Lampon
2. An Athenian, a celebrated soothsayer and interpreter of oracles. Cratinus satirized him in his comedy entitled Δραπετίδες (Meineke, Fragm. Com. ii. ]. p. 42, 51). Aristophanes also alludes to him (Av. 521, 988). Plutarch (Plut. Per. 6) has a story of his foretelling the ascendancy of Pericles over Thucydides and his' party. In B. C. 444, Lampon, in conjunction with Xenocritus, led the colony which founded Thurii on the site of the ancient Sybaris. (Diod. 12.10; Schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 331, Av. 521, Pax, 1083; Suidas, s. v. Δουριομάντεις.) The name Lampon is found amongst those who took the oaths to the treaty of peace made between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians in B. C. 421. (Thuc. 5.19, 24.) Whether this was the soothsayer of that name, or not, we have no means of deciding.
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.