Athamas

King of Orchomenus. Athamas (Ἀθάμας) was the son of Aeolus and Enarete. The goddess Hera arranged Athamas' first marriage to Nephele (Νεφέλη), who bore him a son named Phrixus (Φρίξος) and a daughter named Helle (Ἥλλη).

However, Athamas became tired of Nephele and decided to marry Ino (Ἰνώ), daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Ino was jealous of Nephele's children and plotted to have her stepsons killed.

When Athamas was about to sacrifice Phrixus, the Golden Fleece that could fly saved the boy. The ram carried Phrixus and his sister away. The Hellespont was named after his sister, when Helle fell off the ram and drowned.

Phrixus finally reached Aea, in Colchis. Colchis was ruled by their king, Aeëtes (Αἰήτης), son of Helius and Peresïs (Peresis) or Perse. Phrixus gave the ram to Aeëtes (Aeetes), which he sacrificed to Ares and left in the grove, guarded by a dragon. Phrixus married one of Aeëtes' daughters, who bore him several sons.

Some said that Aeëtes murdered Phrixus, when he found out in a prophecy: that a member of his family would betray him. Aeëtes never suspected that his daughter Medea would betray him. See Jason and the Argonauts for the story of their voyage.

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Athamas' other sons by Ino were killed by them. Hera sent the Erinyes (Furies) against them, who inflicted them with madness, because Athamas abandoned his first wife (Nephele), and then abandoned Ino for trying to hide Dionysus from him. Athamas shot Learchus down with an arrow, thinking his son was a deer. Ino threw Melicertes (Μελικέρτης) over a cliff, drowning her son. According to the geographer Pausanias, a dolphin carried Melicertes' body to Corinth, where Sisyphus found and buried it. Sisyphus also established the Isthmian Games in honour of Melicertes.

In her grief, Ino also jumped into the sea, but she was changed into a minor sea-goddess. However, She was transformed into a new sea-goddess by Zeus, as a reward for helping him raise Dionysus, or by Poseidon at Aphrodite's request (Ino was Aphrodite's granddaughter). Melicertes also became a minor sea god named Palaemon (Παλαίμων).

Homer called Ino, Leucothea (Λευκοθέα, the "White Goddess"). It was Ino (Leucothea) who saved Odysseus from lrowning, when he left Calypso's island. Beside the road, between Oitylon and Thalamai, Pausanias reported that there was a sanctuary and an oracle of Ino. A person would ask whatever they wanted and then sleep. That person would then receive an answer from the goddess in their dreams.

His people drove Athamas into exile for the killing of his own son. After long wandering, he settled in Thessaly, where he married again, this time to Themisto, daughter of Hypseus, who was the king of the Lapiths. Themisto bore four sons to Athamas: Erythrius, Leucon, Ptoüs (Ptous) and Schoeneus.

In an alternative story, Athamas thought that Ino had died and taken another wife, but Ino had, in fact, joined her sisters in the Bacchant cult in Thebes. Themisto, knowing that her husband's second wife was still alive, decided to murder her two stepsons because Themisto wanted her son to rule in succession after her husband. Instead, in the darkness Themisto unwittingly murdered her own two sons. Grief-stricken when she realised her mistake, Themisto committed suicide.