Melicertes

Melicertes was the younger son of Athamas, king in Boeotia, and his second wife Ino, daughter of Cadmus. When Hera drove his father mad, his mother leapt into the sea with him; the two became the sea gods Palaemon and Leucothea, helpers of sailors, and the Isthmian games at Corinth were first held in his honour.

Family

Athamas first had children, Phrixus and Helle, by Nephele; then he married Ino, who bore him Learchus and Melicertes (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1). Learchus was the elder of the two, and Melicertes the younger (Pausanias 1.44.7). Ino was a sister of Semele, and in Apollodorus’ account Ino and Athamas received the infant Dionysus from Hermes and brought him up as a girl (Library 3.4.3). Because of this, Hera drove them mad.

The Madness of Athamas

Apollodorus says that Athamas, maddened by Hera, hunted his elder son Learchus as if he were a deer and killed him; Ino then threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron, and carrying the dead child she sprang into the deep (Library 3.4.3). In his other account of the story, Athamas shoots Learchus with an arrow, and Ino cast herself and Melicertes into the sea (Library 1.9.2). Ovid gives a longer version: Juno sends the Fury Tisiphone, Athamas takes Learchus from his mother’s lap, whirls him round like a sling and dashes him against a rock, and Ino runs off carrying Melicertes, crying “Euhoe, Bacchus”. Juno laughs at the name of Bacchus. Ino then jumps from a cliff over the sea with her son (Metamorphoses 4.416–530).

Pausanias gives a second reason for the king’s anger: Athamas learned that the famine in Orchomenus and the supposed death of Phrixus had been plotted by Ino, the stepmother (Pausanias 1.44.7). In his account Ino flung herself and her son into the sea from the Molurian Rock on the road between Megara and Corinth (Pausanias 1.44.7–8).

Palaemon and Leucothea

In Ovid, Venus pities the innocent Ino, her niece, and begs Neptune to make them gods. Neptune takes away what was mortal in them, gives them majesty and new names and forms, and calls the god Palaemon, his mother Leucothea (Metamorphoses 4.531–542). Apollodorus adds that the names are the ones sailors give them, because they help storm-tossed mariners (Library 3.4.3).

Homer knows Ino as Leucothea, the daughter of Cadmus who was once a mortal woman and now has a share of honour among the gods in the sea; she gives her veil to the shipwrecked Odysseus (Odyssey 5.333–353). Homer does not mention Melicertes. Later poets name the two together as protectors of sailors: in Virgil, sailors saved from a storm pay their vows to Glaucus, Panope and Ino’s son Melicertes (Georgics 1.436–437), and Palaemon, son of Ino, appears in the sea-gods’ train in the Aeneid (5.823).

The Isthmian Games

Pausanias says that a dolphin carried the boy to the Isthmus of Corinth, and that Sisyphus found him lying on the shore, buried him, and established the Isthmian games in his honour. There was an altar of Melicertes beside the pine by the shore in Pausanias’ day (Pausanias 2.1.3; also 1.44.8). Apollodorus too says that Sisyphus founded the games for Melicertes (Library 3.4.3). Plutarch adds that these games were held at night, in the form of a religious rite rather than a public spectacle, and that Theseus later founded a second set of Isthmian games in honour of Poseidon (Plutarch, Theseus 25.4).

In Rome

Ovid’s Fasti tells the story again and says that Ino came to the Tiber, where she and her son became the Roman gods Mater Matuta and Portunus (Fasti 6.485–550).

Melicertes Sources

Homer, Odyssey 5.333–353; Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1–2, 3.4.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.416–542, Fasti 6.485–550; Pausanias 1.44.7–8, 2.1.3; Plutarch, Theseus 25.4; Virgil, Georgics 1.436–437, Aeneid 5.823.

See Also: Athamas, Ino, Learchus, Hera, Dionysus, Zeus, Sisyphus, Poseidon