Dictionary
PELEUS	100.00%
Son of Aeacus and of Endeis, and brother of Telamon. He was banished with his brother, on account of the murder of his step-brother Phocus, whom he had slain with the discus out of envy at his strength and skill. His father banished him from Aegina, but he was purified from his murder, and hospitably received by his uncle Eurytion, king of Thessalian Phthia. Eurytion gave to Peleus his daughter Antigone, mother of the beautiful Polydora, and one-third of his land as a dowry. Peleus accompanied Eurytion in the Calydonian Hunt, and killed him unawares with a javelin. Thereupon he fled from Phthia to Iolcus, where, once again, king Acastus cleansed him from the guilt of bloodshed. Because he rejected the proposals of Astydameia, the wife of Acastus, she slandered him to his wife and to her husband, telling the former that Peleus was wooing her daughter Sterope, and the latter that he wished to persuade her to infidelity. Antigone killed herself for sorrow, but Acastus planned revenge. When Peleus, wearied by the chase, had fallen asleep on Pelion, Acastus left him alone, after hiding in a dunghill his irresistible sword, the work of Hephaestus and the gift of the gods. When Peleus awoke and sought his sword, he was attacked by the Centaurs, and only delivered by the presence among them of Chiron, his maternal grandfather. With Chiron's help he recovered his sword, slew Acastus and his wife, and took possession of the throne of Iolcus. The gods decreed him the seagoddess Thetis (q.v.) as his wife. With Chiron's help he overcame her resistance in a grotto by the sea, although she endeavoured to escape by changing into fire, water, beast, or fish. The marriage was celebrated in Chiron's cave on the summit of Pelion, and the immortals appeared and gave Peleus presents: Poseidon, the undying steeds Balius and Xanthus, and all the gods the weapons with which Achilles afterwards fought before Troy; Chiron presented him with a lance made of an ash tree on Mount Pelion. Apollo and the Muses sang of the deeds of Peleus and of his unborn son. But Eris, or Strife, also appeared, uninvited, and threw among the goddesses a golden apple with the inscription, For the Fairest, thus giving the first cause for the Trojan War (q.v.). In this war the only offspring of this marriage, the hero Achilles, is said to have found an untimely end during his father's lifetime. According to a later tradition, unknown to Homer, Thetis forsook her husband, because his presence hindered her from making her son immortal.
ASTYDAMEIA	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Wife of Acastus of Iolcos. Peleus had rejected her advances, and Astydameia accordingly slandered him to Acastus, who made an attempt on the life of Peleus, to her own destruction and that of her husband. (See ACASTUS and PELEUS.)
ACASTUS	66.81%
Son of Pelias, king of Iolcos who joined the Argonautic expedition, though against his father's will, as a friend of Jason. At his father's death be celebrated funeral games which were the theme of ancient poets and artists, and in which Peleus was represented as participating. He took part in the Calydonian boar-hunt. But his wife Astydameia fell in love with Peleus (q.v.), and this brought ruin on the wedded pair. His daughter was Laodameia, renowned for her tender love to Protesilaus (q.v.).
ENDEIS	64.84%
Daughter of Chiron and the Naiad Chariclo, wife of Aeacus, mother of Peleus and Telamon.
ANTIGONE	62.11%
Antigone, daughter of Eurytion and wife of Peleus (q.v.), hanged herself for grief at the supposed infidelity of her husband.
PHOENIX	56.66%
Son of Amyntor and Hippodamia. Being banished by his father out of envy, he fled to Peleus, and was entrusted by him with the education of his son Achilles (q.v.), whom he accompanied to Troy.
PHOCUS	53.66%
Son of Aeacus and the Nymph Psamathe; slain by his half-brothers Telamon and Peleus, who were therefore sent into banishment by Aeacus.
MYRMIDONES	51.19%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A race in Southern Thessaly, said to have originally dwelt in the island of Aegina and to have emigrated from it with Peleus. They fought before Troy under their chieftain Achilles. For legends about their origin, see AeACUS.
TELAMON	46.27%
Son of Aeacus and Endeis, and brother of Peleus. Having assisted Peleus in murdering their half-brother Phocus, he was expelled from Aegina by his father, and was received by Cenchreus of Salamis, whose daughter Glauce became his wife; and, on the death of Cenchreus, Telamon became king of Salamis. By his second wife Periboea, daughter of Alcathous, he became father of Ajax. He was one of the heroes who joined in the Calydonian Hunt, and also one of the Argonauts. He further took part in the expedition of his friend Heracles against the Amazons and against Laomedon of Troy. At the conquest of Troy he was the first to scale the walls, and that he did at the very spot where it was built by his father. As his share in the spoil, Heracles gave him the king's daughter Hesione, by whom he became the father of Teucer (q.v., 2).
