PHOENIX, son of Amyntor king of Argos by Cleobule or Hippodamia, was preceptor to young Achilles. His father having proved faithless to his wife, through fondness for a concubine called Clytia, Cleobule, who was jealous of him, persuaded her son Phoenix to ingratiate himself with his father's mistress. Phoenix easily succeeded; but Amyntor discovering his intrigue, he drew a curse upon him, and the son was soon after deprived of his sight by divine vengeance. Some say that Amyntor himself put out his son's eyes, which so cruelly provoked him that he meditated the death of his father. Reason and piety, however, prevailed over passion; and that he might not become a parricide, Phoenix fled from Argos to the court of Peleus king of Phthia. Here he was treated with tenderness; Peleus carried him to Chiron, who restored his eyesight; soon after which he was made preceptor to Achilles, his benefactor's son. He was also presented with the government of many cities, and made king of the Dolopes. He went with his pupil to the Trojan war; and Achilles was ever grateful for the instructions and precepts which he had received from him. After the death of Achilles, Phoenix, with others, was commissioned by the Greeks to return into Greece, to bring to the war young Pyrrhus. This commission he successfully performed; and after the fall of Troy, he returned with Pyrrhus, and died in Thrace. He was buried, according to Strabo, near Trachinia, where a small river in the neighbourhood received the name of Phoenix. There was another Phoenix, son of Agenor, by a nymph who was called Telephassa, according to Apollodorus and Moschus, or, according to others, Epimedusa, Perimeda, or Agriope. He was, like his brother Cadmus, and Cilix, sent by his father in pursuit of his sister Europa, whom Jupiter had carried away under the form of a bull; and when his inquiries proved unsuccessful, he settled in a country, which, according to some, was from him called Phœnicia. From him, as some suppose, the Carthaginians were called Pæni.