In Greek mythology, Orsilochus (Ancient Greek: Ὀρσίλοχος), Ortilochus (Ὀρτίλοχος) or Orsilocus is a name that may refer to:
- Orsilochus, son of the river god Alpheus and Telegone, daughter of Pharis.[1] He was a resident of Pherae[2] and its king after succeeding his grandfather to the throne. It was at his home that Odysseus met Iphitos the son of Eurytus.[3] Orsilochus had at least one son Diocles,[4] his successor, and at least two daughters: Dorodoche, said by some to be the wife of Icarius,[5] and Medusa, the wife of Polybus of Corinth.[6]
- Orsilochus, grandson of the precedent through Diocles, and twin of Crethon. He was the brother of Anticleia. These men fought at Troy under Agamemnon and were killed by Aeneas.[7]
- Orsilochus, a Trojan soldier who was shot dead by the Greek hero, Teucer, during the Trojan War.[8]
- Orsilochus, another Trojan who followed Aeneas to Italy and was killed by Camilla.[9]
- Orsilochus of Argos, who was credited with inventing the four-horse chariot, and, in reward for his invention, was placed among the stars as the constellation Auriga.[10] See also Trochilus.
- Orsilochus, a (perhaps imaginary) son of King Idomeneus of Crete and scion of Minos, renowned as a great runner and the fastest man on Crete, who only appears in a story made up by Odysseus,[11] see below.
- Orsilochus of Crete was mentioned in Book 13 of Homer's Odyssey, when Odysseus makes use of his little-known status in Ithaca to construct an elaborate lie for the benefit of the disguised and fully cognisant Pallas Athena, claiming that he had killed him: "He tried to fleece me of all the booty I had won at Troy, my reward for the long-drawn agonies of war and all the miseries of voyages by sea, merely because I refused to obey his father and serve under him at Troy, and preferred to lead my own command. So, with a friend at my side, I laid an intense ambush for him at the side of the road, and struck him with my bronze spear as he was coming in from the country. There was a pitch-black sky that night covering the heavens, and not a soul saw us; so no-one knew that it was I who had killed him."[12]
- ^ Pausanias, 4.30.2
- ^ Strabo, 8.5.8
- ^ Homer, Odyssey 21.15
- ^ Homer, Iliad 5.547; Odyssey 3.489 = 15.187
- ^ Scholia ad Odyssey 15.16
- ^ Scholia ad Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 775
- ^ Homer, Iliad 5.542–549; Tzetzes, Homerica 80
- ^ Homer, Iliad 8.274
- ^ Virgil, Aeneid 11.636 & 690; Macrobius, Saturnalia 6.6.10
- ^ Hyginus, De astronomia 2.13
- ^ Homer, Odyssey 13.260 ff.
- ^ Homer, Odyssey 13.262–270