Lysidice

Lysidice was the name of several women in Greek mythology. The best known is a daughter of Pelops and Hippodamia; another was one of the fifty daughters of Thespius who bore a son to Heracles, and a third appears in the ancestry of the Athenian king Codrus.

Lysidice, Daughter of Pelops

Lysidice was a daughter of Pelops and Hippodamia, and a sister of Pittheus (Plutarch, Theseus 7.1). Apollodorus says that she married Mestor, one of the sons of Perseus and Andromeda, and that their daughter was Hippothoe. Poseidon carried Hippothoe off to the Echinadian Islands, where she bore him Taphius, who colonized Taphos; his people were called Teleboans (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.5).

Some authors made her the mother of Alcmene. Plutarch writes that Alcmene was the daughter of Lysidice, so that Alcmene and Theseus’ mother Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, were cousins (Plutarch, Theseus 7.1). Pausanias reports a similar disagreement about the mother of Amphitryon, whom the Arcadians of Pheneus called the son of Alcaeus by Laonome, daughter of Guneus, and not by Lysidice, daughter of Pelops (Pausanias 8.14.2). Apollodorus names different mothers: Alcmene was the daughter of Electryon by Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus, and Amphitryon was the son of Alcaeus by Astydamia, another daughter of Pelops, or, as some said, by Laonome, daughter of Guneus, or Hipponome, daughter of Menoeceus (Library 2.4.5).

Lysidice, Daughter of Thespius

Thespius, king of Thespiae, had fifty daughters by Megamede, daughter of Arneus. When Heracles came to Thespiae to hunt the lion of Cithaeron, Thespius entertained him for fifty days, and each night sent one of his daughters to his bed, so that all of them might have children by Heracles (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.10). Lysidice was one of these daughters, and she bore him a son, Teles (Library 2.7.8).

Lysidice, Wife of Borus

The historian Hellanicus, tracing the family of the Athenian king Codrus back to Neleus, names a third Lysidice. She was the wife of Borus, son of Periclymenus and grandson of Neleus, and the mother of Penthilus, whose descendants came at last to Melanthus, the father of Codrus (Hellanicus, fragment 10).

Lysidice Sources

Apollodorus, Library 2.4.5, 2.4.10 and 2.7.8; Plutarch, Theseus 7.1; Pausanias 8.14.2; Hellanicus, fragment 10.

See Also: Pelops, Hippodamia, Thespius, Heracles, Mestor, Hippothoe, Alcmene, Pittheus