In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, Phemonoe was a Greek poetess of the ante-Homeric period. She was said to have been the daughter of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

, his first priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

ess at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

, and the inventor of the hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

 verses, a type of poetic

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 metre. In some studies, attributed to the phrase "know thyself

Know thyself

The Ancient Greek aphorism "Know thyself", Greek: ', English phonetics pronunciation: , was inscribed in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek periegetic writer Pausanias .The maxim, or aphorism, "Know Thyself" has had a variety of meanings attributed to it in...

" (γνῶθι σεαυτόν) found inscribed at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Some writers seem to have placed her at Delos

Delos

The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...

 instead of Delphi; and Servius identifies her with the Cumaean Sibyl

Cumaean Sibyl

The ageless Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy.The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many Sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world...

. The tradition which ascribed to her the invention of the hexameter, was by no means uniform; Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, for example, as quoted above, calls her the first who used it, but in another passage he quotes an hexameter distich, which was ascribed to the Pleiades

Pleiades (mythology)

The Pleiades , companions of Artemis, were the seven daughters of the titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione born on Mount Cyllene. They are the sisters of Calypso, Hyas, the Hyades, and the Hesperides...

, who lived before Phemonoe: the traditions respecting the invention of the hexameter are collected by Fabricius

Fabricius

Fabricius may refer to:*people from the Ancient Roman gens Fabricia:*Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, the first of the Fabricii to move to Rome* Carel Fabricius , painter...

. There were poems which went under the name of Phemonoe, like the old religious poems which were ascribed to Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

, Musaeus

Musaeus

Musaeus or Musaios was the name of three Greek poets.-Musaeus of Athens:Musaeus was a legendary polymath, philosopher, historian, prophet, seer, priest, poet, and musician, said to have been the founder of priestly poetry in Attica...

, and the other mythological bards. Melampus

Melampus

In Greek mythology, Melampus, or Melampous , was a legendary soothsayer and healer, originally of Pylos, who ruled at Argos. He was the introducer of the worship of Dionysus, according to Herodotus, who asserted that his powers as a seer were derived from the Egyptians and that he could understand...

, for example, quotes from her in his book Peri Palmon Mantike ("On Twitches") §17, §18; and Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 quotes from her respecting eagles and hawks, evidently from some book of augury, and perhaps from a work which is still extant in MS., entitled Orneosophium. There is an epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

 of Antipater of Thessalonica

Antipater of Thessalonica

Antipater of Thessalonica was the author of over a hundred epigrams in the Greek Anthology. He is the most copious and perhaps the most interesting of the Augustan epigrammatists...

, alluding to a statue of Phemonoe, dressed in a pharos

Pharos

Pharos may refer to:Lighthouses:* The Pharos of Alexandria, a tower built on the island of Pharos that became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World* The Pharos, either of two Roman lighthouses built at Dubris...

.