OLYMPUS, the name of many mountains in Greece and Asia Minor, and of the fabled home of the gods, and also a city name and a personal name.
I. Of the mountains bearing the name the most famous is the lofty ridge on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia. The river Peneus, which drains Thessaly, finds its way to the sea through the great gorge of Tempe, which is close below the south-eastern end of Olympus and separates it from Mount Ossa. The highest peak of Olympus is over 9000 feet high; it is covered with snow for great part of the year. Olympus is a mountain of massive appearance, in many places rising in tremendous precipices broken by vast ravines, above which is the broad summit. The lower parts are densely wooded; the summit is naked rock. Homer calls the mountain <xγcivvt<∕>os, ∕xακp0s, τroλυδeιpαs; the epithets vιφoeis, ττoλυδevδpos, frondosus, and opacus are used by other poets. The modern name is Ελυ∕χτro, a dialectic form of the ancient word.
The peak of Mount Lycaeus in the south-west of Arcadia was called Olympus. East of Olympia, on the north bank of the Alpheus, was a hill bearing this name; beside Sellasia in Laconia another. The name was even commoner in Asia Minor: a lofty chain in Mysia (Keshish Dagh), a ridge east of Smyrna (Nif Dagh), other mountains in Lycia, in Galatia, in Cilicia, in Cyprus, <kc., were all called Olympus....
II. A lofty peak, rising high above the clouds of the lower atmosphere into the clear ether, seemed to be the chosen seat of the deity. Homer distinguishes between Olympus, which is the mountain, and the heaven or ether; but later poets use the terms as practically equivalent. In the elaborate mythology of Greek literature Olympus was the common home of the multitude of gods. Each deity had his special haunts, but all had a residence at the court of Zeus on Olympus; here were held the assemblies and the common feasts of the gods.
III. There was a city in Lycia named Olympus; it was a bishopric in the Byzantine time.
IV. A semi-historical musician, named Olympus, was connected with the development of flute music about 700 b.c. It is probable that he introduced the double flute, and increased the number of holes in the instrument and the tones of which it was capable: on the right flute were three holes for the low notes, on the left four for the high notes. He also brought into use compositions for the flute without words (κpoυ∕χατα). It is said that he was an elegiac poet, but this is apparently a misconception. It is difficult to say whether Olympus is an actual historical person, or whether he merely represents in an individualized form the influence which Phrygian music, used in the Phrygian religion, began to exert on the Ionian cities about 700 b.c. The growth of intercourse between Phrygia and Ionia at this time is certain (see Phrygia). In any case, the musical innovations associated with the name of Olympus were the beginning of a richer and more varied school of lyric poetry, as well as of music, in the Greek world.
On the musician see, besides the general works on Greek literature, Ritschl, “Olympos der Aulet,” in Opusc., i.; Flach, Gesch. d. griech. Lyrik, 1883; Westphal, Metrik, &c.
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