Alas, the flight that I fled, my son—if you only knew it—from sea-girt Lemnos, because I did not cut off my father’s grey head!¹

¹ See Introduction above on the Lemnian massacre and Hypsipyle’s role in it.

Herodotus

6.138.4

Thereupon the Pelasgians resolved to kill the sons of the Attic women; they did this, and then killed the boys' mothers also. From this deed and the earlier one which was done by the women when they killed their own husbands who were Thoas' companions, a “Lemnian crime” has been a proverb in Hellas for any deed of cruelty.

Homer

Iliad

7.467–469

And ships full many were at hand from Lemnos, bearing wine, sent forth by Jason's son, Euneus, whom Hypsipyle bare to Jason, shepherd of the host. [470]

14.230

and so [Hera] came to Lemnos, the city of godlike Thoas.

21.40–41

For that time had he sold him into well-built Lemnos, bearing him thither on his ships, and the son of Jason had given a price for him;

23.740–749

[740] Then the son of Peleus straightway set forth other prizes for fleetness of foot: a mixingbowl of silver, richly wrought; six measures it held, and in beauty it was far the goodliest in all the earth, seeing that Sidonians, well skilled in deft handiwork, had wrought it cunningly, and men of the Phoenicians brought it over the murky deep, and landed it in harbour, [745] and gave it as a gift to Thoas; and as a ransom for Lycaon, son of Priam, Jason's son Euneos gave it to the warrior Patroclus. This bowl did Achilles set forth as a prize in honourof his comrade, even for him whoso should prove fleetest in speed of foot. [750]

Hyginus

Fabulae

15

[Grant:] WOMEN OF LEMNOS: On the island of Lemnos the women for several years did not make offerings to Venus, and because of her anger their husbands married Thracian wives and scorned their former ones. But the Lemnian women (all except Hypsipyle), instigated by the same Venus, conspired to kill the whole tribe of men who were there. Hypsipyle secretly put her father Thoas on board a ship which a storm carried to the island Taurica. In the meantime, the Argonauts, sailing along, came to Lemnos. When Iphinoe, guardian of the harbour, saw them, she announced their coming to Hypsipyle the queen, to whom Polyxo, by virtue of her middle age, gave advice that she should put them under obligation to the gods of hospitality and invite them to a friendly reception. Hypsipyle bore sons to Jason, Euneus and Deipylus. Delayed many days there, they were chided by Hercules, and departed. Now when the Lemnian women learned that Hypsipyle ahd saved her father, they tried to kill her. She fled, but pirates captured her, took her to Thebes, and sold her as a slave to King Lycus. The Lemnian women gave the names of the Argonauts to the children they had conceived by them.

74

[Grant:] HYPSIPYLE: The seven chieftains on their way to attack Thebes came to Nemea, where Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, as a slave, ...

120

[Grant:] IPHIGENIA: When the Furies were pursuing Orestes, he went to Delphi to inquire when his sufferings would end. The reply was that he should go to the lad of Taurica to King Thoas, father of Hypsipyle,

254

[Grant:] THOSE WHO WERE EXCEPTIONALLY DUTIFUL: Antigone, daughter of Oidipus, gave burial to her brother, Polynices. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, was dutiful toward her brother Orestes. ... Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, to her father, for whom she gave her life.

Ovid

Heroides

6.114–115

I am known as daughter of Minoan Thoas! Bacchus was my grandsire;

Pindar

Pythian 4.252

the race of the Lemnian women, who killed their husbands.

Plutarch

Theseus

20.2

Moreover, some say that Ariadne actually had sons by Theseus, Oenopion and Staphylus, and among these is Ion of Chios, who says of his own native city:—

This, once, Theseus's son founded, Oenopion.

Lactantius Placidus

On Stat. Theb.

4,768 (cited by Grimal s.v. Thoas 1)

p. 252

768 ETSI CAELESTIS ORIGO EST nam pater eius Thoas Liberi patris fuisse filius dicitur. ergo ista neptis Liberi fuit. (For her father Thoas was said to be the son of Liber. Therfore she is the granddaughter of Liber.)

Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica

1.601

1.623

Statius

Thebaid

4.768–769

With downcast eyes the Lemnian [Hypsipyle] makes answer: "No goddess indeed am I, to help you, though of heaven be my descent ...

5.28ff.

The Lemnian [Hypsipyle] sighed, and stayed by shamefaced tears awhile, then makes reply: "Deep are the wounds, O prince, thou biddest me revive, the tale of Lemnos and its Furies and of murder done even in the bed's embrace, and of the shameful sword whereby our manhood perished; ... alas my father! for I am she ... who alone did steal away and hide her father.

