A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

2. The son of Hermes, the author of an epigram in the Greek Anthology. on the sudden death of the harp-player Terpes, who was killed in the Scias of Sparta, by having a fig thrown into his open mouth. There is a passage of Suidas (s. v. Γλυκὺ μέλι καὶ πνιξάτω), which makes it all but certain that the Terpes of the epigram is no other than the celebrated Terpander, and that the epigram refers to a traditional account of his death, in which, as in similar stories of the end of other poets, even the manner of his decrease was made symbolical of the sweetness of his compositions. Respecting Tryphon himself we have no further information. (Brunck. Anal. vol. ii. p. 451 ; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iii. p. 157, vol. x. p. 296, vol. xiii. p. 963.)