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 ...

, Tyro ( grc, Τυρώ) was an

Elean Elis () or Eleia ( el, Ήλιδα, Ilida, grc-att, Ἦλις, Ēlis ; Elean: , ethnonym: ) is an ancient district in Greece that corresponds to the modern regional unit of Elis. Elis is in southern Greece on the Peloponnese, bounded on ...

princess who later became Queen 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 municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local gove ...

Family

Tyro was the daughter of King

Salmoneus In Greek mythology, Salmoneus (; Ancient Greek: Σαλμωνεύς) was 'the wicked'Hesiod, '' Ehoiai'' fr. 4 as cited in Plutarch, ''Moralia'' p. 747; Scholia on Pindar, ''Pythian Ode'' 4.263 eponymous king and founder of Salmone in Pisatis. ...

Elis Elis or Ilia ( el, Ηλεία, ''Ileia'') is a historic region in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. It is administered as a regional unit of the modern region of Western Greece. Its capital is Pyrgos. Until 2011 it was ...

and

Alcidice Alcidice (Ancient Greek: Ἀλκιδίκη) was, in Greek mythology, an Arcadian princess as the daughter of King Aleus. She married Salmoneus, king of Elis, and bore a daughter, Tyro. After her death Salmoneus married Sidero In Greek mythology, ...

, daughter of King

Aleus In Greek mythology, Aleus (or Aleos) ( grc, Ἀλεός) was the king of Arcadia, eponym of Alea, and founder of the cult of Athena Alea. He was the grandson of Arcas. His daughter Auge was the mother of the hero Telephus, by Heracles. Aleus' s ...

Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...

. She married her uncle King

Cretheus In Greek mythology, Cretheus (; Ancient Greek: Κρηθεύς ''Krētheus'') may refer to the following characters: * Cretheus, king and founder of Iolcus, the son of King Aeolus of Aeolia (son of Hellen) by either Enarete or Laodice. He was the ...

of Iolcus but loved the

river-god A water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water. Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important. Anoth ...

Enipeus. Tyro gave birth to

Pelias Pelias ( ; Ancient Greek: Πελίας) was king of Iolcus in Greek mythology. He was the one who sent Jason on the quest for the Golden Fleece. Family Pelias was the son of Tyro and Poseidon. His wife is recorded as either Anaxibia, daughte ...

and Neleus, the twin sons of

Poseidon Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ch ...

. With Cretheus, she had three sons,

Aeson In Greek mythology, Aeson (; Ancient Greek: Αἴσων ''Aísōn'') was a king of Iolcus in Thessaly. He was the father of the hero Jason. According to one version of the story, he was imprisoned by his half-brother Pelias, and when Pelias inte ...

Pheres In Greek mythology, Pheres ( grc, Φέρης, ''Phéres'', modern pronunciation ''Féris''; la, Pheres) was the founder of Pherae in Thessaly. Family Pheres was the son of Cretheus, King of Iolcus and Tyro. He was the brother of Aeson and Amy ...

and

Amythaon In Greek mythology, Amythaon (; Ancient Greek: Ἀμυθάων, ''gen''.: Ἀμυθάονος) was prince of Iolcus as the son of King Cretheus and Tyro, daughter of King Salmoneus of Elis. He was the brother of Aeson and Pheres. Amythaon dwelt at ...

. In some accounts, Tyro had a daughter named

Phalanna Phalanna ( grc, Φάλαννα), was a town and polis (city-state) of the Perrhaebi in ancient Thessaly, situated on the left bank of the Peneius, southwest of Gonnus. Strabo says that the Homeric Orthe became the acropolis of Phalanna; but in ...

who gave her name to city of Phalanna in Thessaly.

Mythology

Tyro's father Salmoneus was the brother of

Athamas In Greek mythology, Athamas (; grc, Ἀθάμας, Athámas) was a Boeotian king.Apollodorus1.9.1/ref> Family Athamas was formerly a Thessalian prince and the son of King Aeolus of Aeolia and Enarete, daughter of Deimachus. He was the bro ...

and

Sisyphus In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos (; Ancient Greek: Σίσυφος ''Sísyphos'') was the founder and king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). Hades punished him for cheating death twice by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill ...

. She was married to her uncle

, King of

but Tyro loved the river god Enipeus who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus and from their union was born Pelias and Neleus, twin boys. Tyro exposed her sons on a mountain to die, but they were found by a herdsman who raised them as his own. When the twins reached adulthood, they found Tyro and killed her stepmother,

Sidero In Greek mythology, Sidero (Ancient Greek: Σιδηρώ means "the Iron One") was the second wife of King Salmoneus of Elis and stepmother of Tyro, whom she mistreated. Pelias and Neleus, Tyro's twin sons, sought revenge when they reached adult ...

, for having mistreated their mother (Salmoneus married Sidero when

died). Sidero hid at the temple of

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she ...

but Pelias killed her anyway, causing Hera's undying hatred of Pelias – and her glorious patronage of

Jason Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He w ...

and the Argonauts in their long quest for the

Golden Fleece In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece ( el, Χρυσόμαλλον δέρας, ''Chrysómallon déras'') is the fleece of the golden-woolled,, ''Khrusómallos''. winged ram, Chrysomallos, that rescued Phrixus and brought him to Colchis, where ...

. Pelias' half brother Aeson, the son of Tyro and Cretheus, was the father of Jason. Soon after, Tyro married Sisyphus, her paternal uncle and had two children. It was said that their children would kill Salmoneus, so Tyro killed them in order to save her father.

In popular culture

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

refers to Tyro in ''

The Cantos ''The Cantos'' by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a ''canto''. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date ...

''. In Canto 2 he takes up her rape by Poseidon:

"And by the beach-run, Tyro,
Twisted arms of the sea-god,
Lithe sinews of water, gripping her, cross-hold,
And the blue-gray glass of the wave tents them,
Glare azure of water, cold-welter, close cover."

In a later Canto (74) Pound connects her to

Alcmene In Greek mythology, Alcmene () or Alcmena (; Ancient Greek: Ἀλκμήνη or Doric Greek: Ἀλκμάνα, Latin: Alcumena means "strong in wrath") was the wife of Amphitryon by whom she bore two children, Iphicles and Laonome. She is best kn ...

, imprisoned in the world of the dead, but in a later paradisal vision he sees her "ascending":

thick smoke, purple, rising
bright flame now on the altar
the crystal funnel of air
out of Erebus, the delivered,
Tyro, Alcmene, free now, ascending
..no shades more (Canto 90)Pound, Ezra. ''The Cantos''. New York: New Directions, 1998.

Notes

{{Reflist

References

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. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. 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
*

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.
*

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 ...

, ''Catalogue of Women'' from ''Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica'' translated by Evelyn-White, H G. Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. London: William Heinemann, 1914
Online version at theio.com
*

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

, ''The Odyssey'' with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
*

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.
Princesses in Greek mythology Queens in Greek mythology Family of Salmoneus Mortal parents of demigods in classical mythology Women of Poseidon Women in Greek mythology Characters from Iolcus Elean characters in Greek mythology Thessalian characters in Greek mythology Characters in Greek mythology Elean mythology Thessalian mythology