LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Academy · Biography & Mythology

Anchurus

Ἄγχουρος

(Ἄγχουρος), a son of the Phrygian king Midas, in whose reign the earth opened in the neighbourhood of the town of Celaenae in Phrygia. Midas consulted the oracle in what manner the opening might be closed, and he was commanded to throw into it the most precious thing he possessed. He accordingly threw into it a great quantity of gold and silver, but when the chasm still did not close, his son Anchurus, thinking that life was the most precious of all things, mounted his horse and leapt into the chasm, which closed immediately. (Plut. Parall. 5.)

From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.