In Greek mythology, Alcestis (Ancient Greek: Ἄλκηστις, Álkēstis), also called Alceste, was a princess of Iolcus celebrated for her love of and devotion to her husband. The fairest of the daughters of King Pelias, she became the wife of Admetus, king of Pherae. She is best known for volunteering to die in her husband's place, a story preserved in Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca and popularized by Euripides in his tragedy Alcestis, which dramatizes her death and her return from the dead.
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I.Family
Alcestis was the fairest among the daughters of Pelias, king of Iolcus, and either Anaxibia or Phylomache. She was sister to Acastus, Pisidice, Pelopia, and Hippothoe.
Alcestis was the wife of Admetus, by whom she bore a son, Eumelus, a participant in the siege of Troy, and a daughter, Perimele.
II.Mythology
When Alcestis came of age to marry, many suitors presented themselves before King Pelias to compete for her hand. Pelias proposed an impossible task, declaring that she would marry the first man to yoke a lion and a boar (or a bear, in some versions) to a chariot. King Admetus of Pherae was able to complete the task with the help of Apollo, who had been banished from Olympus for one year to serve as Admetus's shepherd.
Alcestis and Admetus were married, but when making sacrifices after the wedding, Admetus forgot to make the required offering to Artemis. When he opened the marriage chamber, he found his bed full of coiled snakes, a scene he interpreted as a sign of his early death.
Apollo again helped the newlywed king, this time by making the Fates drunk and tricking them into promising that if anyone was willing to die in Admetus's place, they would allow it. When the day of his death came near, no one volunteered — not even his elderly parents. Alcestis alone came forward to die in place of her husband.
As a token of his appreciation for Admetus's hospitality, Heracles rescued Alcestis from the underworld shortly after fighting Thanatos. After Heracles brought Alcestis back to the mortal realm and reunited her with her husband, she was unable to speak. When Admetus questioned this, Heracles informed him that she would remain silent for three days, until she was purified of her debt to the chthonic gods.
III.In art
The myth of Admetus and Alcestis has been depicted in ancient and later art. An ancient Roman fresco of Alcestis and Admetus survives from the House of the Tragic Poet at Pompeii (45–79 CE), and scenes from the myth appear on the marble sarcophagus of C. Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte (161–170 CE). Alcestis also appears alongside Heracles and Hermes on a Sicilian red-figure skyphos dated to about 350–340 BC.
The story was a recurring subject for later painters, who favored its scenes of farewell, death, and rescue. Examples include George Dennis's The Farewell of Admetus and Alcestis (1848), Frederic Leighton's Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis (c. 1869–1871), Herbert Thomas Dicksee's Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Soul of Alcestis (1884), Angelica Kauffmann's The Death of Alcestis, Jean-François Pierre Peyron's Alceste mourante (1785), and two works by Johann Heinrich Tischbein (c. 1780) depicting Admetus mourning Alcestis and Heracles restoring her to Admetus from the death-god Thanatos.