5.38–39

I am Hypsipyle, born of renowned Thoas,

5.49ff.

Thus she [Hypsipyle] begins: "Set amid the encircling tides of Aegean Nereus lies Lemnos, ...

5.218—222

I will not now tell of the slaughter of the multitude, cruel as it was but I will recall the woes of my own family: how I beheld thee, fair-haired Cydon, and thee, Crenaeus, with the unshorn locks streaming o'er thy shoulders—my foster-brothers these, born of another sire—

5.236–242

[Hypsipyle:] But when I beheld Alcimede carry her father's head still murmuring and his bloodless sword, my hair stood erect and fierce shuddering horror swept through my frame; that was my Thoas, methoguht, and that my own dread hand! Straightway in agony I rush to my father's chamber. He indeed long while had pondered—what sleep for him whose charge is great?

5.265–266

Then first Thyoneus^b beneath night's cover revealed himself to us in our distress, succouring his son Thoas

5.271–273

[Dionysus:] 'While the fates granted thee, my son, to keep Lemnos mighty and feared by foreign peoples,

5.287–289

I ... entrust my sire, hidden in a vessel's curving beams, to the gods of the sea and the winds ...

5.486–488

[Loeb translation:] Rumour comes to the harbour, telling that Thoas has crossed the deep and reigns in his brother’s ⁴⁵ Chios, that I am innocent, that the burning pyre was empty.

⁴⁵ His name was Oenopion, also son of Bacchus and Ariadne. He ruled Chios; sometimes regarded as founder of the city.

5.498

brought me to your land a slave".

6.340–343

[Loeb translation:] And see, the young sons of Jason, new glory of their mother Hypsipyle, come to a chariot on which both rode: Thoas—family name from his grandfather—and Euneos,

Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica

2.242–259

But now what words can I bring worthy of thy high courage, Hypsipyle, thou the glory, the single honour of thy country’s fall? Thy story told in my song no ages shall make forgotten, so but the Latian annals1 still mark the centuries, and the homes from Ilium founded and the palace of our mighty empire. Daughters and the wives of sons, all beneath one impulse had joined the throng, and now the whole island was ablaze with widespread deeds of horror. But good Hypsipyle, sword in hand, cries: [249] “Straightway flee the city, father, ... Up and flee! Up and be swift to profit by my doubting spirit, and do thou (O have pity!), not I, grasp the sword!” Then she supported his limbs, and covering his head brought him swiftly in silence to Bacchus’ shrine, ... Then in the still shrine she placed him trembling, below the feet and the right hand of the god; gathered beneath the folds of the sacred robe no eye might see him;

2.265–280

she arrays her father in garlands, with the tresses of a youth and the robes of Lyaeus, and causes him to stand in a chariot, while around him she places the cymbals and drums, and the caskets, full of mysterious awe. She herself twined the Bacchanal ivy about her bosom and her limbs, and brandished a vine-leaved wand that smote the air; looking back to see that her father in his robes should grasp the leaf-decked reins, that the horns should stand out from the snow-white coif, and that a sacred goblet should bring Bacchus before men’s eyes. Next with a harsh grating she thrust back the strong doors and moved onward through the city as she cried aloud: “I pray thee, Bacchus, quit thy bloodstained dwelling-place; let the sea cleanse thee of the pollution of death, and let me bring thy snakes again to thy temple when they are purified.” Thus she went safe through the terrors about her path, for the god himself made her to be feared, and consciously she glowed with breathless inspiration. So now she hid the old man far from the cruel city in the silent forest;

2.280–300

yet by day and by night fear troubles her, and the secret of her bold deed, and Erinys, cheated of her victim. No more she dares to join the dances of her companions (once only can the mock rites deceive), nor to visit in secret the glen that hides her father, while she must seek escape for him, poor wretch, by other means. She beheld a ship outworn with the toils of the savage sea, long since offered up to Thetis and to Glaucus, which passing time had scorched with its suns and the moon with her hoarfrosts had worn. Hither with all speed through the darkness and silence of midnight she haled her father from the woods, and thus in sorrow spake: "What a land, my father, what homes lately so prosperous, dost thou leave, spoiled of their manhood! Oh horrible pollution! Oh the ruin wrought in one bitter night! How can I trust thee to so frail a ship, father dear? How can I keep thee here amid these great dangers? Alas, I am paying at length for my crime of cunning! Hear my prayer, goddess, thou who now drivest thy slumbrous car across the ocean. I ask no subject peoples for my father, no bounteous land, no throne; only grant that he go forth from his home and country. When shall I be borne through the midst of the city, happy that my father’s life was saved? When shall I see tears and lamentations in this land?"