THETIS	42.75%
Daughter of Nerens and Doris, wife of Peleus, and mother of Achilles. On many occasions she proved herself of assistance to the gods. When Zeus was threatened by Hera, Athene, and Poseidon, she called Briareus (or Aegaeon) to his aid. When Hephaestus was cast out of heaven by Zeus, she took him and hid him for nine years. Again, when Dionysus was fleeing before Lycurgus, she afforded him protection in the sea. Brought up by Hera, she was wooed by Zeus and Poseidon. But when Themis foretold that Thetis would bear a son who would be greater than his father, she was married against her will to a mortal, Peleus (q.v.). This marriage was the source of the greatest sorrow to her. Her attempt to make her only son Achilles immortal was frustrated by her husband, and caused an estrangement between them, and she was fated to see her glorious and godlike son cut off in the prime of life.
PELOPS	25.00%
Son of the Lydian or Phrygian king Tantalus and Dione, daughter of Atlas. When he was a child, his father slew him, cut him to pieces and seethed him, and set him as food before the gods. The gods did not touch the horrible meal; only Demeter, absorbed in grief for her stolen daughter, ate one shoulder. By the command of Zeus, Hermes replaced the pieces in the caldron, and Clotho drew the boy from it in renewed beauty, while Demeter replaced the missing shoulder by one made of ivory. Hence it was that his descendants, the Pelopidae, bore on one shoulder a mark of dazzling whiteness. Pelops, when grown to manhood, went to Pisa in Elis as a wooer of Hippodamia, daughter of king (Enomaus. He won the victory, the bride, and the kingdom, by the help of the winged steeds given him by Poseidon, and by the treachery of Myrtilus, the chariot driver of (Enomaus. When Myrtilus (or Myrsilus), a son of Hermes, claimed the promised reward, half the kingdom, Pelops hurled him from his chariot into the sea. Through his curse and the anger of Hermes, the baneful spell was once more cast upon the house of Pelops. He returned to Pisa, and, after he had made himself master of Olympia, he is said to have restored the games with great splendour, a service for which his memory was afterwards honoured above that of all other heroes. By another act of violence he obtained possession of Arcadia, and extended his power so widely over the peninsula that it was called after his name the Peloponnesus, or "island of Pelops." By Hippodamia he had six sons (cp. ALCATHOUS, ATREUS, PITTHEUS, THYESTES), and two daughters; and by then Nymph Axioche, a son Chrysippus. The latter, his father's favourite, was killed by Atreus and Thyestes, at the instigation of Hippodamia, and his dead body was cast into a well. Peleus discovered the crime, and banished the murderers from the country. Hippodamia thereupon took refuge with her sons at Midea in Argolis. On her death, Peleus buried her bones in the soil of Olympia.
ERIS	23.47%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The goddess of discord, fighting, and quarrelling in the Greek mythology. In Homer she is sister and companion of Ares, and like him insatiate of blood; in Hesiod she is daughter of Night, and mother of trouble, oblivion, hunger, pain, murder and carnage, brawls, deceit, and lawlessness. She was the only one among the gods who was not bidden to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. In revenge she threw a golden apple among the guests, and thus gave occasion for the Trojan War. (See TROJAN WAR.) Side by side with this destructive Eris was a beneficent Eris, the sister, according to Hesiod, of the other. She was the personification of noble rivalry, and is represented as stimulating even dullards to exertion.
CHIRON	21.01%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A Centaur, son of Cronus and the Ocean nymph Philyra. By the Naiad nymph Chariclo he was father of Endeis, wife of Aeacus, the mother of Peleus and Telamon, and grandmother of Achilles and Ajax. He is represented in the fable as wise and just, while the other Centaurs are wild and uncivilized. He is the master and instructor of the most celebrated heroes of Greek story, as Actaeon, Jason, Castor, Polydeuces, Achilles, and Asclepius, to whom he teaches the art of healing. Driven by the Lapithae from his former dwelling-place, a cave at the top of Pellion, he took up his abode on the promontory of Malea in Laconia. Here he was wounded accidentally with a poisoned arrow by his friend Heracles, who was pursuing the flying Centaurs (see PHOLUS). To escape from the dreadful pain of the wound, he renounced his immortality in favour of Prometheus, and was set by Zeus among the stars as the constellation Archer.
