Epopeus

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Epopeus was a mythical Greek King of Sicyon. Pausanias saw at Titane, in Sicyonia, an altar and in front of it a tumulus raised to the hero Epopeus and, near to the barrow-tomb, the "Gods of Aversion"— the apotropai— "before whom are performed the ceremonies which the Hellenes observe for the averting of evils" (Pausanias, ii.11.1)

In the myth that accounted for the rituals propitiating the daimon of Epopeus, Zeus impregnated Antiope and she fled in shame (for she was married to Nycteus) to Epopeus, king of Sicyon, abandoning her children, Amphion and Zethus. They were exposed on Mount Cithaeron, but were found and brought up by a shepherd. Nycteus, unable to retrieve his wife, sent his brother Lycus to take her. He did so and gave her as a slave to his own wife, Dirce.

Nycteus signifies "of the night", as does Nyctimene in the following variant: according to anecdotal Roman tellings by Hyginus (Fabulae 204 and 253) and in Ovid's Metamorphoses (ii.590), an Epopeus was a king of Lesbos. He had sexual intercourse with his "nocturnal" daughter Nyctimene, whom Minerva—in these Latin versions— in pity transformed into an owl.