Phocus of Corinth Phocus of Corinth In Greek mythology, Phocus (; Ancient Greek: Φῶκος means "seal") the Corinthian, was a son of Ornytion (or Ornytus) and grandson of Sisyphus; some called him son of Poseidon. Thus he might be the same as the son of Poseidon and Pronoe referenced in the scholia on "Iliad", see above. Leaving the kingdom of Corinth to his brother Thoas, he led a colony to the region of Tithorea and Mount Parnassus; the land came to be named Phocis after him. Phocus is said to have cured the wandering Antiope of her madness, which she had been struck
Polybus of Corinth that he was his father. Many years later, after Oedipus won the kingship of Thebes by defeating the Sphinx, did another plague befall Thebes. King Oedipus, in his effort to find the cause of plague due to a patricide, revealed that he was told in his teen years that he was destined to murder his father, and sent a spy to Corinth to see who is currently on the throne. The news of Polybus' death by natural causes was announced by the messenger to Jocasta in Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex", in which it is mistakenly taken to mean that Oedipus did