Aegimius (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: Αἰγίμιος) was the

Greek mythological A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of d ...

ancestor of the

Dorians The Dorians (; el, Δωριεῖς, ''Dōrieîs'', singular , ''Dōrieús'') were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Hellenes (or Greeks) of Classical Greece divided themselves (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans, and Ionians) ...

, who is described as their king and lawgiver at the time when they were yet inhabiting the northern parts of

Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...

Mythology

Aegimius asked

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...

for help in a war against the

Lapiths The Lapiths (; grc, Λαπίθαι) are a group of legendary people in Greek mythology, whose home was in Thessaly, in the valley of the Peneus and on the mountain Pelion. Mythology Origin The Lapiths were an Aeolian tribe who, like the Myr ...

and, in gratitude, offered him one-third of his kingdom. The Lapiths were conquered, but Heracles did not take for himself the territory promised to him by Aegimius, and left it in trust to the king, who was to preserve it for the sons of Heracles, the

Heracleidae The Heracleidae (; grc, Ἡρακλεῖδαι) or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles (Hercules), especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira (Hyllus was also ...

. Aegimius had two sons,

Dymas In Greek mythology, Dymas ( Ancient Greek: Δύμας) is the name attributed to the following individuals: * Dymas, a Mariandynian who warned the Argonauts about the cruelty of Amycus, king of the Bebrycians. Both Mariandynians and Bebrycians liv ...

and Pamphylus, who migrated to the

Peloponnese The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmu ...

and were regarded as the ancestors of two branches of the Doric race, the ''Dymanes'' and the ''

Pamphylia Pamphylia (; grc, Παμφυλία, ''Pamphylía'') was a region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (all in modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north by ...

ns'' of Anatolia, while the third branch, the ''Hylleans'', derived its name from

Hyllas In Greek mythology, Hyllus (; Ancient Greek: Ὕλλος) or Hyllas (Ὕλᾱς) was son of Heracles and Deianira, husband of Iole, nursed by Abia. Mythology Heracles, whom Zeus had originally intended to be ruler of Argos, Lacedaemon and Mess ...

, the son of Heracles, who had been adopted by Aegimius. There existed in antiquity an

epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

Aegimius Aegimius (Ancient Greek: Αἰγίμιος) was the Greek mythological ancestor of the Dorians, who is described as their king and lawgiver at the time when they were yet inhabiting the northern parts of Thessaly. Mythology Aegimius asked Her ...

'' of which a few fragments are extant, and which is sometimes ascribed to

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

and sometimes to

Cercops of Miletus Aegimius (Ancient Greek: Αἰγίμιος) was the Greek mythological ancestor of the Dorians, who is described as their king and lawgiver at the time when they were yet inhabiting the northern parts of Thessaly. Mythology Aegimius asked Hera ...

. The poem, printed among Hesiodic fragments,''Hesiod: Fragments'', translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914: on-line text
survives in fewer than a dozen quotations, and seems to have been in part concerned with the myth of Io and Argos Panoptes.

Notes

References

Athenaeus of Naucratis Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...

. ''The Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned.'' London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Athenaeus of Naucratis. ''Deipnosophistae''. Kaibel. In Aedibus B.G. Teubneri. Lipsiae. 1887
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...

, ''The Library of History'' translated by

Charles Henry Oldfather Charles Henry Oldfather (13 June 1887 – 20 August 1954) was an American professor of history of the ancient world, specifically at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He was born in Tabriz, Persia. Parentage Oldfather's parents, Jeremiah and Fe ...

. Twelve volumes.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and L ...

. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8
Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site
* Diodorus Siculus, ''Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2''. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888–1890
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Pindar Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...

, ''Odes'' translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Pindar, ''The Odes of Pindar'' including the Principal Fragments with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John Sandys, Litt.D., FBA. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1937
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Pseudo-Apollodorus The ''Bibliotheca'' (Ancient Greek: grc, Βιβλιοθήκη, lit=Library, translit=Bibliothēkē, label=none), also known as the ''Bibliotheca'' of Pseudo-Apollodorus, is a compendium of Greek myths and heroic legends, arranged in three book ...

, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
*

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium ( la, Stephanus Byzantinus; grc-gre, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD), was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethni ...

, ''Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt,'' edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Ancient legislators Mythological kings of Thessaly Kings in Greek mythology {{Greek-myth-stub Mythology of Heracles Dorian mythology