(), a mythical poet and musician of the
ante-Homeric period, was said to have been the son of Apollo and the nymph Chione, or
Philonis, or Leuconoe (Tatian. ad v. Graec. 62, 63; Ovid, Metam. 11.317; Pherecyd. ap. Schol. in Hom. Od. 19.432, Fr. 63, ed. Müller; Hyg. Fab. 161;
Theocr. 24.118). By the nymph Argiope, who dwelt on Parnassus, he became the father of
Thamyris and Eumolpus (Apollod. 1.3.3; Paus. 4.33.3; Eur. Rh. 901). He is closely associated
with the worship of Apollo at Delphi, and with the music of the cithara. He is said to have
established the chorusses of girls, who, in the Delphian worship of Apollo, sang hymns in
which they celebrated the births of Latona, Artemis, and Apollo; and some ascribe to him the
invention of choral music in general. The Delphic hymns which were ascribed to him were
citharoedic nomes, no doubt in the Doric dialect; and it appears that Terpander coimposed
several of his nomnes in imitation of them, for Plutarch tells us that some of Terpander's
citharoedic nomes were said to have been composed by Philamsmon, and also that Philammon's
Delphian hymns were in lyric measures (ἐν μέλεσι. Now
Plutarch himself tells us just below, that all the early hymns of the period to which the
legend supposes Philammon to belong, were in hexameter verse; and therefore the latter
statement can only be explained by a confusion between the lyric nomes of Terpander and the
more ancient nomes ascribed to Philammon (Plut. de Mus. pp. 1132, a.,
1133, b.; Euseb. Chron. ; Syncell. p. 162 ; Pherecyd. l.c.). Pausanias relates that, in the most ancient musical contests at Delphi, the
first who conquered was Chrysothemis of Crete, the second was Philammon, and the next after
him his son Thamyris : the sort of composition sung in these contests was a hymn to Apollo,
which Proclus calls a none, the invention of which was ascribed to Apollo himself, and the
first use of it to Chrysothemis (Paus. 10.7.2; Procl. Chrest. 13, ed. Gaisford). A tradition recorded, but with a doubt of its
truth, by Pausanias (2.37.2), made Philammon the author of the
Lernaean mysteries. According to Pherecydes (apud Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod.
1.23) it was Philammon, and not Orpheus, who accompanied the Argonauts. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p. 214; Müller, Dorier, bk.
2.8.13, vol. i. p. 352, 2nd ed.)