Athamas

Athamas was a king of Boeotia in Greek mythology, a son of Aeolus. He had children by Nephele and by Ino, and his story is the background of the golden ram and the Golden Fleece: his second wife Ino plotted against his first children, Phrixus and Helle, and Hera later drove him mad because Ino had raised the infant Dionysus.

Family

Athamas was one of the seven sons of Aeolus and Enarete, the daughter of Deimachus; his brothers were Cretheus, Sisyphus, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, and Perieres (Apollodorus, Library 1.7.3). He ruled over Boeotia and had a son Phrixus and a daughter Helle by Nephele. He then married a second wife, Ino, daughter of Cadmus, and had two sons by her, Learchus and Melicertes (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1). Pausanias mentions the Athamantian Plain beside Lake Copais, where Athamas was said to have made his home (Description of Greece 9.24.1).

Ino’s Plot Against Phrixus and Helle

According to Apollodorus, Ino plotted against the children of Nephele. She persuaded the women to parch the seed wheat, and they did so without the men knowing. The earth, sown with parched wheat, gave no crop, and Athamas sent to Delphi to ask how to end the famine. Ino persuaded the messengers to report that the barrenness would end if Phrixus were sacrificed to Zeus. When Athamas heard this, the people of the land forced him to bring Phrixus to the altar (Library 1.9.1). Pausanias adds that the famine afflicted the Orchomenians and that Ino, the stepmother, was later found to have intrigued for all of it, including the supposed death of Phrixus (Description of Greece 1.44.7).

The Golden Ram

Nephele caught up her son and daughter and gave them a ram with a golden fleece, which she had received from Hermes. Carried by the ram through the sky, they crossed land and sea. Over the sea between Sigeum and the Chersonese, Helle slipped off and drowned, and the sea was called the Hellespont after her. Phrixus came to the Colchians, whose king was Aeetes. Aeetes gave him his daughter Chalciope. Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus, the god of escape, and gave the fleece to Aeetes, who nailed it to an oak in a grove of Ares. Phrixus and Chalciope had four sons, Argus, Melas, Phrontis, and Cytisorus (Library 1.9.1). Pausanias places the rescue at Mount Laphystius in Boeotia, where there was a sanctuary of Laphystian Zeus: Athamas was about to sacrifice Phrixus and Helle there when Zeus sent the ram (Description of Greece 9.34.5). The fleece later became the object of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts.

Dionysus and the Madness of Athamas

After Semele died, Zeus gave the infant Dionysus to Hermes, who brought him to Ino and Athamas and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. Hera, indignant, drove them mad (Library 3.4.3). Athamas hunted his elder son Learchus as if he were a deer and killed him, and Ino sprang into the sea with Melicertes. They became the sea deities Leucothea and Palaemon. The same Library passage says Ino first threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron; elsewhere Apollodorus says more simply that Athamas shot Learchus with an arrow and Ino threw herself and Melicertes into the sea (Library 1.9.2).

In Ovid’s version, Juno could not bear to see Ino proud of her children, her marriage to Athamas, and her foster-son Bacchus, and she went to the Underworld to ask the Fury Tisiphone to destroy Athamas. Tisiphone came to the palace, struck the king and queen with her snakes and poison, and Athamas cried out that he saw a lioness with two cubs. He snatched Learchus from his mother’s lap, whirled him twice or thrice through the air, and dashed him against a stone. Ino, mad as well, ran off with Melicertes and leapt from a sea cliff. Neptune, at the plea of Venus, took away what was mortal in them and made them the gods Leucothea and Palaemon (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.416–542). Pausanias records two accounts of the killing of Learchus: one is that Athamas did it in a fit of madness, and the other that he vented his rage on Ino and her children when he learned that she had caused the famine and the supposed death of Phrixus (Description of Greece 1.44.7).

Exile and Later Life

Banished from Boeotia, Athamas asked the god where he should live and was told to settle wherever wild beasts entertained him. After travelling a long way, he came upon wolves devouring pieces of sheep; when they saw him, they left their prey and fled. He settled there, named the country Athamantia, and married Themisto, the daughter of Hypseus. They had four sons: Leucon, Erythrius, Schoeneus, and Ptous (Library 1.9.2). Pausanias reports that Ptous, who gave his name to Mount Ptoon and to Ptoan Apollo, was said by the poet Asius to be a son of Athamas by Themisto (Description of Greece 9.23.6).

Herodotus tells of a further episode connected with Athamas. In Achaea, the guides of Xerxes told of Laphystian Zeus: the Achaeans once made Athamas a scapegoat for the country and were about to sacrifice him when Cytisorus, the son of Phrixus, came from Colchis and rescued him. This brought the god’s anger on Cytisorus’ descendants, and the eldest of the family is forbidden to enter the town-hall; if he does, he may leave it only to be sacrificed (Histories 7.197). In Pausanias, Athamas, thinking he had no male children left, adopted Haliartus and Coronus, the sons of Thersander, the son of his brother Sisyphus, and gave them land around Mount Laphystius. He had himself put to death Learchus and Melicertes, and Leucon had died of sickness. When Phrixus, or according to others his son Presbon, returned from Colchis, the house of Athamas was left to Athamas and his descendants (Description of Greece 9.34.7–8).

Athamas Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.7.3, 1.9.1–2, and 3.4.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.416–542; Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.44.7, 9.23.6, 9.24.1, and 9.34.5–8; Herodotus, Histories 7.197.

See Also: Aeolus, Enarete, Nephele, Cadmus, Ino, Phrixus, Helle, Aeetes, Jason, Argonauts, Dionysus, Hera