A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Manto

MANTO, Daughter of Tiresias; a Woman famous in Antiquity for her Knowledge of Divination.

After the taking of Thebes by the seven chiefs, the Argives, to whose share Manto fell, and who had vowed to consecrate the most valuable part of their plunder to Apollo, thought they fulfilled it, by sending this young woman to be his priestess at Delphi. She was mother of Amphilochus and Tisiphone, by Alcmeon, general of the army which took Thebes. Many of the ancient writers tell different fables concerning her: and Diodorus Sicuius says, that she wrote a number of oracles, and that she was called the Sybil, from the inspiration of her answers. They say also, that Homer has ornamented his works with many of her verses.

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