Teumessian fox

The Teumessian fox was an animal in Greek mythology that could never be caught. It ravaged the territory of Thebes until a hound that always caught its prey was set to chase it, and Zeus turned both animals to stone.

The Fox of Thebes

The fox had its lair at Teumessus, a place in Boeotia on the road to Chalcis, and from this it was called the Teumessian fox. Apollodorus calls it a “vixen” ravaging the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes (Library 2.4.6). To keep the beast from carrying off many people, the Thebans exposed the son of one of their citizens to it every month (Library 2.4.7).

Different writers give different reasons for its coming. Pausanias says that it was reared by the wrath of Dionysus to destroy the Thebans (Description of Greece 9.19.1). In Ovid it is a second plague sent upon Thebes by Themis after Oedipus had solved the riddle of the Sphinx (Metamorphoses 7.759–766).

Amphitryon and Cephalus

In Apollodorus, Amphitryon prepared an expedition against the Teleboans and asked Creon of Thebes to join. Creon agreed on the condition that Amphitryon first rid the Cadmea of the vixen; but it was fated that nobody should catch her. Amphitryon then went to Cephalus, son of Deioneus, at Athens, and persuaded him, in return for a share of the Teleboan spoils, to bring to the chase the dog which Procris had received from Minos, because that dog was destined to catch whatever it pursued (Library 2.4.6–7). Pausanias says instead that the hound was a gift of Artemis to Procris, the daughter of Erechtheus (Description of Greece 9.19.1).

The Hound Laelaps

Ovid names the dog Laelaps. In his account, Cephalus himself tells how the young men of the neighbourhood ringed the fields with nets and the fox leapt over them and outran every dog. Then Laelaps was released; he was so fast that Cephalus lost sight of him. From a hilltop Cephalus watched the dog and fox circle again and again, the fox doubling back so that the dog could not use its speed. When Cephalus turned his eyes away and looked back, he saw two marble figures in the field, one seeming to flee and the other to chase. Some god, he says, had wished neither to be defeated in the chase (Metamorphoses 7.762–793).

Apollodorus gives the same ending without the name of the hound: when the vixen was chased by the dog, Zeus turned both of them into stone (Library 2.4.7). Hyginus tells the hound’s story in his account of the constellation Canis, the Dog: Jupiter had given the dog to Europa as a guard, it passed to Minos and then to Procris, and Cephalus brought it to Thebes, where Jupiter, not knowing what else to do, turned dog and fox to stone. Hyginus thus counts the hound among the stars, though he adds that some take the constellation for Orion’s dog and others for the dog of Icarius. He does not place the fox in the sky (Astronomica 2.35).

Afterwards

With Cephalus and other allies, Amphitryon went on to ravage the islands of the Taphians. After the death of Pterelaus, he subdued them all and gave the islands to Heleus and Cephalus, who founded cities there (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.7).

Teumessian Fox Sources

Apollodorus, Library 2.4.6–7; Pausanias 9.19.1; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.759–793; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.35.

See Also: Dionysus, Creon, Zeus, Amphitryon, Cephalus, Thebes, Sphinx, Procris