Busīris
（
Βούσιρις).
1.
A reputed king of Egypt, son of Poseidon and Lysianassa, daughter of Epaphus, or (as
Plutarch states, from the Samian Agatho ) of Poseidon and Anippé, daughter of the
Nile. This king, in consequence of an oracle, offered up strangers on the altar of Zeus; for
Egypt having been afflicted with a dearth for nine years, a native of Cyprus named Thrasius,
a great soothsayer, came thither, and said that it would cease if they sacrificed a stranger
every year to Zeus. Busiris sacrificed the prophet himself first of all, and then continued
the practice. When Heracles, in the course of his wanderings, came into Egypt, he was seized
and dragged to the altar; but he burst his bonds, and slew Busiris, his son Amphidamas, and
his herald Chalbes. Historically, there is no such king as Busiris, and the myth is in all
probability only a legend of the former sacrifice of human victims to
Osiris (q.v.), of which name Busiris is only a corruption.
2.
There were several cities named Busiris in ancient Egypt, the most celebrated being placed
by Herodotus in the middle of the Delta. It possessed a noble temple of Isis. See Herod. ii.
59.
