Iapyx

In Greek and Roman mythology, Iapyx (from Greek Ἰάπυξ, gen.: Ίάπυγος), Iapux or Iapis was a favourite of Apollo. The god wanted to confer upon him the gift of prophecy, the lyre, etc.; but lapis, wishing to prolong the life of his father, preferred the more tranquil art of healing to all the others.^[1]

Virgil's Aeneid (XII: 391, 402) relates that Iapyx was Aeneas's healer during the Trojan War and then escaped to Italy after the war, founding Apulia.

His descent is unclear. He was either:

a son of Iasus,^[1] or
the son of Lycaon, which would make him the brother of Daunius and Peucetius (who went as leaders of a colony to Italy),^[2] or
a Cretan, from whom the Cretans who migrated to Italy derived the name of Iapyges, son of Daedalus either:
- by his wife, thus making him a full-brother of Icarus;^[3]
- by another Cretan woman.^[4]

Iapyx is also the name of a minor Greek wind god, the north-west or west-north-west wind.

Notes

^ ^a ^b This article incorporates text by Leonhard Schmitz from the article "Iapis" in the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870), vol. 2, p. 550.
^ Anton. Lib. 31.
^ Harry Thurston Peck, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Servius ad Aeneidos iii. 332).
^ Strabo vi.; Athen. xii.; Herod. vii. 170; Heyne, ad Virg. Aen. xi. 247.