In Greek mythology, Oileus or Oïleus (Ancient Greek: Ὀϊλεύς) was king of Locris and an Argonaut, best known as the father of Ajax the Lesser. On the Argo he was wounded in the shoulder by a Stymphalian bird and healed by Eribotes. He is distinct from a Trojan charioteer of the same name killed by Agamemnon.
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I.Family
Hyginus names Oileus's parents as Hodoedocus — whom he succeeded as king of Locris — and Agrianome, daughter of Perseon. Homer makes Eriopis his wife and mother of Ajax the Lesser; scholiasts and later writers also name Alcimache or Astyoche. He was father of Medon, usually called illegitimate, by the nymph Rhene (Hyginus instead gives Rhene as Ajax's mother).
II.Argonaut and Locrian king
Oileus sailed with Jason among the Argonauts. In Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica a bronze-feathered Stymphalian bird struck him in the shoulder during the attack on the Island of Ares; Eribotes drew out the barb and tended the wound.
Through his son Ajax the Lesser he stands at the head of the Locrian contingent at Troy. The Locrian Ajax's sacrilege against Cassandra later brought lasting ritual consequences on Locris — a fate traced back to Oileus's house rather than to any crime of Oileus himself.
III.Homonyms
Homer also names an Oileus as charioteer of the Trojan Bienor, slain by Agamemnon. That defender of Troy is a different figure from the Locrian Argonaut treated here.