{{Other uses, Laodamia In

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, Laodamia (

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 ...

: Λαοδάμεια ''Laodámeia'') was the daughter of

Acastus Acastus (; Ancient Greek: Ἄκαστος) is a character in Greek mythology. He sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, and participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Family Acastus was the son of Pelias, then king of Iolcus, and Anaxibia ...

, King of

Iolcus Iolcus (; also rendered ''Iolkos'' ; grc, Ἰωλκός and Ἰαωλκός; grc-x-doric, Ἰαλκός; ell, Ιωλκός) is an ancient city, a modern village and a former Municipalities and communities of Greece, municipality in Magnesia (re ...

, and his wife

Astydameia In Greek mythology, Astydamea or Astydamia (; Ancient Greek: Ἀστυδάμεια ''Astudámeia'', derived from ἄστυ ''ástu'', "town", and δαμάω ''damáo'', "to tame") is a name attributed to several individuals: * Astydamea, also known ...

. Laodamia became the wife of

Protesilaus In Greek mythology, Protesilaus (; Ancient Greek: Πρωτεσίλᾱος ''Prōtesilāos'') was a hero in the ''Iliad'' who was venerated at cult sites in Thessaly and Thrace. Protesilaus was the son of Iphiclus, a "lord of many sheep"; as gran ...

Mythology

After Protesilaus was killed in the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...

he was allowed to return to his wife for only three hours before returning to the underworld because they had only just married. Thereafter Laodamia was described as possibly having committed suicide by stabbing herself, rather than be without him. According to

Hyginus Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' ''De Grammatic ...

' ''Fabulae'', however, the story runs like this: "When Laodamia, daughter of Acastus, after her husband's loss had spent the three hours which she had asked from the gods, she could not endure her weeping and grief. And so she made a bronze likeness of her husband Protesilaus, put it in her room under pretense of sacred rites, and devoted herself to it. When a servant early in the morning had brought fruit for the offerings, he looked through a crack in the door and saw her holding the image of Protesilaus in her embrace and kissing it. Thinking she had a lover he told her father Acastus. When he came and burst into the room, he saw the statue of Protesilaus. To put an end to her torture he had the statue and the sacred offerings burned on a pyre he had made, but Laodamia, not enduring her grief, threw herself on it and was burned to death."Hyginus' Fabulae 104

Notes

References

Gaius Julius Hyginus Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' ''De Grammatic ...

, ''Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus'' translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
*

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
*

Publius Ovidius Naso Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, ''The Epistles of Ovid.'' London. J. Nunn, Great-Queen-Street; R. Priestly, 143, High-Holborn; R. Lea, Greek-Street, Soho; and J. Rodwell, New-Bond-Street. 1813
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Princesses in Greek mythology Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid Characters from Iolcus Suicides in Greek mythology