Salmoneus

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Salmoneus (center) on a red-figure column crater around 470/60 BC Chr., Chicago, Art Institute 1889.16

Salmoneus ( old Greek: Σαλμωνεύς) is the name of a son of Aiolos and Enarete in Greek mythology . From Alkidike he had the daughter Tyro , who was abused by his second wife Sidero .

He came from Thessaly and as an eponymous oikist founded the city of Salmonia in the Elis region on the west coast of the Peloponnese . After the death of his first wife, Alkidike, he married Sidero.

It was his undoing that he wanted to put himself on a par with Zeus . He allowed the inhabitants of the city he founded to address him as Zeus and demanded sacrifices in his place. In his stiffness he drove through the streets of Salmonia in a cart drawn by four horses, behind which he pulled bronze cauldrons covered with dried animal hides to imitate the thunder. He threw burning torches into the air to make people believe that it was lightning.

As a punishment for this outrage, Zeus killed him and destroyed the entire city of Salmonia with lightning.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Bibliotheke of Apollodor 1,9,7
  2. ^ Virgil , Aeneid 6, 585-94