General Notes

[FAMILY.FTW]

AEGINA was the daughter of the god of the Asopus River, which flows from Phliasia through Sicyonia into the Corinthian Gulf. Asopus married Metope, daughter of the river-god Ladon, and had by her two sons, Ismenus and Pelagon, and twenty daughters, one of whom was Aegina. Since she was very beautiful, she attracted the attention of Zeus, who abducted her and carried her from her home in Phlius to the island of Oenone or Oenopia, afterward called Aegina. A little tired of having his beautiful daughters carried away by lustful gods (Poseidon and Apollo were other examples), Asopus went in search of Aegina. At Corinth her learned from Sisyphus, the king (perhaps in exchange for supplying the Acrocorinthus with a spring), the facts about Aegina's disappearance. Asopus then pursued Zeus until the god, by hurling thunderbolts at him, sent him back to his original bed. Pieces of charcoal found in the riverbed in later times were thought to be residue from the stormy struggle. For his interference in the affair, after his death Sisyphus received special punishment in the lower world. Aegina became by Zeus the mother of Aeacus. His youth was marked by the progressive disappearance of the island's population by a plague or a dragon sent by the ever-jealous Hera. When Aeacus eventually became king, he had almost no subjects to govern, so Zeus restored the people by changing ants into human beings. Aeacus went on to become such a just king that his counsel was sought even by the gods, and after his death he was made one of the judges of the lower world. After her affair with Zeus, Aegina married Actor, son of Deion, and became by him the mother of Menoetius, who became the father of Patroclus, the famous friend of Achilles. In fact, it was through Aegina that Patroclus and Achilles were related, on being her grandson and the other her great-grandson by the separate lines begun by her two husbands. One commentator (Pythaenetos, quoting the scholiast on Pindar's Olympian Odes 9.107) said Menoetius was Actor's son by Damocrateia, a daughter of Aegina and Zeus. This makes sense in terms of putting Patroclus and Achilles in the same generation. In that case, also, Aegina's sexual encounters with the greeatest of the gods would have remained inviolate, unless we consider the single account that she was the mother of Sinope (usually called her sister) by Ares. Even here she at least kept with the immortals for lovers. [Apollodorus 3.12.6; Pausanias 2.5.1; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius 436.]

CALYCE was a daughter of Aeolus and Enarete. Her family tree produced some of the greatest heroes and heroines in mythology, since her brothers were Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and Macareus. She did well in her own right. She married Aethlius, son of Zeus and Protogeneia and grandson of Deucalion. By him she became the mother of the famous Endymion, who was not only the lover of the moon goddess Selene but also king of Elis and ancestor of the Aetolians, Epeians, and Paeonians. By report, she had 50 half-immortal granddaughters by the union of Selene with her sleeping son, but this phenomenon is discussed elsewhere. [Apollodorus 1.7.2,3.5; Pausanias 5.1.2,8.1, 10.31.2.]

MEROPE was one of the Pleiades. In the constellation of the Pleiades she is the seventh and least visible star because she was ashamed of having had intercourse with a mortal man. This mortal was Sisyphus, and Merope should have been ashamed not so much that he was mortal but because of the type of mortal he was. He was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, and brother of Cretheus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and Macareus. He eventually reigned in Corinth, since Medea gave him the sovereignty when she left. He promoted commerce and helped make the city important. He was of bad character however, as Merope was soon to discover. She bore him Glaucus, Ornytion, Thersander, and Halmus. Sisyphus meanwhile had twin sons by his niece Tyro, but she killed them at their birth. Of Merope's sons we know Glaucus best, not only as the father of Bellerophon but also as the breeder of flesh-eating mares. When Sisyphus was on his deathbed, he begged Merope not to bury him. She complied, and when he got to the underworld he complained that he was neglected and needed to return to the upper world to punish his wife. Once there he refused to return, and Hermes, transporter of the dead, had to carry him back by force. [Apollodorus 1.9.3,3.10.1; Ovid, Fasti 4.175; Homer, Iliad 6.153; Eustathius on Homer's Iliad 1155; Pausanias 2.4.3, 6.20.9, 9.34.5; Hyginus, Fables 60.]