2.300–303

[Hypsipyle] finished; [Thoas] in fear escapes in the oarless ship afar, and reaches the dwelling of the Tauri and Diana’s savage shrine. Here didst thou, goddess, put a sword in his hand, and didst appoint him warden of thy cheerless altar;

Modern

Brill's New Pauly

s.v. Myrina

[1] Amazon

Amazon (Dionysius Chalcidensis FHG 4 F 2), daughter of Cretheus, wife of Thoas (schol. Apoll. Rhod. 1,601); eponym of the city of the same name (M. [3]) on Lemnos (Hecataeus FGrH 1 F 138c).

Käppel, Lutz (Kiel)

Collard and Cropp

p. 251

As a young woman she had borne twin sons to Jason during the Argonauts’ visit to Lemnos, but Jason took these sons with him to Colchis and Hypsipyle later had to flee the island after refusing to kill her father when the other women of Lemnos massacred their menfolk. Seized by marauders, she was sold as a slave to Lycurgus, priest at the rural sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea, and later became nurse to Opheltes, son of Lycurgus and his wife Eurydice. Meanwhile Jason died, probably at Colchis, and left his sons to be raised by his comrade Orpheus in Thrace. They were eventually reunited there with their grandfather, returned with him to Lemnos, and set out to find their mother. In the play, they reach Nemea just as the army of the Seven is passing by on its march to Thebes, and Hypsipyle admits them to the house without recognizing them. ... Hypsipyle’s sons compete in the games, a recognition is effected, and thus redeemed she returns with them to Lemnos at the end of the play.

p. 252

[the play] begins with Hypsipyle telling her personal history in a prologue speech (F 752, 752a–b). As she re-enters the house Euneos and Thoas arrive seeking a night’s shelter (F 752c);

p. 253

How the recognition between mother and sons came about is unclear; some later accounts mention a continuing threat to Hypsipyle from Eurydice or from Lycurgus on his return, or even from her own unrecognized sons, but this is difficult to accommodate in the play after Amphiaraus’ seemingly decisive intervention, nor is there any hint of it in Amphiaraus’ parting words (F 759a.1584–6). Probably the focus was on the games, the recognition process, and the redemption of Hypsipyle from slavery. The games will have been reported by a messenger, and the twins’ identity may have been revealed when they were proclaimed by name as sons of Jason and Hypsipyle after winning the [p. 254] foot-race (see test. va below with note). A gold ornament in the shape of a vine or grape-bunch probably served as a proof of their identity (see test. iv below with note).

Etymologicum Magnum

s.v. Μυρίννα (595.20)

s.v. Σίχινος (712.51)

Gantz

p. 345

The Women of Lemnos

First in the list of adventures of the Argonautai is, in almost all accounts, their putting-in at Lemnos. whre they find that the women of the island have killed all the men except one. We have seen that the Iliad knows of the visit, since Eunos of Lemnos is in that poem a son borne to Jason by Hypsipyle, the leader of the women (Il. 7.467–71). Two plays in what I'm assuming to have been Aischylos' Argo tetralogy were entitled Hypsipyle and Lemniai (or Lemnioi) and must have dealt with the events in question, but nothing survives beyond the fact that in Hypsipyle the title figure and the other women refuse to allow the crew to land until they have promised themselves in sexual union (p. 352 R, apub Σ AR 1.769). In the Chooephoroi we find simply a reference to the Lemnian horror as something known and loathed by all, and this, following the examples of Skylla and Althaia in the same ode, is surely the same deed familiar elsewhere (Cho 631-36). Pindar in Pythian 4 treats the matter briefly but explicitly: the Lemnian women are "husband-slayers"; Iason and his men arrive, engage in atheletic contests (so also in Ol. 4), and share the women's beds (Py 4-251-54). Herodotus claims that they killed all the men previously on the island, including Hypsipyle's father Thoas (6.138.4). ... [in Apollonius' account AR 1.609-26)] the lemnian women [slay] their husbands ... and then in fear all the other men on the island as well; only Thoas, father of Hypsipyle, is spared, because his daughter puts him in a chest and sends it forth into the sea. Apollodorus tells the same story, [ApB 1.9.17). Others authors agree, and presumably this was the tradition known in earlier times.

p. 345

The scholia to Pindar ... [the games] honored Hypipyle's father Thoas (Σ Py 4.450a).

p. 346

In any event, the union of Iason and Hypsipyle produces at least one child Euneos, and usually a second, who is variously Thoas (Euripides, see below), or Nebrophonos (ApB 1.9.17), or Deipylos (Fab 15).