ELYSIUM	19.41%
In Homer Elysium is a beautiful meadow at the western extremity of the earth, on the banks of the river Oceanus. Thither the favoured of Zeus such as Rhadamanthys his son, and his son-in-law Menelaus, are carried without having seen death. They live a life of perfect happiness, there is no snow, nor storm, nor rain, but the cool west wind breathes there for ever. Hesiod speaks of the islands of the blest by the Ocean, where some of the heroes of the fourth generation of men live a life without pain, and where the earth produces her fruits three times in the year. According to Pindar, all who have three times passed blamelessly through life live there in perfect bliss under the sway of Cronus and his assessor Rhadamanthys. Such are Cadmus and Peleus, and Achilles through the intercession of his mother Thetis with Zeus. Like Cronus, the Titans, after their reconciliation with Zeus, dwell on these islands. In later times Elysium with its bliss was localized in the world below, and regarded as the abode of those whom the judges of the dead had pronounced worthy of it. (Cp. HADES, REALM OF.)
AEACUS	19.18%
Ancestor of the heroic Aeacidae; son of Zeus by Aegina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus in Phlius, whom the king of gods, in the form of an eagle, carried off to the island named after her, where her son was born. Asking of Aegina he ruled the Myrmidons, whom Zeus at his request created out of ants (Gr. myrmekes) to people his island, which, according to one story, was uninhabited, according to another, stricken with pestilence. Beloved by the gods for his piety, when a drought desolated Greece, his intercession obtained rain from Zeus; and the grateful Greeks built him in Aegina a temple enclosed by a marble wall. Pindar says he helped Poseidon and Apollo to rear the walls of Troy, erecting that very portion which was afterwards scaled by his son Telemon, and his grandson Neoptolemus. His justice caused him after death to be made a judge in the lower world. At Aegina and Athens he was worshipped as a demigod. His sons by Chiron's daughter Endeis were Telamon and Peleus, the fathers of Ajax and Achilles; another son Phocus, by the Nereid Psamathe; was slain by his half-brothers, for which their father banished them.
NEOPTOLEMUS	13.28%
Son of Achilles and Deidamia. He was brought up by his grandfather Lycomedes in Scyros. After Achilles' death, however, he was taken by Odysseus to Troy, since, according to the prophecy of Helenus, that town could be taken only by a descendant of Aeacus. Here, like his father, he distinguished himself above all by a courage which none could withstand. He slew Eurypylus, son of Telephus, and was one of the heroes in the Wooden Horse, where he alone remained undaunted. Later legend depicted him as fierce and cruel: at the, taking of Troy he killed the aged Priam at the altar of Zeus, hurled Hector's son. Astyanax, down from the walls, and offered up Polyxena, upon his father's tomb. In Homer he arrives safely with much booty at Phthia, his father's home, and weds Menelaus' daughter Hermione, who was promised him during the siege of Troy [Od. iv 5]. Later legend represents him as accompanied by Andromache, Hector's wife, who is allotted him as part of his booty, and Helenus, and then, on the strength of a prophecy of Helenus, as going to Epirus and settling there. It was to a son of his by Lanassa, granddaughter of Heracles, that the later kings of Epirus traced back their descent, and accordingly styled themselves Aeacidoe, while from his son by Andromache, Molossus, the district of Molossia was said to derive its name. He afterwards went to Phthia, to reinstate his grandfather Peleus in his kingdom (whence he had been expelled by Acastus), and wedded Hermione. He soon, however, met his death at Delphi, whither, according to one story, he had gone with dedicatory offerings, or, according to another, to plunder the temple of Apollo in revenge for his father's death. The accounts of his death vary, some attributing it to Orestes, the earlier lover of Hermione; others to the Delphians, at the instance of the Pythian priestess; others again to a quarrel about the meat-offerings. The scene of his death was the altar, a coincidence which was regarded as a judgment for his murder of Priam. His tomb was within the precincts of the Delphic temple, and in later times he was worshipped as a hero with annual sacrifices by the Delphians, as he was said to have vouchsafed valuable assistance against the Gauls when they threatened the sacred spot [B.C. 279; Pausanias, x 23].
