Peleus

Family: Phthia · Role: son of Aeacus · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.8

🌐 Also appears in: The Iliad (as Peleus) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Peleus) · Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (as Peleus) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Peleus)

Peleus, son of Aeacus and Endeis, was brother to Telamon and Phocus. During the Calydonian hunt, he accidentally killed Eurytion with a javelin, while Hyleus and Ancaeus were also killed by the boar. Later, Peleus and Telamon plotted against Phocus, and after Telamon killed him, Aeacus drove both brothers from Aegina. At the games held in honor of Pelias, Atalanta wrestled with Peleus and won.

Peleus fled to Phthia, where Eurytion purified him and gave him his daughter Antigone in marriage, along with a third of the country. After he accidentally killed Eurytion during another hunt, Antigone killed herself when Astydamia falsely claimed that Peleus would marry Sterope. Astydamia later fell in love with Peleus; he became an enemy of her husband, Acastus, who deserted him while he slept. Chiron saved Peleus, restored his sword, and advised him in seizing Thetis, whom Peleus married on Pelion after holding fast through her changes of form.

When Thetis abandoned their infant son Achilles, Peleus entrusted him to Chiron, who named him Achilles. Peleus also married Polydora, by whom he had the putative son Menesthius, and he was father of Polymele and a daughter named Polydora. He later helped Jason and the Dioscuri lay waste to Iolcus and killed Astydamia. Patroclus, fleeing with his father after killing Clitonymus, dwelt at Peleus’s house and became a companion of Achilles. Peleus made Phoenix king of the Dolopians, received the horses Balius and Xanthus from Poseidon, and Neoptolemus later succeeded to his kingdom.