In
Greek mythology, Peleus (;
Ancient Greek: Πηλεύς ''Pēleus'') was a hero, king of
Phthia, husband of
Thetis and the father of their son
Achilles. This myth was already known to the hearers of
Homer in the late 8th century BC.
Biography
Peleus was the son of
Aeacus, king of the island of
Aegina, and
Endeïs, the
oread of
Mount Pelion in
Thessaly. He married the sea-nymph
Thetis with whom he fathered
Achilles.
Peleus and his brother
Telamon were friends of
Heracles, and served in Heracles' expedition against the
Amazons
In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, ...
, his war against King
Laomedon, and his quest for the
Golden Fleece alongside
Jason and the
Argonauts
The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, '' Argo'', ...
. Though there were no further kings in Aegina, the kings of
Epirus claimed descent from Peleus in the historic period.
Mythology
Peleus and his brother
Telamon killed their half-brother
Phocus, perhaps in a hunting accident and certainly in an unthinking moment, and fled
Aegina to escape punishment. In
Phthia, Peleus was purified by the city's ruler,
Eurytion, and then married the latter's daughter,
Antigone, by whom he had a daughter,
Polydora
Polydora (; grc, Πολυδώρᾱ in Attic and in Ionic, means 'many-gifts' or 'the shapely') was the name of several characters in Greek mythology:
*Polydora, the 'handsome' Oceanid, one of the 3,000 water-nymph daughters of the Titans Oce ...
. Eurytion received the barest mention among the
Argonauts
The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, '' Argo'', ...
(both Peleus and Telamon were Argonauts themselves) "yet not together, nor from one place, for they dwelt far apart and distant from Aigina;" but Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion during the hunt for the
Calydonian boar and fled from Phthia.
Peleus was purified of the murder of Eurytion in
Iolcus by
Acastus. Acastus' 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 ...
, fell in love with Peleus and after he scorned her, she sent a messenger to
Antigone to tell her that Peleus was to marry Acastus' daughter. As a result, Antigone hanged herself.
Astydameia then told Acastus that Peleus had tried to rape her. Acastus took Peleus on a hunting trip atop Mount Pelion and once Peleus fell asleep, Acastus hid his sword away and abandoned him on the mountainside. Peleus woke up and as a group of
centaurs was about to attack him, the wise centaur
Chiron, or, according to another source,
Hermes, returned his sword to him and Peleus managed to escape. He pillaged Iolcus and dismembered Astydameia, then marched his army between the rended limbs. Acastus and Astydamia were dead and the kingdom fell to
Jason's son,
Thessalus.
Marriage to Thetis
After Antigone's death, Peleus married the sea-nymph
Thetis. He was able to win her over with the aid of
Proteus, who instructed Peleus to hold onto her tightly through all of her physical transformations she used to try to escape. Their wedding feast was attended by many of the
Olympian gods
upright=1.8, Fragment of a relief (1st century BC1st century AD) depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession; from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff), Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and s ...
. As wedding presents,
Poseidon gave Peleus two immortal horses:
Balius and Xanthus,
Hephaestus gave him a knife,
Aphrodite a bowl with an embossed
Eros,
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 ...
a
chlamys
The chlamys (Ancient Greek: χλαμύς : chlamýs, genitive: χλαμύδος : chlamydos) was a type of an ancient Greek cloak. ,
Athena a flute,
Nereus a basket of the divine salt which has an irresistible virtue for overeating, appetite and digestion and
Zeus gave Thetis, as present, the wings of
Arke
In Greek mythology, Arke or Arce ( grc-gre, Ἄρκη, ''Árkē'', meaning "swift") is one of the daughters of Thaumas and sister to Iris. During the Titanomachy, Arke fled from the Olympians' camp and joined the Titans, unlike Iris who remained l ...
.
During the feast,
Eris, in revenge for not being invited, produced the
Apple of Discord, which started the quarrel that led to the
Judgement of Paris and eventually the
Trojan War. The marriage of Peleus and Thetis produced seven sons, six of whom died in infancy. The only surviving son was
Achilles.
Peleus' son Achilles
Thetis attempted to render her son
Achilles invulnerable. In the well-known version, she dipped him in the
River Styx, holding him by one heel, which remained vulnerable. In an early and less popular version of the story, Thetis anointed the boy in
ambrosia
In the ancient Greek myths, ''ambrosia'' (, grc, ἀμβροσία 'immortality'), the food or drink of the Greek gods, is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus ...
and put him on top of a fire to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and she abandoned both father and son in a rage, leaving his heel vulnerable. A nearly identical story is told by
Plutarch, in his ''On
Isis and
Osiris'', of the goddess Isis burning away the mortality of Prince Maneros of
Byblos, son of Queen
Astarte, and being likewise interrupted before completing the process. Later on in life, Achilles is killed by Paris when he is shot in his vulnerable spot, the heel. This is where the term "Achilles' heel" is derived from.
Peleus gave
Achilles to the
centaur
A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.
Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being ...
Chiron, to raise on
Mt. Pelion, which took its name from Peleus.
In the ''
Iliad'', Achilles uses Peleus' immortal horses and also wields his father's spear.
In hero-cult
Though the tomb of Aeacus remained in a shrine enclosure in the most conspicuous part of the port city, a quadrangular enclosure of white marble sculpted with bas-reliefs, in the form in which
Pausanias saw it, with the tumulus of
Phocus nearby, there was no ''
temenos'' of Peleus at Aegina. Two versions of Peleus' fate account for this; in
Euripides' ''Troades'', Acastus, son of
Pelias, has exiled him from
Phthia; and subsequently he dies in exile; in another, he is reunited with
Thetis and made immortal.
