In Greek mythology, Lityerses (Ancient Greek: Λιτυέρσης) was an illegitimate son of Midas (or of Comis) dwelling in Celaenae, Phrygia.

Mythology

Lityerses was a talented swordsman, and was bloodthirsty and aggressive. He challenged people to harvesting contests and beheaded those he beat, putting the rest of their bodies in the sheaves. Heracles won the contest and killed him, then threw his body into the river Maeander. He was also known as the "Reaper of Men." One source describes him as a glutton who could eat "three asses' panniers" of food and drink "a ten-amphora cask" of wine at a time. The Phrygian reapers used to celebrate his memory in a harvest-song which bore the name of Lityerses. The Phrygians' song for Lityerses was, according to one tradition, a comic version of the Mariandyni's lament sung for Bormus. Theocritus in his tenth Idyll gives a specimen of a Greek harvest-song addressed to Demeter, called 'the Song of the Divine Lityerses'. In this song, there is no mention of the legend; it is merely an ordinary reaping-song.

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