Son of Apollo and Chione daughter of Daedalion — twin brother of Autolycus on his mother's side — famed for the beauty of his song and handling of the lyre, and in Argive tradition the founder of the mysteries of the Lernaeans.1
Ovid tells how Chione, daughter of Daedalion, pleased a thousand suitors and lay the same night with Apollo and Mercury. To Phoebus she bore Philammon, named like his sire and famous to all men for vocal song and lyre — twin to Autolycus, who inherited Mercury's thieving craft.2⚖
Apollodorus makes Philammon father of Thamyris, who excelled in beauty and minstrelsy and was the first man said to have loved males — for Hyacinth son of Clio, before Apollo himself loved the boy and killed him with a cast of the quoit.3
Pausanias records that the mysteries of the Lernaeans were established by Philammon, though an Aetolian researcher later argued the ritual verses could not be his. The Argives also linked him with Dionysus Saotes at Lerna and with the daughters of Danaus.4
Pausanias tells separately how Thamyris son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope once dwelt on Parnassus; when Argiope was pregnant Philammon refused to take her into his house, and she settled among the Odrysae — the same mountain where Autolycus would later host the young Odysseus.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story