Tlepolemos (mythology)

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Tlepolemos ( Greek  Τληπόλεμος ) is in Greek mythology a son of Heracles and a daughter of the king Phylas of Ephyra named Astyocheia or Astyoche , whose name is also passed down as Astygeneia, Antigone or Astydameia , the daughter of Amyntor . The majority of ancient tradition assumes that it was called Astyoche and came from a river called Sellëeis or from the city of Ephyra, which in combination probably only includes the thesprotic Ephyra in Epirus . Nevertheless, Strabo claims emphatically and knowing all the arguments that Homer meant the Elean Ephyra as the home of Astyocheia. As the son of Heracles, Tlepolemos, the leader of the Rhodians in the Trojan War , is one of the Herakleids .

After the death of his father he, like all sons of Heracles, was driven out of Tiryns by Eurystheus . After staying first in Trachis , then in Athens and the subsequent participation in the first Herakleiden procession, he was finally accepted as the only Herakleid in Argos . With him also was Licymnius , the uncle of Hercules. In an argument or by mistake, he killed Likymnios, now aged, when he came out of his mother Mideia's apartments with a club made of olive wood. Pindar saw the manslaughter of Likymnios as a deliberate act committed out of anger , but the ancient explanation of the event is mostly based on the innocence of Tlepolemus, who only wanted to punish a slave.

Voluntarily or coerced by the Argives , Tlepolemos leaves with his Argive wife Polyxo (or Philozoe) and accompanied by not a few loyal followers Argos and sails to Rhodes. There he founded the Doric Tripoli with the cities of Lindos , Ialyssos and “the white” Kameiros - prosperous communities that were under the blessing of Zeus .

According to Hyginus Mythographus , Tlepolemus was one of Helena's suitors and, like the others, swore to Tyndareus to protect Helena. Therefore, following the oath, he took part in the Trojan War and carried nine ships with him. Even in the run-up to the Trojan War, he helped his half-brother Telephos in the Kypria , although he was on the side of the Greeks , whom the Greeks wanted to attack as an ally of Troy before the war began. When Telephos is badly wounded by Achilles , Tlepolemos belongs to a group of Greek military leaders who try to comfort the injured.

Before Troy, Tlepolemus is one of the great heroes and his fate in the Iliad is worth many lines. His descent from Heracles is already mentioned in the ship's catalog ; Plutarch names him alongside Achilles and Penelos , who are asked by Ephippus for help for his father Poimandros .

In the battle before Troy he, the grandson of Zeus, finally finds his opponent in Sarpedon , the son of Zeus. After he had mocked Sarpedon and questioned his divine origin, he was fatally wounded by the latter with a lance: " ... It hit the opponent Sarpedon / Grad 'in the throat that the point protruded from him terribly; / His eyes are quickly enveloped in a midnight darkness. "

His wife Polyxo, who meanwhile ruled Rhodes on behalf of her underage son, organized funeral games in honor of Tlepolemos. In revenge for the death of her husband, she lets Helena, who arrives either on her way home from Egypt or on the flight after Menelaus' death in Rhodes, hang from her servants disguised as Erinyen .

After Pliny , the painter Protogenes , a contemporary of Apelles , made a painting of Tlepolemus.

For all the depth and weight of meaning inherent in Greek myth, antiquity was also able to pull its heroes into comedy. A meal scene by the comedian Lynkeus von Samos has been passed down, in which he unites the heroes Tlepolemos and Theseus while eating fish, and that in the truest sense: For a fish Tlepolemos gives himself to the beautiful Theseus.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Homer , Iliad 2, 653; 5, 628.
  2. ^ Homer, Iliad 2, 658.
  3. Libraries of Apollodorus 2, 7, 6; Hyginus Mythographus , Fabulae 97 and 162.
  4. Astygeneia at Pherekydes in a Scholion to Pindar, Olympic Oden 7, 42 and ibid, as further explained Antigone; Astydameia at Pindar , Olympic Oden 7, 42 and at Hesiod in the Scholion zu Pindar, Olympic Oden 7, 42.
  5. Or daughter of Ormenos with Hesiod and Simonides of Keos in the Scholion at Pindar, Olympische Oden 7, 42.
  6. Strabon 7, 7, 5; 8, 3, 5.
  7. Homer, Iliad 2, 653-670.
  8. Diodorus 4, 57, 3--4, 58, 5.
  9. Pindar, Olympic Odes 7, 46 and 49; Diodorus 4, 58, 7.
  10. Scholion zu Pindar, Olympic Odes 7:46; Scholion to Homer, Iliad 2, 662; Libraries of Apollodorus 2, 8, 2, Diodorus, 5, 59, 5.
  11. ^ Pausanias 3:19 , 10.
  12. ^ Johannes Tzetzes , ad Lycophronem 911.
  13. Homer, Iliad 2, 662 f .; Libraries of Apollodorus 2, 8, 2; Diodorus 4, 58, 7; According to Diodorus 5, 59, 5 Tlepolemus left Argos of his own free will.
  14. Homer, Iliad 2 655 f. and 668 f .; Pausanias 3, 19, 10; Libraries of Apollodorus 2, 8, 2; Diodorus 5, 59, 5.
  15. ^ Hyginus Mythographus, Fabulae 97.
  16. Homer, Iliad 2, 653 f .; Epitome to Libraries of Apollodorus 3, 13; Hyginus Mythographus, Fabulae 97.
  17. Flavius ​​Philostratos , Heroicus 2:14 ; 2, 157; Dictys Cretensis 2, 5.
  18. Dictys Cretensis 2, 5 f.
  19. Homer, Iliad 2, 653 f.
  20. Plutarch, quaestiones Graecae 37.
  21. Homer, Iliad 5, 634-654.
  22. Homer, Ilias 5, 657–659 in the translation by Johann Heinrich Voss .
  23. ^ Johannes Tzetzes, ad Lycophronem 911.
  24. Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 36.
  25. Lynkeus of Samos at Athenaios , Deipnosophistae 7, 295 .