Grimal

s.v. Thoas 1

One of the sons of Dionysus and Ariadne (Tables 21 and 28). He was sometimes said to be the son not of Dionysus but of Theseus, as were his brothers Oenopian and Staphylus. He was suppossedly born on the island of Lemnos, and he reigned over the city of Myrina, whose eponym was his wife. By her he had a daughter HYPSIPYLE, who played a role in the legend of the Argonauts. When the women of Lemnos decided to massacre all the men on the island as the result of the curse of Aphrodite, Hypsipyle decided to spare Thoas, with the result that he was the only man on the island to survive the massacre. Hypsipyle gave him the sword with which she was supposed to kill him, and brought him in disguise to the temple of Dionysus where she hid him. The next morning she took him to the coast, dressed as Dionysus, on the god's ritual chariot, on the pretext of purifying the god of the night's murders. Thoas managed to put to sea in an old boat, and landed at Tauris. Another tradition claims that he landed on the island of Sicinos (one of the Cyclades), which then bore the name Oenoe. There was a story that he reached the island of Chios, where his brother Oenopian was ruler. When the women of Lemnos learnt that Thoas had been saved, they sold his daughter Hypsipyle as a slave.

p. 513

Thoas (1) Apoll. Rhod. Arg 1,634ff.; 4.424ff.; Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.4; Epit 1,9; Lact. Plac. on Stat. Theb. 4,768; Diod. Sic. 5.79; Ovid, Her. 6; Hyg. Fab. 15; 74; 120-1; 254; 261; Val. Flacc. Arg. 2.242ff.; Euripides, Hypsipyle (fragments ed. G. Bond, 1963)

Hard

p. 384

One woman alone had broken the agreement, HYPSIPYLE, the daughter of the king and present Queen of the island, who had saved her aged father Thoas by secretly sending him out to sea in a chest (or putting him on a ship, orhiding him away in the palace). ... Jason stayed at the palace with Hypsipyle, who bore him two sons, Thoas (or Nebrophonos) and Euneos.

Smith 1854

s.v. Sicinos

a small island in the Aegaean sea, one of the Sporades, lying between Pholegandros and Ios, and containing a town of the same name. (Scylax, p. 19; Strab. x. p.484; Ptol. 3.15.31.) It is said to have been originally called Oenoë from its cultivation of the vine, but to have been named Sicinos after a son of Thoas and Oenoë. (Steph. B. sub voce Apollon. 1.623; Schol. ad loc.; Plin. Nat. 4.12. s. 23; Etym. M. p. 712. 49.)

Smith 1873

s.v. Thoas 2

A son of Dionysus and Ariadne. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 3.997; Stat. Theb. 4.769.) He was king of Lemnos and married to Myrina, by whom he became the father of Hypsipyle and Sicinus. (Hom. Il. 14.230; Diod. 5.79; Schol. ad Apollon. 1.601; Hygin. Fab. 15, 120 ; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 1374.) When the Lemnian women all the men in the island, Hypsipyle saved her father Thoas, and concealed him. (Apollod. 1.9.17.) Afterwards, however, he was discovered by the other women, and killed (Apollod. 3.6.4), or he escaped to Tauris (Hygin. Fab. 15), or to the island of Oenoe near Euboea, which was henceforth called Sicinus. (Schol. ad Apollon. 1.624.)

s.v. Thoas 4

A son of Borysthenes, and king of Tauris, into whose dominions Iphigenia was carried by Artemis, when she was to have been sacrificed. He was killed by Chryses. Ant. Lib. 27 ; Hyg. Fab. 121; Eurip. Iphig. Taur.)

Tripp

s.v. Thoas 2

A king of Lemnos. A son of Dionysus and Ariadne, Thoas ruled Lemnos at the time when the women killed all the males on the island. His daughter Hypsiplye, secretly hid him and aided him in escaping, either by putting him on a boat for the land of the Taurians or by setting him adrift in a chest. According to the latter account, the chest reache the island of Oenoë, in the southern Cyclades. There it was found by some fisherman. Rescued, Thoas had by the water-nymph Oenoë a son, after whom the island was renamed Sicinus. Some say however that Thoas was discovered by the Lemnian women and killed. Hyginus confuses this Thoas with Thoas the king of the Taurians. [Apollonius Rhodius 1.620-626; Apollodorus 1.9.17; Hyginus Fabulae, 15, 254.]