Eume'lus
（
*Eu)/mhlos).
1. Of Corinth, the son of Amphilytus, a very ancient Epic poet, belonged, according to some, to the Epic cycle. His name, like Eucheir, Eugrammus, &c., is signifieant, referring to his skill in poetry.
He was of the noble house of the Bacchiadae, and flourished about the 5th Olympiad, according to Eusebius (
Chron. 1), who makes him contemporary with Arctinus. (Comp. Cyril, c.
Julian.i. p. 13;
Clem. Al. Strom. i. p. 144.)
Those of the poems ascribed to him, which appear pretty certainly genuine, were genealogical and historical legends. To this class belonged his (
Corinthian History (
Paus. 2.1.1,
2.2,
3.8 Schol.
ad Apoll. Rhod. 1.148; Tzetz.
Schol. ad Lytcophr. 1024, comp. 174, 480), his
προσόδιον ἐς Δῆλον, from which some lines are quoted by Pausanias, who considered it the only genuine work of Eumelus (4.4.1, 33. §§ 2, 3, 5.19.2), and the
Europia (Euseb.
l. e. Clem. Al. Strom. i. p. 151; Schol.
ad Hom. Il. ii. p. 121.)
He also wrote
Bougonia, a poem on bees, which the Greeks called
βουγόναι and
βουγενεῖς. (Euseb.
l.c.; Varro.
R. R. 2.5.5, ed. Schneid.) Some writers ascribed to him a
Τιτανομαχια, which also was attributed to Arctinus. (
Athen. 7.277d., comp. i. p. 22c.; Schol.
ad Apoll. Rhod. 1.1165.)
The cyclic poem on the return of the Greeks from Troy (
νόστος) is ascribed to Eumelus by a Scholiast on Pindar (
Pind. O. 13.31), who writes the name wrongly, Eumolpus.
The lines quoted by this Scholiast are also given by Pausanias, under the name of Eumelus. (Vossius,
de Hist. Graec. pp. 5, 6, ed. Westermann; Welcker,
die Epische Cyclus, p. 274.)
