Adrastus

Family: Argives · Role: hero · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 30

In Book 1, Chapter 30, Adrastus is named among those honored at a hero-chapel with Pirithous, Theseus, and Œdipus. Later, when Creon forbade the dead to be buried, Adrastus supplicated Theseus; after Theseus defeated the Bœotians, he carried the bodies to Eleusis for burial. Adrastus died at Megara while leading the army back after the capture of Thebes, from old age and grief at the death of Ægialeus, his son, who also had a hero-chapel.

In Book 2, Chapter 6, after fleeing Argos, Adrastus went to Polybus at Sicyon and, after Polybus’s death, obtained chief power there. He built a temple next to Hera and altars to Pan and the Sun God. In Book 8, Hercules gave him Arion, the horse on which Hercules had captured Elis; Adrastus was the horse’s third trainer. Adrastus was the son of Talaus and grandson of Cretheus, and Mecisteus was one of his brothers.

In Book 9, Chapter 4, Adrastus and the Argives made their first expedition against Thebes. Polynices went to Argos and married Adrastus’s daughter, and Hippomedon was Adrastus’s sister’s son.