Olympus
1. The elder Olympus belongs to the mythica genealogy of Mysian and Phrygian flute-players--Hyagnis, Marsyas, Olympus--to each of whom the invention of the flute was ascribed, and under whose names we have the mythical representation of the contest between the Phrygian auletic and the Greek citharoedic music : some writers made him the father (instead of son, or disciple, and favourite of Marsyas), but the genealogy given above was that more generally received. Olympus was said to have been a native of Mysia, and to have lived before the Trojan war.
The compositions ascribed to him were
νόμοι εἰς τοὺς Θεοὺς, that is, old melodies appropriated to the worship of particular gods, the origin of which was so ancient as to be unknown, like those which were attributed to Olen and Philannion. Olympus not unfrequently appears on works of art, as a boy, sometimes instructed by Marsyas, and sometimes as witnessing and lamenting his fate. (Suid. s.v. Plut.
de Alus. pp. 1132, e., 1133, e.;
Apollod. 1.4.2;
Hyg. Fab. 165,
273; Ovid,
Aletuan. 6.393,
Eleg. 3.3; MARSVAS.) It may fairly be assumed that this elder and mythical Olympus was invented through some mistake respecting the younger and really historical Olympus. (Respecting this confusion, see Muüiller,
History of Greek Literature, p. 156.)
