An Arcadian of the house of Aleus, son of Amphidamas, who ran for love of Atalanta and, casting down the golden apples Aphrodite gave him, beat her in the race and so won her as his wife.1
Melanion belongs to the Arcadian royal line of Aleus. Apollodorus sets out the descent: Lycurgus had sons, Ancaeus, Epochus, Amphidamas, and Iasus; and Amphidamas had a son Melanion and a daughter Antimache, whom Eurystheus married. He is thus son of Amphidamas, grandson of Lycurgus, of the same Aleid stock from which Auge bore Telephus and Iasus fathered the huntress Atalanta — making suitor and bride kin within one Tegean house.2
His one great deed is the race. Atalanta, who would not marry, set her suitors to run from her: the one who lost his footing met death on the spot, but whoever was not caught had marriage for his prize. When many had already perished, Melanion came to run for love of her, bringing golden apples from Aphrodite, and being pursued he threw them down, and she, picking up the dropped fruit, was beaten in the race. So Melanion married her.3
The marriage is contested ground between two regions, for the Arcadian winner Melanion has a Boeotian double. Apollodorus reports that Euripides made Atalanta's husband not Melanion but Hippomenes; and it is under that name — Hippomenes, son of Megareus — that Ovid and Hyginus tell the same race won with Aphrodite's apples. The story is one and the role single; only the runner's name and homeland shift, so the Arcadian Melanion and the Boeotian Hippomenes are kept as separate figures filling the one part.4
His son too is disputed. In Apollodorus' roll of the Seven against Thebes, Parthenopaeus, son of Melanion, was an Arcadian; yet the genealogy adds that Atalanta bore Parthenopaeus by Melanion, or by Ares. Pausanias keeps to the human father, noting that some say Tlesimenes was a brother, others a son of Parthenopaeus, son of Melanion. The mother is never in doubt; the contested party is whose son the Theban war-leader was.5
Melanion was old enough in art to stand on the Chest of Cypselus at Olympia, where Pausanias describes him: there is also Melanion, by whom is Atalanta holding a young deer — the pair fixed in the oldest images as huntress and husband. On the same chest, among the runners at the funeral games of Pelias, those engaged in a running-race are Melanion, Neotheus and Phalareus, with Argeius fourth and Iphiclus fifth and winning — placing him in the company of the Argonautic athletic heroes.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
