Aiakos

The judges of the dead Minos, Aiakos and Rhadamanthys
( Ludwig Mack : Die Unterwelt , around 1826)

Aiakos ( ancient Greek Αἰακός , Latin Aeacus ) is in Greek mythology the son of Zeus and Aigina , a daughter of the river god Asopos . He rules the Myrmidons as king on Aegina and is the progenitor of the Aiakids .

Zeus had made Aegina his lover. Since this was pursued by his jealous wife Hera , he flew her in the form of an eagle to the island of Oinone (also Oinoe, Oinopia), where Aiakos was born. The island was later named Aigina / Aegina. Aiakos was alone there until he was a boy and he found it difficult to endure loneliness. But finally Zeus took pity on him and transformed the ants of the island into men and women, thus creating the family of the Myrmidons . Aiakos now ruled over this wise and just, a favorite of the gods who, like humans, often used him as an arbiter. Because of his great sense of justice, Aiakos was appointed judge of the shadows alongside Minos and Rhadamanthys after his death . Aristophanes and Lukian made him the doorkeeper of the underworld .

Images show him with the insignia of his judicial power or with the key of the underworld. (According to the library of Apollodorus , the keys to the underworld were entrusted to him by Hades .) On Aegina, where Aiakos was worshiped as a demigod, there was Aiakeion , built for his worship, with walls made of white marble.

With his wife Endeis, Aiakos had two sons, Peleus and Telamon . These fathered two heroes of the Trojan War , Achilles and Ajax .

In addition, it is described how Aiakos raged against the Indians during the Indian campaign of Dionysus in the Battle of the Hydaspes , similar to how his grandson Achilles at Scamandros against the Trojans in Canto 21 of the Iliad .

literature

• Karl Kerényi : The Mythology of the Greeks. Volume 1: The stories of gods and mankind. dtv, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-423-01345-1 .
• Johannes Toepffer : Aiakos 1 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893ff., Col. 923-926.
• Emil Wörner : Aiakos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, Sp. 109-114 ( digitized version ).
• Alwine Zunker: Investigations into the Aiakid saga on Aigina. EOS-Verlag, St. Ottilien 1988, ISBN 3-88096-854-3 .

Web links

 Wikisource: Äǎkos  - Article of the 4th edition of Meyers Konversations-Lexikon

Commons : Aeacus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Aiakos in the Greek Myth Index (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Homer , Iliad 21,189.
2. ↑ Plato , Gorgias 526e – 527a; Hyginus , Fabulae 52
3. ↑ Ovid , Metamorphoses 7.616.
4. ↑ Libraries of Apollodor 3, 12, 6, 4.
5. ↑ Nonnos of Panopolis , Dionysiaka 7,210-214.
6. ↑ Pausanias 2,29,2.
7. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.627 to 657.
8. ↑ Pindar , Isthmien 8.21 to 26.
9. ^ Plato, Apology 41a; Gorgias 523e-524a; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13: 25-26.
10. ↑ Aristophanes , Frogs 465–478.
11. ↑ Lukian, Talks with the Dead, 20.
12. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 3, 12, 6, 10.
13. ↑ Pausanias 2,29,6.
14. ↑ Libraries of Apollodor 3,12,6,7.
15. ^ Nonnos of Panopolis, Dionysiaka 22, 383-388