Cepheus

Cepheus was the name of two kings of Greek myth. The better known was king of Ethiopia, husband of Cassiepea and father of Andromeda, who was saved from a sea monster by Perseus. The other was a king of Tegea in Arcadia, a son of Aleus, who sailed with the Argonauts and fell fighting beside Heracles.

Cepheus of Ethiopia

Family

Herodotus calls him Cepheus, son of Belus (Herodotus 7.61). Apollodorus lists him with Phineus among the sons of Belus according to Euripides (Library 2.1.4), and makes Phineus his brother (Library 2.4.3), as does Ovid (Metamorphoses 5.12–13). Hyginus says that Euripides made him the son of Phoenix and king of the Ethiopians (Astronomica 2.9). His wife was Cassiepea (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3), whom Ovid calls Cassiope, and their daughter was Andromeda.

Andromeda and the Sea Monster

Cassiepea vied with the Nereids in beauty and boasted that she was better than all of them. The Nereids were angry, and Poseidon, sharing their anger, sent a flood and a sea monster against the land. Ammon declared that the land would be freed from the trouble only if Cepheus exposed his daughter Andromeda as prey for the monster, and the Ethiopians forced him to do it. She was bound to a rock (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3). Ovid has Ammon unjustly impose the penalty on Andromeda for her mother’s tongue; the monster rises from the sea as she is chained, and her father and mother arrive weeping but bringing no help (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.669–694).

Perseus, returning from killing Medusa, saw her and fell in love. He promised Cepheus to kill the monster if he would give him the girl as his wife, and Cepheus agreed on oath; Perseus killed the monster and freed her (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3). In Ovid, Cepheus and Cassiope acknowledge Perseus as the saviour of their house, and the wedding feast is held in Cepheus’ palace (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.737–764).

Phineus

Phineus, brother of Cepheus, to whom Andromeda had first been betrothed, plotted against Perseus, who showed him and his companions the head of the Gorgon and turned them to stone (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3). In Ovid, Phineus bursts in on the wedding feast with armed men. Cepheus protests that it was not Perseus who took Andromeda from him but the Nereids, Ammon and the monster, and that she was lost to him when she was condemned to die (Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.1–20). Hyginus gives another version in which Cepheus himself and Agenor, to whom she was betrothed, tried to kill Perseus secretly, and Perseus turned them to stone (Hyginus, Fabulae 64).

Descendants and the Constellation

Perseus and Andromeda had a son, Perses, whom Perseus left behind with Cepheus before he went to Greece; from him, Apollodorus says, the kings of Persia are descended (Library 2.4.5). Herodotus gives the same account: Cepheus had no male offspring, and Perses took his name to the Persians (Herodotus 7.61), and Xerxes later claimed kinship with the Argives through Perseus and Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus (Herodotus 7.150). Hyginus says that Cepheus was placed among the stars, along with his wife, his daughter and her husband, so that their whole family might remain in the sky (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.9–11).

Cepheus of Tegea

The other Cepheus was a son of Aleus, king of Tegea, brother of Lycurgus and Amphidamas and of Auge, whom Heracles seduced (Apollodorus, Library 3.9.1; Pausanias 8.4.8). Apollonius lists Amphidamas and Cepheus among the Argonauts, from Arcadia and Tegea (Apollonius, Argonautica 1.161–162; Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16). A younger Arcadian Cepheus, his nephew, son of Lycurgus and brother of Ancaeus, is named among the hunters of the Calydonian boar; he and Ancaeus disdained to hunt with a woman until Meleager forced them to take Atalanta (Apollodorus, Library 1.8.2).

When Heracles marched against Hippocoon and the Lacedaemonians, he asked Cepheus to join him with his twenty sons. Cepheus refused at first for fear that the Argives would attack Tegea if he left. Heracles gave Cepheus’ daughter Sterope a lock of the Gorgon’s hair, which Athena had given him, in a bronze jar, telling her to hold it up three times from the walls if an army approached, and the enemy would flee as long as she did not look. Cepheus and his sons then went with Heracles, and in the battle he and his sons died, as did Iphicles, the brother of Heracles (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.3). At Tegea, Pausanias was told that Cepheus received from Athena the promise that Tegea would never be captured, and that she cut off some of Medusa’s hair and gave it to him as a protection for the city (Pausanias 8.47.5).

The Arcadian town of Caphyae takes its name from Cepheus, and its people say they were refugees from Athens whom he received (Pausanias 8.23.3). His daughter Antinoe moved the people of Mantinea to the site of the later city (Pausanias 8.8.4), and Aerope, another daughter, was said to have lain with Ares (Pausanias 8.44.7).

Cepheus Sources

Herodotus 7.61, 7.150; Apollodorus, Library 1.8.2, 1.9.16, 2.1.4, 2.4.3, 2.4.5, 2.7.3, 3.9.1; Apollonius, Argonautica 1.161–162; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.669–764, 5.1–20; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.9–11, Fabulae 64; Pausanias 8.4.8, 8.8.4, 8.23.3, 8.44.7, 8.47.5.

See Also: Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus, Cetus, Phineus, Heracles, Meleager, Argonauts