Alcimede

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Alcimede

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Alcimede ("mighty cunning") was one of the matrilineal Minyan

Minyans

According to Greek mythology, the Minyans were an autochthonous group inhabiting the Aegean region. However, the extent to which the prehistory of the Aegean world is reflected in literary accounts of legendary peoples is subject to repeated revision....
daughters, the daughter of Clymene

Clymene

Clymene or Klymen? may refer to:*104 Klymene, an asteroid*Clymene Dolphin *Clymene or Asia , an Oceanid, wife of Iapetus, and mother of Atlas , Epimetheus, Prometheus, and Menoetius...
, Minyas

Minyas (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Minyas was the founder of Orchomenus or son of king Orchomenus, depending on the story. As the ancestor of the Minyans, a number of Boeotian genealogies lead back to him, according to the classicist H....
' daughter. She was the mother of Jason

Jason

Jason was a late ancient Greece Greek mythology figure, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus....
by Aeson

Aeson

In Greek mythology, Aeson or Aison was the son of Tyro and Cretheus, who also had his brothers Pheres and Amythaon. Aeson was the father of Jason and Promachus with Polymede, the daughter of Autolycus....
, whom she met in the caves below Iolcus in Thessaly

Thessaly

Thessaly is one of the 13 Peripheries of Greece of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 Prefectures of Greece. The capital of the periphery and traditional Regions of Greece is Larissa....
, a chthonic

Chthonic

Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Ancient Greek religion.Greek khthon is one of several words for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the Landscape or the land as territory ....
lair where the rightful king Aeson had been imprisoned by his evil half-brother Pelias

Pelias

Pelias was king of Iolcus in Greek mythology, the son of Tyro, daughter of Aleus, and of either Poseidon or Cretheus. His wife is recorded as either Anaxibia, daughter of Bias , or Phylomache, daughter of Amphion....
.

The old story of Alcimede's son Jason and the quest for the golden fleece

Golden Fleece

In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece is the fleece of the winged ram Chrysomallos . It figures in the tale of Jason and his band of Argonauts, who set out on a quest for the fleece in order to place Jason rightfully on the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly....
is most familiar from a late version, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes, also known as Apollonius Rhodius , early 3rd century BCE - after 246 BCE, was a librarian at the Library of Alexandria....
.

A hint of matrilineal descent in archaic times among the Boeotia

Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
n Minyans of Greece, is in Apollonius' aside concerning Jason's heritage:

"So many then were the helpers who assembled to join the son of Aeson.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Minyans

Clymene

Minyas (mythology)

Jason

Aeson

Thessaly

Chthonic

Pelias

Golden Fleece

Apollonius of Rhodes

Boeotia

"So many then were the helpers who assembled to join the son of Aeson. All the chiefs the dwellers thereabout called Minyae, for the most and the bravest avowed that they were sprung from the blood of the daughters of Minyas; thus Jason himself was the son of Alcimede who was born of Clymene the daughter of Minyas." (Argonautica Book iii, 11.228-233)

A further hint of archaic matrilineal descent is that Clymene's consort is offered in two versions: she was usually cast as the wife of Phylacus

Phylacus

In Greek mythology, Phylacus founded the city of Phylace, Thessaly. He was the son of Deion and Diomede, husband of Clymene, and the father of Alcimede....
(son of Deion, son of Aeolus

Aeolus

Aeolus , Latinized as ?olus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which....
) or in some versions, Aeson was fathered by Cephalus

Cephalus

Cephalus is an Ancient Greek name, used both for historical persons and for characters in Greek mythology. The word cephalus is Greek for "head", perhaps used here because Cephalus was the founding "head" of a great family that includes Odysseus....
, otherwise the consort of Procris.

Along with Aeson, Alcimede was forced by the usurping Pelias to commit suicide. She hanged herself or else drank, along with her husband and the child Promachus

Promachus

In Greek mythology, Promachus referred to several different people.*Son of Aeson and Alcimede, killed by Pelias along with his father while his brother, Jason, searched for the Golden Fleece....
, of bull's blood and so died.

Sources

Valerius Flaccus
Valerius Flaccus

Valerius Flaccus may refer to:*Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Roman poet at the time of Vespasian*Lucius Valerius Flaccus, name of a number of Roman politicians...
(who also wrote an Argonaut epic) 1.818 etc.
Argonautica 1.47, 1.228ff.
Hyginus
Gaius Julius Hyginus

Gaius Julius Hyginus was a Latin author, though whether a native of Spain or of Alexandria it is not clear, a pupil of the famous Alexander Cornelius, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus, by whom he was made superintendent of the Palatine library, according to Suetonius' minor works, De Grammaticis, 20....
. Fabulae, 14.
Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
. Description of Greece, 10.29.6.