Peleus

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Peleus

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....
, Peleús was a hero

Greek hero cult

Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" refers to any man who was fighting on either side of the Trojan War....
who was already known to Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
. Peleus was the son of Aeacus

Aeacus

Aeacus was a Greek mythology king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.He was son of Zeus and Aegina , a daughter of the river-god Asopus....
, king of the island of Aegina

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Greek islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 17 miles from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island....
, and Endeïs

Endeis

Endeis in Greek mythology was the wife of Aeacus and mother of Telamon and Peleus. Endeis was the daughter of either the Centaur Chiron and the nymph Chariclo, or of Sciron of Megara....
, the oread

Oread

In Greek mythology, an Oread or Orestiad was a type of nymph that lived in mountains, valleys, ravines. They differ from each other according to their dwelling: the Idae were from Mount Ida, Peliades from Mount Pelia, etc....
of Mount Pelion 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....
; he became the father of Achilles

Achilles

Telamon

In Greek mythology, Telamon , son of the king Aeacus, of Aegina, and Endeis and brother of Peleus, accompanied Jason as one his Argonauts, and was present at the hunt for the Calydonian Boar....
were friends of Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
, serving in his expedition against the Amazons

Amazons

The Amazons , ) are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical and Greek mythology, who were possibly historical. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatians....
and his war against King Laomedon

Laomedon

In Greek mythology, Laomedon was a Troy king, son of Ilus, brother of Ganymede and father of Priam, Astyoche, Lampus, Hicetaon, Clytius, Cilla , Proclia, Aethilla, Clytodora, and Hesione....
. Though there were no further kings in Aegina, the kings of Epirus

Epirus

The name Epirus, from the Greek language "?pe????" meaning continent may refer to:...
claimed descent from Peleus.

us and Telamon

Telamon

Phocus

In Greek mythology, two different people bore the name Phocus.#A Phocus, son of Aeacus and Psamathe. He was a strong athlete and this ability arose the jealousy of his half-brothers, Peleus and Telamon....
, perhaps in a hunting accident, and fled Aegina to escape punishment.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek hero cult

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
. Peleus was the son of Aeacus

Aeacus

Aeacus was a Greek mythology king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.He was son of Zeus and Aegina , a daughter of the river-god Asopus....
, king of the island of Aegina

Aegina

Endeis

Oread

Thessaly

Achilles

Telamon

Heracles

Amazons

Laomedon

Epirus

The name Epirus, from the Greek language "?pe????" meaning continent may refer to:...
claimed descent from Peleus.

Life myth

Peleus and Telamon

Telamon

Phocus

Phthia

Founded by Aiakos, grandfather of Achilles, it was the home of his father Peleus and his sea-nymph mother Thetis.Phthia is also an area in the 1988 Nintendo game "The Battle of Olympus," a playable level where the dragon Ladon and the god Hephaestus make their homes....
, Peleus was purified by Eurytion

Eurytion

In Greek mythology Eurytion . "widely-honoured", was a name attributed to six individuals.*The king of Phthia, son of either Actor , or of Ctimenus, or of Irus and Demonassa, and father of Antigone ....
and married Antigone

Antigone (daughter of Eurytion)

In Greek mythology, Antigone was the daughter of Eurytion and wife of Peleus.Peleus and Telamon, his brother, killed their half-brother Phocus and fled Aegina to escape punishment....
, Eurytion's daughter. Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion during the hunt for the Calydonian Boar

Calydonian Boar

The Calydonian Boar is one of the monsters of Greek mythology that had to be overcome by heroes of the Olympian age. Sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in Aetolia because its king failed to honor her in his rites to the gods, it was killed in the Calydonian Hunt, in which many male heroes took part, but also a powerful wom...
and fled from Phthia.

