In Greek mythology, Aeolus (Ancient Greek: Αἴολος) was the son of Hellen, ruler of Aeolia (later Thessaly), and the eponym of the Aeolians, one of the four main tribes of the Greeks. Apollodorus makes him father of seven sons — Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, and Perieres — and five daughters, including Canace and Alcyone. He is distinct from Aeolus son of Hippotes, the keeper of the winds in Homer's Odyssey, though later authors sometimes confused or identified the two.
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I.Family
Aeolus was grandson of Deucalion and Pyrrha through Hellen, the eponym of the Hellenes. In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Hellen's three sons are Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus — eponyms of the Dorians, Achaeans/Ionians (through Xuthus's sons), and Aeolians. Surviving Catalogue fragments do not name Aeolus's mother; Hellanicus gives Othreis, Apollodorus a nymph Orseis, and M. L. West suggests both may corrupt Othyis, a nymph of Mount Othrys.
According to Apollodorus, Aeolus married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus, and they had seven sons and five daughters. The Catalogue likewise listed seven sons and five daughters, though only some names survive in the papyrus. Other traditions give him further children by other mothers, among them Melanippe by Hippe (daughter of the centaur Chiron) in Euripides, and Macareus in the Canace story.
II.Mythology
Apart from being progenitor of many Deucalionid heroes, Aeolus himself has little independent myth. One tale, preserved via Euripides's lost Melanippe plays in Eratosthenes and Hyginus, has him seduce Hippe; when she was about to give birth and be discovered by Chiron, she prayed to be made unrecognizable and was transformed into a horse and placed among the stars (the constellation of the Horse).
Ovid and Hyginus tell of incest between Aeolus's children Macareus and Canace: in Hyginus, Macareus kills himself and Aeolus kills Canace; in Ovid, Aeolus exposes the newborn and forces Canace to take her own life with a sword.
III.Confusion with the wind-keeper
This Aeolus was sometimes confused or identified with the Aeolus who keeps the winds in Homer's Odyssey (son of Hippotes). The confusion may begin in Euripides's lost Aeolus, where an Aeolus based on the Odyssey figure is also father of Canace. Hyginus even describes Odysseus's host as "Aeolus, son of Hellen, to whom control of the winds had been given by Jove," and Ovid links Alcyone and the Canace story to a wind-ruling Aeolus.