Busiris
mythological figure · 6 works · 6 mentions · 10 anchored passages
king of Egypt Busiris
in the texts
On the Commonwealth
Legendary king of Egypt cited as a practitioner of human sacrifice considered pleasing to the gods.
How many—as the Tauri in the Black Sea, as the king of Egypt Busiris, as the Gauls, as the Carthaginians—reckoned it both pious and most pleasing to the immortal gods to sacrifice men!
Orations
Mythical king or athlete proud of his wrestling, destroyed by Heracles.
And Busiris, finding him very diligently practicing his exercise and eating all day long and priding himself greatly on his wrestling, he tore asunder, dashing him to the ground like sacks very full.
The Rights of War and Peace
Legendary tyrant cited as an example of cruel rule.
Yet where a Busiris, a Phalaris or a Thracian Diomede provoke their people to despair and resistance by unheard of cruelties, having themselves abandoned all the laws of nature, they lose the rights of independent sovereigns, and can no longer claim the privilege of the law of nations.
Busiris
The legendary Egyptian king, son of Poseidon and Libya, defended by the speaker as the wise founder of Egypt's laws, piety, and social order, against the charge that he sacrificed and ate foreign strangers.
Of the noble lineage of Busiris who would not find it easy to speak?
Furthermore, the cultivation of practical wisdom may also reasonably be attributed to Busiris.
He was not content with his mother’s kingdom, considering it too small for one of his endowment;
On Mercy
Legendary tyrant of Egypt notorious for killing strangers, cited as an example of cruelty without cause of vengeance.
"But certain men do not exact punishments, and yet are cruel—such as those who kill unknown men they chance upon, not for gain, but for the sake of killing, and, not content to kill, vent their savagery, like the famous Busiris and Procrustes and the pirates, who flog their captives and put them living into the fire.
De Pallio
Mythological Egyptian king slain by Hercules, invoked by contrast.
where Busiris and his sacrificial altars?