Trophonius

Family: Boeotian · Role: sacred figure · First appears: Book 4 · Chapter 16

At Lebadea, Aristomenes descended to Trophonius’s sacred shrine on the Pythian Priestess’s instructions and recovered his shield, which he dedicated there as a votive offering. After the Thebans won their victory, they offered the shield to Trophonius again. In Book 8, Trophonius and Agamedes built a temple to Poseidon; they also made the bridal-bed for Amphitryon as he prepared to marry Alcmena.

In Book 9, Erginus became father of Trophonius and Agamedes, though another account says Trophonius was the son of Apollo. The brothers built Apollo’s temple at Delphi and a treasury for Hyrieus. During a robbery, Agamedes was trapped, and Trophonius cut off his brother’s head; “Thereupon the earth gaped and swallowed up Trophonius in the grove of Lebadea”. Demeter, called Europa, was said to have nursed Trophonius, and he instructed Saon in the ritual and routine of the oracle. By the first year of the 58th Olympiad, the fourth temple at Delphi, built of stone by Trophonius and Agamedes, had burnt down.