Peleus was purifed of the murder of Eurytion in Iolcus by Acastus

Acastus

Acastus is a character in Greek mythology. He sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, and participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar....
. Astydameia

Astydameia

In Greek mythology, Astydameia is a name attributed to three individuals....
, Acastus' wife, fell in love with Peleus but he scorned her. Bitter, she sent a messenger to Antigone to tell her that Peleus was to marry Acastus' daughter; Antigone hanged herself.

Astydameia then told Acastus that Peleus had tried to rape her. Acastus took Peleus on a hunting trip and hid his sword, then abandoned him right before a group of centaurs attacked. Chiron

Chiron

In Greek mythology, Chiron or Cheiron was held as the superlative centaur among his brethren. Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents....
, the wise centaur, returned Peleus' sword and Peleus managed to escape. He pillaged Iolcus and dismembered Astydameia, then marched his army between the rendered limbs. After Antigone's death, Peleus married the sea-nymph Thetis

Thetis

Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths as Proteus ....
and fathered Achilles

Achilles

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
gave Peleus two immortal horses: Balius and Xanthus

Balius and Xanthus

In Greek mythology, Balius and Xanthus were two immortal horses, the offspring of the harpies Podarge and the West wind, Zephyros ; following another tradition, their father was Zeus....
. Their wedding feast, however, was also the beginning of the quarrel that led to the Judgement of Paris

Judgement of Paris

The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War and to the foundation of Rome....
and eventually to the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
.

Son Achilles

Thetis

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greeks hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme ; the Wrath of Achilles....
invulnerable. In a familiar 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

Ambrosia

In ancient Greek mythology, ambrosia is sometimes the food, sometimes the drink, of the Greek gods, often depicted as conferring ageless immortality upon whoever consumes it....
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.

Peleus gave Achilles

Achilles

Centaur

In Greek mythology, the centaurs are a race of creatures composed of part human and part horse. In early Attica Pottery of ancient Greece, they are depicted with the torso of a human joined at the waist to the horse's withers, where the horse's neck would be....
Chiron

Chiron

Pelion

Pelion or Pelium is a mountain at the southeastern part of Thessaly in central Greece, forming a hook-like peninsula between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea....
(which took its name from Peleus).

Peleus 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 near by, there was no temenos
Temenos

Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to basileus and anax, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian Games race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ?e????? p??? t??e??? ?????da, the...
of Peleus at Aegina. Two versions of Peleus' fate account for this; in Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
' Troades, Acastus, son of 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....
, has exiled him from Phthia

Phthia

Callimachus

Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar of the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of ancient Egyptian Greeks Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes....
' lost Aitia, there was a tomb of Peleus in Ikos (modern Alonissos)

Alonissos

Alonissos, Alonisos or Alonnisos is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. After Skiathos and Skopelos it is the third member of the Sporades....
, an island of the northern Sporades

Sporades

The Sporades are an archipelago along the east coast of Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea, in the Aegean Sea. It consists of 24 islands, of which five are inhabited: Alonnisos, Skiathos, Skopelos, Peristera and Skyros....
; there Peleus was venerated as "king of the Myrmidons

Myrmidons

The Myrmidons were an ancient tribe of Greek mythology. They were very brave and skilled warriors as described in Homer's Iliad, and were commanded by Achilles....
" and the "return of the hero"

Nostos

Nostos is the Greek word for homecoming. It is a theme dealt with in many Homeric writings such as the Odyssey, in which the main character, Odysseus, strives to get home after the Trojan War....
was celebrated annually. And there was his tomb, according to a poem in the Greek Anthology

Greek Anthology

The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature.While papyrus containing fragments of collections of poetry have been found in Egypt, the earliest known anthology in Greek was compiled by Meleager of Gadara, under the title Anthologia, or "Garland."...
.

The only other reference to veneration of Peleus comes from the Christian Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria , was the first notable member of the Christianity of Alexandria, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216....
, 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
Daimon

Daimon may refer to:...
-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.

Peleus in tragedy

A Peleus by Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
is lost.