In Greek mythology, Aleus (or Aleos) was a king of Arcadia and the namesake of the city of Alea. A descendant of Arcas, he founded the worship of Athena Alea and built her temple at Tegea, which he made the capital of his kingdom. His daughter Auge, a priestess of Athena, bore the hero Telephus to Heracles. Two of his sons, Amphidamas and Cepheus, joined the Argonauts, as did his grandson Ancaeus, who later died fighting the Calydonian boar.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Aleus" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Aleus descended from Apheidas, whose father was Arcas (son of Zeus and Callisto), the eponymous founder of Arcadia. Some accounts identify Aleus as a brother of Stheneboea. He succeeded his father as king of Tegea in Arcadia, and eventually ruled over all Arcadia, with Tegea as his capital, after the death of Aepytus.
Aleus was the eponymous founder of the city of Alea and the builder of the Temple of Athena Alea. By his wife, named in different sources as either Neaera (daughter of Pereus) or Cleobule, he had three sons, Lycurgus, Amphidamas, and Cepheus, and two daughters, Auge and Alcidice.
II.Mythology: Auge and Telephus
Aleus's daughter Auge served as a virgin priestess of Athena Alea. Heracles made her pregnant, and though Aleus attempted to destroy both mother and child, they eventually reached the court of King Teuthras in Mysia, where Auge became his wife (or adopted daughter) and her son Telephus became his heir.
According to one account, the Delphic oracle warned Aleus that if his daughter had a son, this grandson would kill Aleus's own sons, prompting him to bind her to her priesthood. Heracles, passing through Tegea, became enchanted with Auge and lay with her while intoxicated. Versions of her discovery differ: in one, Aleus gave her to Nauplius to be drowned, but Nauplius sold her instead; in another, she bore Telephus secretly in Athena's temple and was found out when a resulting plague led Aleus to investigate. Aleus then set Auge and Telephus adrift in a wooden chest.
Some accounts have the infant Telephus arrive in Mysia together with Auge, while others say he was abandoned on Mount Parthenion and suckled by a deer, reuniting with his mother only years later.
III.Mythology: Ancaeus
When Aleus had grown old, he sent his younger sons Amphidamas and Cepheus to join Jason and the Argonauts. His eldest son Lycurgus stayed at home, and Lycurgus's son Ancaeus sailed in his place. To keep Ancaeus from danger, Aleus hid his war equipment, so that Ancaeus went clad in a bearskin and wielding a double-bladed axe.
Ancaeus later took part in the hunt for the Calydonian boar and was killed when the beast gored him. Pausanias reports that the front gable of the temple at Tegea depicted Ancaeus wounded and supported by Epochus, his fallen axe beside him.
The story parallels Herodotus's account of Croesus, whose son Atys was killed by a spear despite all precautions taken to protect him, both tales illustrating the inevitability of fate.