Phocus

Phocus was a son of King Aeacus of Aegina and the Nereid Psamathe. He was killed by his half-brothers Peleus and Telamon, who were then exiled from the island. His descendants are said to have settled in the part of central Greece that is called Phocis. Greek tradition knows a second Phocus, son of Ornytion, who also gave his name to the same region, and a third, a Boeotian, who was killed by the suitors of his daughter Callirhoe.

Parents and Birth

Hesiod says that Psamathe, the fair goddess among the daughters of Nereus, bore Phocus to Aeacus through the favour of golden Aphrodite (Hesiod, Theogony 1003–1005). Apollodorus adds that Psamathe turned herself into a seal to avoid the embraces of Aeacus, and that he fathered Phocus nonetheless (Apollodorus 3.12.6); the Greek word for a seal is phoke. Pindar calls Phocus the son of the sea goddess Psamathea, born on the shore of the sea (Pindar, Nemean 5.12–13). Apollodorus tells that Aeacus first married Endeis, daughter of Sciron, and had Peleus and Telamon by her, so that Phocus was their half-brother (Apollodorus 3.12.6).

The Death of Phocus

The ancient authors agree that Peleus and Telamon were responsible for his death, but they differ about how it happened.

• According to Apollodorus, Phocus excelled in athletics, and Peleus and Telamon plotted against him. The lot fell on Telamon, who killed his brother in a match by throwing a quoit (discus) at his head; with Peleus’ help he hid the body in a wood. The murder was discovered, and Aeacus drove them both out of Aegina (Apollodorus 3.12.6).
• Pausanias says that Telamon and Peleus induced Phocus to compete in the pentathlon, and when it was the turn of Peleus to hurl the stone that they used as a quoit, he hit Phocus on purpose. They did it to please their mother, since Phocus was not her son. The sons of Endeis boarded a ship and fled (Pausanias 2.29.9–10).
• According to Diodorus, Peleus killed Phocus accidentally while hurling a discus, and his father banished him for it (Diodorus 4.72.6).

Aeacus would not let Telamon land again on the island, and told him to plead his case from a ship or from a mole built in the sea; Telamon built the mole by night in the harbour called Secret, and, condemned, sailed away to Salamis (Pausanias 2.29.10). Pausanias saw the grave of Phocus at Aegina, a barrow surrounded by a basement with a rough stone on top, next to the shrine of Aeacus (Pausanias 2.29.9). In Ovid, Psamathe is angry about the death of her son and sends a monstrous wolf against the cattle of Peleus, until Thetis begs her to relent and the wolf is turned to stone (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.346–406).

Phocus and Phocis

Pausanias reports that the sons of Phocus made their home around Parnassus, in the land now called Phocis (Pausanias 2.29.2). Asius the epic poet said that Phocus was the father of Panopeus and Crisus; Panopeus was the father of Epeus, the builder of the wooden horse, and the grandson of Crisus was Pylades (Pausanias 2.29.4). The inhabitants of a town in Phocis said that their founder was Naubolus, son of Phocus, son of Aeacus (Pausanias 10.33.12). In a painting at Delphi, the young Phocus is shown with Iaseus, who had befriended him when he crossed from Aegina to Phocis and tried to win rule over the people of that part of the mainland; Iaseus gave him a seal ring as a gift. When Phocus returned to Aegina not long afterwards, Peleus plotted to kill him (Pausanias 10.30.4). The same Pausanias adds that the name Phocis had already been given to the region by an earlier Phocus, and that the name spread to the whole of the land when the Aeginetans disembarked with Phocus the son of Aeacus (Pausanias 2.29.3, 10.1.1).

The Other Phocus

The earlier Phocus was the son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphus, and was said to have been begotten by Poseidon. He migrated from Corinth to Tithorea, in what is now called Phocis (Pausanias 2.4.3, 10.1.1). Pausanias tells that this Phocus met Antiope, who had gone mad as a punishment from Dionysus; he cured her and married her, and they share one grave at Tithorea, which is also called the tomb of Phocus (Pausanias 9.17.6, 10.32.10–11).

Phocus of Boeotia

Plutarch tells of yet another Phocus, of Glisas in Boeotia, whose daughter Callirhoe was courted by thirty young men of the leading Boeotian families. Phocus kept putting off the marriage, and at last agreed to let the Pythian oracle choose. Enraged, the suitors killed him. Callirhoe escaped, hidden in the grain by farmers, and at the festival of the Pamboeotia she sat at the altar of Athena Itonia at Coroneia and named the murderers. The Boeotians, led by the Thebans, besieged the village of Hippotae, where the suitors had taken refuge, captured them and stoned them to death (Plutarch, Love Stories 4).

Phocus Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 1003–1005; Pindar, Nemean 5.12–13; Apollodorus, Library 3.12.6; Diodorus 4.72.6; Pausanias 2.4.3, 2.29.2–4, 2.29.9–10, 9.17.6, 10.1.1, 10.30.4, 10.32.10–11, 10.33.12; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.346–406; Plutarch, Love Stories 4.

See Also: Aeacus, Peleus, Telamon, Endeis, Psamathe, Thetis, Antiope, Aegina, Sisyphus, Callirhoe