In Greek mythology, Nephalion was one of the four sons of the nymph Paria of Crete and the human Minos, king of Crete (the same Minos after whom the Minotaur is named). Nephalion lived with his three brothers, Chryses ("Golden"), Philolaos ("Friend of the people"), and Eurymedon ("Broadly-thinking"), on Paros, an island just west of Naxos in the Cyclades. As Pseudo-Apollodorus tells us, when Herakles' ship was caught on the rocks of the Paros shoreline, en route to his ninth labour, the retrieval of the girdle of Hippolyta, Nephalion and his brothers attacked and killed two of the sailors from Herakles' ship, who had gone ashore into the town. In retaliation, Herakles killed all four brothers, and he kidnapped two of their half-brothers by Minos, to conscript them as replacement crew for the two sailors who had been killed.


Nephalion's name means "sober," deriving from the Ancient Greek verb nḗphō, 'to be sober,' and its corresponding adjective form nēpháleos, 'sober, (literally) free from intoxicants, (figuratively) clear-headed, circumspect.' It is spelled Νηφαλίων in Greek, and in IPA it is pronounced /nəˈ faː liˌ on/.


Iron Noder 2019, 18/30

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