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Aeacus was in this world king of the island of
Aegina, which is in the Saronic Gulf, and is now
one of those who judge the dead in the
Underworld, keeping
the keys of this subterranean place.
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Birth of Aeacus
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Zeus, assuming the shape
of an eagle (or of fire, Ov.Met.6.113)
approached Aegina, one of the daughters of the
river god Asopus and Metope 1, herself daughter of
the river god Ladon 1, and being in love with her,
carried her off, and took her to the island of
Oenone—also called Oenopia but now called
Aegina after her—, where she gave birth to a
son Aeacus.
Sisyphus refused to
reveal this love affair to Aegina's father Asopus
until the latter agreed to give him a spring
(Peirene) on the Acrocorinthus [Pau.2.5.1]. But for
having disclosed Zeus'
secret, Sisyphus is
still being punished in the
Underworld. Having
learned who the ravisher was, Asopus went after
Zeus, but the god forced
him back to his own streams by hurling
thunderbolts. It is told that this is the reason
why coals could be fetched from the streams of the
river Asopus [Apd.3.12.6].
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Ants turned into men
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Aeacus was alone in the island, and as territory
without human beings is worthless for any man
living in it, to put an end to that solitude
Zeus turned the ants of the
island into men. And when human beings were added
to the land Aeacus could become king. These men,
some say, were called Myrmidons following the Greek
word for "ants".
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Famine and the ants
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However, some have said that the Aeginetans were
called Myrmidons, not because ants became human
beings in answer to Aeacus' prayers, but because
during a famine they excavated the earth in the way
ants do and spread the soil over the rocks in order
to have some ground to till, and also because they
lived in the dug-outs, refraining from the use of
soil for making bricks.
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Pestilence and the ants
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Others have said that famine was not the trouble
in Aegina but pestilence. For jealous
Hera, they say, wished to
punish the island that had been named after her
husband's mistress. And so a plague fell upon
Aegina attacking first the animals and then the
human beings. This epidemic had such proportions
that almost no one was left alive, and the dead
bodies were so many that no one cared to bury them.
It is said that many drove away the fear of death
by death and committed suicide, and so the country
was left desolate.
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Aeacus' prayer
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It was then that Aeacus prayed to
Zeus under an oak, and
seeing ants marching in a long column he asked:
"O most
excellent father, grant me just as many subjects,
and fill my empty walls." [Aeacus to
Zeus. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
7.627]
And these ants turned into men, first in Aeacus'
dream that night, but then in reality, for on the
following day he could see them with his waking
eyes as they came greeting him as king. And because
of his prayer and his dream he called them
Myrmidons, deriving this name from the word "ant".
And yet others have said that
Zeus raised up the
inhabitants of Aegina out of the earth.
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Telamon shows King Aeacus
the men who came to greet him as
king
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Protection of the island
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During his rule, Aeacus fortified Aegina, making
the island difficult to approach through
surrounding it by sunken rocks and reefs.
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Pious man
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King Aeacus, who was regarded as the most
righteous among the
Hellenes, had such a
reputation as a pious man that
Zeus would listen to him
alone and he settled disputes even for the gods. It
is said that Greece was delivered of a terrible
dearth thanks to Aeacus' prayers. This calamity,
they say, had been caused by the perfidious actions
of the ambitious Pelops
1, who, not being able to defeat King
Stymphalus 1 of Arcadia,
made peace with him pretending friendship, but
afterwards treacherously slew him. At that time no
rain fell either to the north of the Isthmus of
Corinth or in the
Peloponnesus, and the Pythian priestess said that
Zeus would listen to no one
except Aeacus. So the Greeks sent envoys to Aeacus
from each city and he, by praying and sacrificing
to Zeus, caused rain to
fall upon the earth again.
According to some, Aeacus helped
Apollo and
Poseidon to build the
walls of Troy, and a
prophecy was uttered when the work had been done:
"And three
gray-green serpents, when the wall was newly built,
tried to leap into it; two of them fell down,
stunned, and gave up their lives, and the third
leapt up with a cry. Pondering this adverse omen,
Apollo said right away: 'Pergamos is
taken, hero, through the works of your
hands—so says a vision sent to me from the son
of Cronos, loud-thundering Zeus —not without your sons: the
city will be destroyed with the first generation,
and with the third.'" [Pin.Oly.8.31]
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Famous grandsons
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Aeacus married first Endeis, a woman of
uncertain parentage, and had by her two sons:
Peleus (father of
Achilles) and Telamon
(father of Ajax 1).
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Second wife
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Then Aeacus married the Nereid Psamathe 1, who
turned herself into a seal in an attempt to avoid
him, and had by her a son Phocus 3.
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Phocus 3 murdered
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Phocus 3 excelled in athletic sports and this
hability, they say, arose the jealousy of his
half-brothers Peleus and
Telamon, who plotted against him and killed him
hiding his body in the woods. Some say that Telamon
during a match threw a quoit at his head, but
others have said that Telamon killed Phocus 3 with
a spear while hunting [more details in note about
Psamathe 1 at NEREIDS].
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Ostracism for the murderers
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When Aeacus learned what her sons had done he
drove them into exile. And Telamon came to Salamis,
an island off the coast of Attica in the Saronic
Gulf, and Peleus came to
Phthia in southern Thessaly, and in time both
became rulers of the countries that received them.
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Descendants of Aeacus
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But as these sons left and the other was dead,
no one has been able in later times to mention
other kings of Aegina except Aeacus. For Panopeus 1
and Crisus, sons of Phocus 3, also left and settled
in Phocis, a region bordering the Gulf of
Corinth west of Boeotia,
where their father Phocus 3, thinking to settle
there, had made friends. The son of Panopeus 1 is
the architect Epeius 2, constructor of the
WOODEN HORSE. And
Crisus had a son Strophius 1, who brought up the
exiled Orestes 2, son
of Agamemnon, together
with his own son Pylades, who himself became
Orestes 2's best
friend.
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Judge
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Aeacus was buried in Aegina, but after his death
he was appointed to be one of the JUDGES OF THE
DEAD (or to be the keeper of the keys of the
Underworld
—Apd.3.12.6, Aristophanes, The Frogs
465) along with the former king of
Crete,
Minos 2, and with
Rhadamanthys, both sons of
Zeus and
Europa [see also
Underworld].
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Abolengo
Album - High Resolution Genealogical Charts
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Names in this chart
Achilles, Actor 3,
Aeacus, Aegina,
Aeolus 1,
Agamemnon,
Ajax 1, Alcathous 3,
Anaxibia 4, Asopus,
Atreus, Chariclo 3,
Crisus, Cychreus, Deion,
Deucalion 1, Doris 1,
Electra 2, Endeis,
Epeius 2, Gaia, Hellen 1,
Ladon 1, Medon 7, Menoetius 2, Metope 1,
Neoptolemus, Nereus,
Panopeus 1, Patroclus
1, Peleus,
Pelops 1, Periboea 2,
Phocus 3, Pleisthenes 1, Pontus,
Poseidon, Psamathe 1,
Pylades, Salamis, Strophius 1, Strophius 3,
Telamon, Zeus.
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