Aeacus was a king of the island of Aegina in Greek mythology, a son of Zeus and the nymph Aegina. Renowned throughout Greece for his justice and piety, he was the father of the heroes Peleus and Telamon and grandfather of Achilles and the Telamonian Ajax. After his death he became one of the three judges of the dead in the underworld, alongside Minos and Rhadamanthus. He maintained sanctuaries in both Athens and Aegina, where the Aeginetans honored him with the festival of the Aeacea.
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I.Overview
Aeacus (also spelled Eacus; Ancient Greek: Αἰακός) was the monarch of Aegina in Greek mythology. His parentage was traced to Zeus and the nymph Aegina, and he fathered the heroes Peleus and Telamon. His renown for justice led to a posthumous role: he joined Minos and Rhadamanthus as one of the three magistrates of the underworld. According to another account, he assisted Poseidon and Apollo in constructing the walls of Troy.
He maintained sanctuaries in both Athens and Aegina, and the Aeginetans honored him through the festival of the Aeacea.
II.Birth and early days
The island where Aeacus was born — originally called Oenone or Oenopia — became known by his mother's name after Zeus carried her there to shield her from her parents' wrath. Aeacus fathered Peleus, Telamon, and Phocus, and was grandfather to the Trojan War combatants Achilles and the Telamonian Ajax. In some versions he had a daughter, Alcimache, who bore Medon to Oileus of Locris. Peleus and Telamon grew jealous of their half-brother Phocus and murdered him; when Aeacus learned of the crime, he exiled both sons.
Tradition held that when Aeacus was born, Aegina remained uninhabited. Zeus either transformed the island's ants (myrmikes) into the Myrmidons whom Aeacus ruled, or caused men to spring from the earth. Ovid offered an alternative narrative in which the island was originally peopled, but Hera — angered at her rival Aegina — devastated it with plague or a dragon; Zeus then repopulated it by changing ants into men. These narratives appear to mythologize the colonization history of Aegina, originally inhabited by Pelasgians and later settled by people from Phthiotis, the seat of the Myrmidons, and from Phlius along the Asopus.
While ruling Aegina, Aeacus earned renown throughout Greece for his fairness and piety. He frequently arbitrated disputes among mortals and even among the gods. The gods favored him so greatly that, when drought struck Greece following a murder, the Delphic oracle declared the calamity would cease only if Aeacus petitioned the gods on Greece's behalf. His prayers succeeded; in gratitude he built a temple to Zeus Panhellenius on Mount Panhellenion. Later the Aeginetans built a sanctuary called the Aeaceum — a square temple with marble walls — where later generations believed Aeacus lay buried beneath the altar.
III.Later adventures
Pindar preserves an account in which Apollo and Poseidon enlisted Aeacus to help build the walls of Troy. When the work was complete, three dragons assaulted the fortification: those attacking the divinely built sections fell dead, but the third breached the wall through the section that Aeacus had constructed. Apollo then prophesied that Troy would one day fall to Aeacus's descendants, the Aeacidae — a reference to his sons' part in an earlier siege of Troy with Heracles and to his great-grandson Neoptolemus's place within the wooden horse.
The Aeginetans also credited Aeacus with raising high cliffs around their island to deter pirates.
Ovid recorded several further incidents. By Endeïs, Aeacus had two sons: Telamon, father of Ajax and Teucer, and Peleus, father of Achilles. By the Nereid Psamathe he fathered Phocus, whom he favored. The two older sons conspired to kill Phocus during a competition, then fled their homeland.
IV.In the afterlife
After his death, Aeacus became one of the three judges in Hades, serving alongside his Cretan half-brothers Rhadamanthus and Minos. According to Plato, he specifically judged the shades of Europeans on their arrival in the underworld. Artistic depictions showed him bearing a scepter and the keys of Hades.
He possessed sanctuaries in Athens and Aegina. The Aeginetans regarded him as the tutelary deity of their island and observed the festival of the Aeacea in his honor.
In Aristophanes's comedy The Frogs (405 BCE), when Dionysus descends to Hades disguised as Heracles, Aeacus — grieved that Heracles had earlier stolen Cerberus — condemns the supposed Heracles to be tormented at Acheron by the hounds of Cocytus, the Echidna, the Tartesian eel, and the Tithrasian Gorgons.
V.Family
Aeacus was descended from Zeus and Aegina, daughter of the river-god Asopus, making him the brother of Damocrateia. Alternative accounts identify his mother as Europa, which would make him a full brother of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon.
He sired Peleus, Telamon, and Phocus, becoming grandfather to the Trojan War heroes Achilles and the Telamonian Ajax. Certain sources mention a daughter, Alcimache, who bore Medon to Oileus of Locris. After learning that Peleus and Telamon had murdered Phocus, Aeacus banished both of them.
His descendants collectively called themselves the Aeacidae (Αἰακίδαι). Homer repeatedly identifies Achilles as Aiakides in the Iliad. The Epirote kings, and Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, claimed descent from this lineage.