TICIUS, TYCIUS. Tityus was one of the giant sons of the Earth. He tried to assault Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana, and as punishment, Jupiter chained him on his back to the pit of Tartarus, where a vulture tore eternally at his liver (Met IV.456-460; OM IV.3819-3830; Aeneid VI.595-600). The story is mentioned briefly in RR 19305-19309. In Machaut's Le Confort d'ami, 2517-2534, Ticius forgets his evil adventure when he hears Orpheus's harp and the sound of his song.

The vulture is so charmed by Orpheus's song that he pauses in his eating of the stomach or the liver of Ticius, Bo III, Metr 12.41-43. Pandarus says that Troilus suffers woe as sharp as that of Tycius, whose stomach the vultures eat, Tr I.787-788. [Cesiphus: Tantale]

Ticius, the OF variant, appears medially, Tr I.786, and Tycius, a spelling variant, appears in Bo III, Metr 12.42.