AthAmAs
Publié le 22/02/2012
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Greek One of the sons of Aeolus;
brother of Sisyphus and Salmoneus; king of Orchomenus
in Boeotia. With Nephele he had two sons,
Phrixus and Leucon, and a daughter, Helle.
Athamas tired of the phantomlike Nephele and
took Ino, daughter of Cadmus, to be his second wife.
It was this marriage and the subsequent flight of
Phrixus and Helle that brought about (a generation
later) Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, for the two youngsters had fled from Boeotia on the back of
a winged ram that bore a Golden Fleece.
Athamas and Ino looked after the infant Dionysus,
son of Zeus and Semele. For this they
earned the gratitude of Zeus but also the wrath of
his wife, Hera, who visited madness upon Athamas
and Ino.
Athamas and Ino had two sons, Learchus and
Melicertes. In a fit of madness, Athamas killed
Learchus and ate his still-warm flesh. Stricken with
grief, Athamas left his kingdom and wandered from
country to country. After many years, he founded
a city called Alos, in Epirus, an ancient country of
Greece, on the Ionian Sea.
The conflict between the two wives of Athamas,
Nephele (made by Zeus in the likeness of Hera) and
Ino, may represent the conflict between early Ionian
farmers (who worshiped the corn goddess) and later
Aeolian invaders, who reared sheep and worshiped
the thunder god Aeolus, represented by the cloudlike
Nephele.
Liens utiles
- Ino Greek Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia; sister of Agave, Antonoë, and Semele; wife of Athamas.
- Nephele Greek Wife of Athamas; mother of Phrixus, Leucon, and Helle.
- Phrixus Greek Son of Athamas and Nephele; brother of Helle.
- Sisyphus Greek Son of Aeolus; brother of Athamas; husband of Merope.