Telephus

Telephus was the son of Heracles and Auge, the daughter of the Arcadian king Aleus. Exposed as a baby on Mount Parthenius and suckled by a doe, he grew up to become king of Mysia in Asia Minor. When the Greek fleet landed in his country on its way to Troy, Telephus fought them, killed Thersander, and was wounded by Achilles, a wound that only Achilles could heal. He was the father of Eurypylus.

Birth and Exposure

According to Apollodorus, Heracles seduced Auge while passing through Tegea, not knowing that she was the daughter of Aleus (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.4). Auge was a priestess of Athena and hid her baby in the goddess’s precinct. The land became barren, the oracles declared that the precinct had been polluted, and Auge was discovered. Her father handed her to Nauplius to be put to death or sold abroad, and Nauplius gave her to Teuthras, the ruler of Mysia, who married her (Library 3.9.1).

The child was exposed on Mount Parthenius, where a doe gave him milk and shepherds took him up and named him Telephus. Apollodorus connects the name with the Greek words for a teat and a deer (thele and elaphos) (Library 2.7.4, 3.9.1). Pausanias saw a sacred enclosure of Telephus on Mount Parthenius, where he was said to have been exposed and suckled by a deer (Pausanias 8.54.6).

The ancient authors tell the story in different ways. In Diodorus, Nauplius, ordered by Aleus to drown Auge, instead gave her to some Carians who were sailing for Asia, and they brought her to Teuthras; the baby she had left on Mount Parthenius was found by herdsmen of King Corythus feeding from a hind, and Corythus raised him as his own son (Diodorus 4.33). In another account current at Tegea, Auge gave birth on her knees on the way to the sea, in the place where the sanctuary of Eileithyia stood, after Aleus had told Nauplius to drown her (Pausanias 8.48.7). Hecataeus, quoted by Pausanias, said that Aleus put Auge and her infant into a chest and sent them out to sea, and that she came to Teuthras, who married her (Pausanias 8.4.9).

Telephus in Mysia

Telephus grew up and went to Delphi to learn who his parents were. The god sent him to Mysia, to King Teuthras. There he found his mother, and Teuthras adopted him (Apollodorus, Library 3.9.1). In Diodorus, the king, who had no sons, gave him his daughter Argiope in marriage and made him his heir (Diodorus 4.33). Telephus succeeded Teuthras as ruler of the Mysians, whose country lay on the plain of the river Caicus. Strabo repeats the tradition that Telephus came from Arcadia with his mother and became a member of the family of Teuthras (Strabo 12.8.4).

The War with the Greeks

When the Greeks set out for Troy, they did not know the way and landed in Mysia, which they ravaged, thinking that it was Troy. Telephus armed the Mysians, drove the Greeks back to their ships, and killed many of them, among them Thersander, the son of Polynices, who stood his ground. When Achilles rushed at him, Telephus fled; he caught his foot in a vine branch and was wounded in the thigh by Achilles’ spear (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.17). Pausanias also says that Thersander died at the hands of Telephus in the Mysian disaster and that his tomb stands at Elaea on the way to the plain of the Caicus (Pausanias 9.5.14).

The wound would not heal. Apollo told Telephus that he would be cured when the man who had wounded him became his physician. Telephus came from Mysia to Argos, dressed in rags, and asked Achilles for help, promising to show the Greeks the way to Troy. Achilles healed him by scraping rust from his Pelian spear, and Telephus then showed the fleet the course to steer (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.20).

Children

Telephus was the father of Eurypylus, who led a large force of Mysians to help the Trojans late in the war. In the Odyssey, Odysseus tells Achilles in the underworld that Neoptolemus killed “the son of Telephus, the hero Eurypylus”, and many of his Ceteian companions “for the sake of a woman’s gifts” (Odyssey 11.519–521). Apollodorus records the same death (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.12).

Telephus Sources

Apollodorus, Library 2.7.4 and 3.9.1, and Epitome 3.17–20 and 5.12; Diodorus Siculus 4.33; Pausanias 8.4.9, 8.48.7, 8.54.6 and 9.5.14; Strabo 12.8.4; Homer, Odyssey 11.519–521.

See Also: Heracles, Auge, Eurypylus, Athena, Achilles, Odysseus, Trojan War, Priam, Neoptolemus