Phoroneus
mythological figure · 2 works · 3 mentions · 4 anchored passages
in the texts
Protrepticus
Legendary early figure credited, tentatively, with founding the first temples and sacrifices.
Hence it occurs to me to wonder by what fancies the first deceived men were led astray, when they proclaimed superstition to men, ordaining by law the worship of accursed demons — whether it was that Phoroneus, or Merops, or some other, who set up temples and altars for them, and besides are fabled to have been the first to establish sacrifices.
Let the Athenian, then, follow the laws of Solon, and the Argive those of Phoroneus, and the Spartan those of Lycurgus;
Stromata
Phoroneus, called 'the first man' in Greek tradition, cited via Acusilaus and Plato as the earliest human figure of Greek legend.
And in Greece there were, under Phoroneus who came after Inachus, the flood in the time of Ogyges and the kingdom in Sicyon — first of Aegialeus, then of Europs, then of Telchis — and the kingdom of Cres in Crete.
"And once, wishing to draw them on to discourse about the ancient things, he tries to tell the most ancient things of this city, concerning Phoroneus, said to be the first, and Niobe, and the things after the flood.