Son of Aeacus and king of the Myrmidons in Phthia, who won the Nereid Thetis to wife and begot Achilles; cast out of Aegina for the death of his half-brother Phocus, he grew old at home while his short-lived son's wrath consumed the Achaeans before Troy.1
Homer knows Peleus as the aged king of the Myrmidons, son of Aeacus, dwelling still in Phthia while his son fights at Troy; Achilles dreads to hear that the old man has died, and Nestor recalls the house where Peleus, the old charioteer, questioned him on the lineage of all the Argives. To Peleus the centaur Chiron gave the great Pelian ash spear from the peak of Pelion, which Achilles alone of the Achaeans could wield.2
Apollodorus tells how Aeacus begot Phocus on the Nereid Psamathe, and how Peleus and Telamon slew their half-brother and were driven into exile, Telamon to Salamis and Peleus to Phthia. He numbers Peleus son of Aeacus, come from Phthia, among the heroes Oeneus gathered for the hunt of the Calydonian boar; and he gives the reason a goddess was bestowed on a mortal — Zeus and Poseidon both wooed Thetis, but when Themis prophesied that her son would be mightier than his father, the gods withheld their suit and gave her to Peleus instead.3
His great fortune was to wed a goddess. Hesiod sings that silver-shod Thetis was subdued to Peleus and brought forth lion-hearted Achilles, the destroyer of men; and in the Iliad Thetis grieves that of all the sea-nymphs Zeus gave her alone to a mortal man, to Peleus son of Aeacus, and that she endured a man's bed against her will.4
Ovid recounts how Peleus first won the bride. Warned by Proteus that he could master Thetis only by seizing her as she slept in her sea-cave and holding fast through every shape she took, he bound the Nereid and clung to her as she turned to bird, to tree, to spotted tigress, until her shifting forms gave out and she was his.5
Their wedding was the seed of the war. Hyginus tells that Discord, the one goddess unbidden to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, threw among the guests the apple inscribed for the fairest, and from the strife of Juno, Venus and Minerva over it came the judgement of Paris and the ruin of Troy.6
Apollodorus tells of his Iolcan ordeal after the Calydonian hunt. Purified by Acastus for the blood of Eurytion, he contended at Pelias' games in wrestling with Atalanta; when Astydamia, wife of Acastus, could not win him, she sent a false report to Antigone that he meant to wed Sterope, daughter of Acastus, and accused him to her husband. Acastus deserted him swordless on Pelion until Chiron restored the blade; Peleus then with Jason and the Dioscuri laid Iolcus waste and dismembered Astydamia in vengeance.7
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