CATULLUS	12.39%
Perhaps the greatest of Roman lyric poets. He was born at Verona B.C. 87, and died about 54. He came to Rome while still young, and found himself in very good society there, being admitted to the circle of such men as Cicero, Hortensius, and Cornelius Nepos, and the poets Cinna and Calvus. He had an estate on the Lacus Larius (Lake of Como), and another at Tibur (Tivoli); but, if we may believe what he says about his debts and poverty, his pecuniary affairs must have been in bad order. In consequence of this he attached himself to the propraetor Gaius Memmius, on his going to Bithynia in the year 57. He gained nothing by doing so, and in the following spring returned home alone, visiting on the way the tomb of his brother, who was buried near Troy. Some of his most beautiful poems are inspired by his love for a lady whom he addresses as Lesbia, a passion which seems to have been the ruin of his life. She has been, with great probability, identified with the beautiful and gifted but unprincipled sister of the notorious Clodius, and wife of Metellus Celer. Catullus was, in his eighteenth year, so over mastered by his passion for her, that he was unable even after he had broken off all relations with her, and come to despise her, to disentangle himself. In his intercourse with his numerous friends Catullus was bright and amiable, but unsparing in the ridicule he poured upon his enemies. He held aloof from public life, and from any active participation in politics, but none the less bitterly did he hate those whom he thought responsible for the internal decline of the Republic--themselves and all their creatures. On Caesar, though his own father's guest, and on his dissolute favourite Mamurra, he makes violent attacks. But he is said to have apologized to Caesar, who magnanimously forgave him. Catullus' poems have not all survived. We still possess 116, which, with the exception of three, are included in a collection dedicated to Cornelius Nepos. The first half is taken up with minor pieces of various contents, and written in different lyric metres, especially the iambic. Then follows a series of longer poems, amongst them the wonderful lament of Attis, wonderful in spite of the repulsiveness of its subject; the epic narrative of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and a paraphrase of Callimachus' best elegy, "The Lock of Berenice." These are all in the Alexandrian manner. The remaining poems are short, and of different contents, but all written in elegiacs. Catullus takes his place in the history of literature as the earliest classical metrist among the Romans. He is a complete master of all varieties of verse. More than this, he has the art of expressing every phase of feeling in the most natural and beautiful style; love, fortunate and unfortunate, sorrow for a departed brother, wanton sensuality, the tenderest friendship, the bitterest contempt, and the most burning hatred. Even his imitations of the Greek are not without an original stamp of their own.
MELEAGER	10.65%
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.
PARIS	10.33%
The second son of Priam and Hecuba. His mother having dreamt before this birth that she had brought forth a firebrand, which set all Troy in flames, Priam had the new-born babe exposed on Mount Ida by the advice of his son Aesacus. Here a she-bear suckled the babe for five days; then a shepherd found him, and reared him with his own children. Paris won the name of Alexandros ("protector of men") by his bravery as a shepherd, defending herdsmen and cattle. On Mount Ida he married (Enone, daughter of the river-god Cebren. He decided the strife of the goddesses Hera. Aphrodite, and Athene for the golden apple of Eris (see PELEUS, having been appointed arbiter by Hermes at the command of Zeus. Paris preferred the possession of the fairest woman, promised him by Aphrodite, to power and riches, or wisdom and fame, promised by Hera and Athene respectively. He therefore awarded to Aphrodite the prize of beauty, but drew upon himself and his fatherland the irreconcilable hatred of the goddesses whom he had passed over. When Priam was once celebrating funeral games in memory of his lost son, and commanded the finest bull in all the herds grazing on the mountain to be brought as a prize, Paris came to Troy as its driver. He took part in the contests, and vanquished his brothers, even Hector. Seized with envy, they wished to kill him; but Cassandra recognised him, and he was joyfully received by his parents. In spite of the warning of the forsaken (Enone, who still loved him tenderly, Paris set out on a voyage to Sparta, at the instigation of Aphrodite. Here he carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, whom the goddess herself had quickly inspired with love for the handsome stranger. With her he carried away the treasures of his host, and brought her through Egypt and Phoenicia to Troy. In the war that arose from his deed, Paris showed himself, according to Homer, sometimes valiant and courageous, especially as an archer, but chiefly only at the persuasion of others; at other times cowardly and effeminate. The Trojans detested him as the cause of the disastrous war. After he had treacherously slain Achilles (q.v.), he himself was fatally wounded by an arrow of Heracles, while in single combat with Philoctetes. His corpse was dishonoured by Menelaus, but yet was afterwards given to the Trojans for burial. According to another account, when he knew his death was near, he asked to be carried to (Enone. When they had parted, she had bidden him come to her, if he should ever be mortally wounded; but now, mindful of the sorrow she had endured, (Enone rejected him, and he died soon after his return to Troy. When (Enone, repenting of her cruelty, hastened with the remedy, and found him already dead, she hanged herself. In sculpture Paris is represented as a beautiful beardless youth with a Phrygian cap.