Trophonius- Greek HeroHero"The Swallowed One"

The Architect Hero

Trophonius and his brother Agamedes were builders. Pausanias names their father as Erginus, king of Orchomenus; Cicero calls them sons of Apollo. Together they built the temple of Apollo at Delphi and the treasury of King Hyrieus at Boeotian Hyria.

The Treasury Robbery and Death

When building the treasury of Hyrieus, the brothers left one stone removable so they could return and steal the king's wealth. After repeated thefts, Hyrieus set a trap that caught Agamedes. Trophonius could not free him. Knowing his brother's face would condemn them both, he cut off Agamedes' head and fled with it to Lebadea, where the earth opened and swallowed him alive.

Plutarch and Cicero record a different ending: Apollo told the brothers that his greatest gift would come on the seventh day after they finished his temple. On that day they died in their sleep.

The Oracle at Lebadea

The place where the earth took Trophonius became an oracle. Pausanias describes the ritual in detail. The consultant spent days in purification. He bathed in the river Hercyna, sacrificed to the gods of the precinct, then drank from two springs: first Lethe, to forget, then Mnemosyne, to remember what he was about to see.

Then the descent. He climbed down a ladder into a narrow pit and thrust his legs into a small hole in the floor. An unseen force seized him and pulled him below. Underground, he received prophecy through visions or sounds or both. He emerged feet-first, and priests seated him on the Chair of Mnemosyne to ask what he had seen.

Consultants came out pale and unable to laugh. The Greeks said of anyone wearing a haunted look: "He has consulted Trophonius."