Mentor
(
Μέντωρ).
1.
Son of Alcimus of Ithaca, friend of Odysseus, who, on departing for Troy, confided to him
the care of his house and the education of Telemachus (
Odyss. ii. 225). His
name has hence become a proverbial one for a wise and faithful adviser or monitor.
Athené assumed his shape when she brought Telemachus to Pylus, and when she aided
Odysseus in fighting the suitors and made peace between him and their relatives.
2.
The most celebrated master of the toreutic art among the ancients (Pliny ,
Pliny H. N. xxxiii. 154). As some of his works
were destroyed at the burning of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, in B.C. 356, obviously he
lived before that event, and probably flourished in the best period of Greek art, though he
is never mentioned by any earlier Greek writer than Lucian (
Lexiphanes, 7). He
worked mainly in silver. The orator Crassus paid 100,000 sesterces ($4000) for two cups
chased by his hand, but, from regard to their value, refrained from using them. Varro
possessed a statue wrought by him in bronze; and one Diodorus at Lilybaeum, two fine cups in
the style of those adorned with figures of animals by Thericles, the Corinthian potter.
Martial (iii. 41) mentions a cup with a lifelike representation of a lizard, and often refers
to him (cf.
Juv.viii. 104).
3.
A Rhodian Greek who with his brother Memnon served the Persian Artabazus and later King
Nectanabis of Egypt. He aided Tennes, king of Sidon, against Darius Ochus, and, when Tennes
went over to the Persians, entered the service of Darius, who made him satrap of the western
part of Asia Minor (Arrian,
Anab. vii. 419).