In antiquity, according to a fragment of
Callimachus' lost ''Aitia'', there was a tomb of Peleus in
Ikos (modern Alonissos), an island of the northern
Sporades; there Peleus was venerated as "king of the
Myrmidons" and the
"return of the hero" was celebrated annually. And there was his tomb, according to a poem in the
Greek Anthology
The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...
.
The only other reference to veneration of Peleus comes from the Christian
Clement of Alexandria, in his polemical ''Exhortation to the Greeks''. Clement attributes his source to a "collection of marvels" by a certain "Monimos" of whom nothing is known, and claims, in pursuit of his thesis that ''
daimon''-worshipers become as cruel as their gods, that in "Pella of
Thessaly human sacrifice is offered to Peleus and Cheiron, the victim being an Achaean". Of this, the continuing association of Peleus and Chiron is the most dependable detail.
[By way of apology for Clement, Farnell suggests "human sacrifice was occasionally an adjunct of hero-cults, and this at Pella may have been an exceptional rite prescribed at a crisis by some later oracle." (Farnell 1921:311). Dennis D. Hughes, ''Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece'' (Routledge, 1991) offers a skeptical view of the actuality of human sacrifices during historical times.]
In Athenian tragedy
A ''Peleus'' by
Sophocles is lost. He appears as a
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
in
Euripides'
tragedy ''
Andromache'' (c. 425 BC).
Gallery
Peleus and Thetis
File:Thetis Peleus Louvre G373.jpg,
File:Thetis Peleus Louvre G65.jpg,
File:Peleus Thetis Staatliche Antikensammlungen 1415.jpg,
File:Peleus Thetis Staatliche Antikensammlungen Schoen64.jpg,
File:Kylix by Peithinos - Altes Museum Berlin.JPG,
File:Pyxis Peleus Thetis Louvre L55 by Wedding Painter.jpg,
Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
File:The wedding of Peleus and Thetis, by Joachim Wtewael.jpg,
File:The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis by Peter Paul Rubens.jpg,
File:Gillis van Valckenborch - The marriage of Peleus and Thetis.jpg,
File:WLANL - legalizefreedom - De bruiloft van Peleus en Thetis.jpg,
File:The feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.jpg,
File:Hans Rottenhammer - Götterfest, Hochzeit von Peleus und Thetis (Ermitage).jpg,
File:1715 Elliger Hochzeit von Peleus und Thetis anagoria.JPG,
File:WeddingPeleusThetisWtewael.jpg,
File:Jan van Balen (attr.) - The Marriage Feast of Peleus and Thetis.jpg,
File:PeleusThetisWtewael2.jpg,
File:Golden Apple of Discord by Jacob Jordaens.jpg,
File:The Wedding Feast of Peleus and Thetis LACMA M.88.91.100.jpg,
File:Jan Brueghel and Hendrick van Balen - The Marriage of the Goddess of the Sea, Thetis, and King Peleus, 1610.jpg,
File:Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem - The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (detail) - WGA05246.jpg,
File:Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem - The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (detail) - WGA05245.jpg,
File:The Marriage of Peleus by Mazzola.jpg,
File:Hendrick van Balen-Les noces de Thétis et Pêlée.jpg,
File:The Feast of Peleus - Edward Burne-Jones.jpg,
File:Agostino Carracci, Teti e Peleo, Palazzo del Giardino, Parma.jpg,
File:Giovanni - Noces de Thétis et Pelée, Louvre RF 1346.jpg,
File:Risdm-62-058Wtewael.jpg,
File:Mythologisches Gastmahl flämisch 17Jh.jpg,
File:Hans Rottenhammer 001.jpg,
File:Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem - Massacre of the Innocents - WGA05256.jpg,
File:Jan Erasmus Quellinus - Thetis Dips Achilles in a Vase with Water from the Styx - WGA18567.jpg,
Notes
References
*
Apollodorus
Apollodorus (Ancient Greek, Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: ...
, ''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. ISBN 0-674-99135-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
*Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheke
Bibliotheca may refer to:
* ''Bibliotheca'' (Pseudo-Apollodorus), a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends
* '' Bibliotheca historica'', a first century BC work of universal history by Diodorus Siculus
* ''Bibliotheca'' ...
'' I, ix, 16 and III, ix,2 and xii, 6- xiii,7; ''Epitome'' vi, 13.
* Apollonius Rhodius, '' Argonautica'' translated by Robert Cooper Seaton (1853-1915), R. C. Loeb Classical Library Volume 001. London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1912
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
*Apollonius Rhodius, ''Argonautica''. George W. Mooney. London. Longmans, Green. 1912
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Apollonius Rhodius, '' Argonautica'' IV,805- 879
* Catullus, Poem 64
* Homer, ''The Iliad'' with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
*Homer, ''Homeri Opera'' in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Homer, '' Iliad'' XVIII, 78–87
*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 ...
, '' Metamorphoses'' translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
*Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses.'' Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892
Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Ovid, '' Metamorphoses'' VIII, 299–381.
* Euripides, '' Andromache'' with an English translation by David Kovacs. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1994
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
{{Authority control
Argonauts
Greek mythological heroes
Mythological swordfighters
Kings of the Myrmidons
Kings in Greek mythology
Characters in the Argonautica
Aeginetan characters in Greek mythology
Characters in Greek mythology
Achilles
Thessalian mythology
