Dictionary
OENEUS	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 King of Calydon, in Aetolia, the hills of which he was the first to plant with the vine received from Dionysus. He was son of Portheus or Porthaon, and brother of Agrius and Melas; by Althaea, daughter of Thestius, he became the father of Tydeus, Meleager, and Deianira. (See HERACLES.) As he once forgot Artemis in a sacrifice, she sent the Calydonian boar, which ravaged the country, and, even after its slaughter in the famous Calydonian Hunt, occasioned the death of Meleager (q.v.). From the plots of his brother Melas he had been delivered by Tydeus through the murder of Melas and his sons, but after the deaths of Tydeus and Meleager, his other brother Agrius, and the sons of that brother, deprived him of his throne and cast him into prison. His grandson Diomedes however revenged him with the aid of Alcmaeon, to whom he had once given hospitable entertainment, and who was desirous of taking OEneus with him to Argos, after he had given over the throne of Calydon to his son-in-law Andraemon, whose son Thoas, in Homer [Il. ii 638], leads the Aetolians to Troy. But the two sons of Agrius, who have escaped death, lie in wait for him in Arcadia, and there slay the old man. Diomedes carries his body to Argos, and deposits it in the city which after him was called OEnoe. While in Homer OEneus is dead before the expedition to Troy, later mythology represents him as surviving the Trojan War, and as restored to his kingdom by Diomedes on the latter's flight from Argos.
DEIANIRA	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Daughter of OEneus king of Calydon, and Althaea. She was the wife of Heracles, whose death was brought about by her jealousy (see HERACLES).
ADRASTUS	26.36%
Grandson of Bias, son of Talaus and Lysimache. In a quarrel between the three houses reigning in Argos, the Biantidae, Melampodidae, and Proetidae, he is driven out by Amphiaraus, who also killed his father, flees to his mother's father, king Polybus of Sicyon, and inherits his kingdom. But, reconciled to Amphiaraus, to whom he gives his sister Eriphyle, he returns and rules over Argos. During one stormy night a great scuffle is heard outside the palace: two fugitives, Polyneices son of OEdipus of Thebes, and Tydeus son of OEneus of Calydon (one wrapped in a lion's hide, the other in a boar-skin), have sought refuge in the front-court, and are fighting for a night's lodging. Adrastus, coming forth, recognises the fulfilment of an oracle which had bidden him marry his daughters to a lion and a boar. He gives Argeia to Polyneices and Deipyle to Tydeus, promising to conduct those princes home and reinstate them in their rights. Thus began under his lead the far-famed and fatal expedition of the Seven against Thebes (q.v.). He alone escapes destruction by the help of his divine winged steed Areion. Ten years after, with the sons of the slain, the Epigoni (q.v.), and his own son Aegialeus, he again marches upon Thebes, takes and destroys the town, but loses his son, and dies of grief on his way home at Megara, where, as well as at Sicyon and Athens, he was worshipped as a hero.
DIOMEDES	18.81%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of Tydeus and Deipyle, and one of the Epigoni. After the death of his maternal grandfather Adrastus, king of Argos, he led 80 ships against Troy, accompanied by his trusty companions Sthenelus and Euryalus. He appears in Homer, like his father, as a bold, enterprising hero, and a favourite of Athene. In the battle which took place during the absence of Achilles she enables him not only to vanquish all mortals who came in his way, Aeneas among them, but to attack and wound Ares and Aphrodite. On his meeting with Glaucus in the thick of battle, see GLAUCUS 4. When the Achaeans fly from the field, he throws himself boldly in the path of Hector, and is only checked by the lightning of Zeus, which falls in front of his chariot. In the night after the unsuccessful battle he goes out with Odysseus to explore, kills Dolon, the Trojan ap and murders the sleeping Rhesus, king of Thrace, who had just come to Troy, with twelve of his warriors. In the post-Homeric story, he makes his way again, in company with Odysseus, by an underground passage into the acropolis of Troy, and thence steals the Palladium. This, according to one version, he carried to Argos; according to another, it was stolen from him by the Athenian king, Demophoon, on his landing in Attica. After the destruction of Troy, according to Homer, he came safe home on the fourth day of his journey. His wife, Aegiale or Aegialeia (daughter or granddaughter of Adrastus), was, according to the later legend, tempted to unfaithfulness by Aphrodite in revenge for the wounds inflicted on her by Diomedes. To escape the fate of Agamemnon, Diomedes fled from Argos to Aetolia, his father's home, and there avenged his old grandfather OEneus on his oppressors. Hence he was driven by a storm to Italy, to king Daunus of Apulia, who helps him in war against the Messapians, marries his daughter Euippe, and extends his dominion over the plain of Apulia (called after him Campi Diomedei). According to one story, he died in Daunia, in another he returned to Argos, and died there; in a third, he disappeared in the islands in the Adriatic, named, after him, Insulae Diomedeae, his companions being changed into the herons that live there, the birds of Diomedes. Diomedes was worshipped as a hero not only in Greece, but on the Italian coast of the Adriatic, where his name had in all probability become confused in worship with those of the native deities of horse-taming and navigation. The foundation of the Apulian city of Argyrippa (later called Arpi) was specially attributed to him. In his native city, Argos, his shield was carried through the streets with the Palladium at the festival of Athene, and his statue washed in the river Inachus.
MELEAGER	16.69%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Son of (Eneus of Calydon and of Althaea, husband of Cleopatra (see, IDAS), one of the most celebrated heroes of Greek legend. He took part in the enterprise of the Argonauts and brought about the celebrated chase of the Calydonian boar (see OENEUS), to which he invited the most renowned heroes of the time, Admetus, Amphiaraus, Jason, Idas, Lynceus, Castor and Pollux, Nestor, Theseus and Pirithous, Peleus, Telamon, and others. Many lost their lives, till at last Meleager slew the monster. However, Artemis thereupon stirred up furious strife between the Calydonians and the Curetes (who dwelt at Pleuron) about the head and skin of the boar, the prize of victory. The Calydonians were victorious, as long as Meleager fought at their head; but when he slew the brother of his mother, she uttered a terrible curse on him, and he retired sullenly from the fray. The Curetes immediately forced the Calydonians to retreat, and were already beginning to climb the walls of Calydon, when, at the height of their distress, he yielded to the prayers of his wife and again joined in the fight to ward of destruction from the city; but he did not return alive, for the Erinys had accomplished the curse of his mother. According to a later legend, the Moerae appeared to his mother on the seventh day after his birth, and announced to her that her son would have to die when a log of wood on the hearth was consumed by the flame; whereupon Althaea immediately snatched the log from the fire and concealed it in a chest. At the Calydonian Hunt Meleager fell in love with Atalante (q.v.), and gave her (who had inflicted the first wound) the prize, the skin of the animal which he had killed. He slew the brothers of his mother, the sons of Thestius, when they were lying in wait for the virgin to rob her of the boar's hide. Overcome by pain at the death of her brothers, Althaea sets fire to the log, and Meleager dies a sudden death. His mother and wife hang themselves; his sisters weep so bitterly for Meleager, that Artemis for pity changes them into gninea-hens, (Gr. meleagrides). Legends relate that even in the nether world Meleager retained his dauntless courage; for when Heracles descended to Hades, all the shades fled before him except Meleager and Medusa.