Admetus

Also known as: ADM · Family: Thessaly · Role: king · First appears: Euripides, Alcestis — Scene 1

Admetus was saved from impending death when Apollo, having become his shepherd and served in his house, deceived the Fates on his behalf: “for being pious I met with a pious man, the son of Pheres, whom I delivered from dying by deluding the Fates”. When Pheres and his aged mother refused to die for him, his wife Alcestis volunteered as his substitute. She died so that Admetus might live, entrusting their children, including Eumelus, to him; Admetus received them and vowed, “no Thessalian bride shall address me in the place of thee”.

After Alcestis’s death, Admetus ordered mourning throughout the city for twelve completed moons, forbade music, arranged her funeral, and commanded the Thessalians to share in the grief. He renounced Pheres’s paternal hearth and barred him from his house, while mourning Alcestis and facing the claim of Acastus’s relatives for vengeance. Even in grief he welcomed Heracles as a guest, though Thanatos remained his enemy and death had carried Alcestis away to Hades.

Heracles learned that Alcestis had died and resolved to rescue her and restore her to Admetus. When he brought her back, Admetus hesitated before accepting her into his household, then received her and ordered dances and sacrifices throughout his realm, declaring his household restored to happiness: “for thou alone hast restored me!”