In Greek mythology, Periclymenus (Ancient Greek: Περικλύμενος) was a Pylian prince, son of King Neleus and Chloris, and one of the Argonauts. Poseidon — his grandfather — gave him the power to change shape into various animals; he was killed by Heracles at the sack of Pylos while trying to escape in the form of an eagle. He is distinct from the Theban defender of the same name and from the Zacynthian suitor of Penelope.
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I.Family and the Argonauts
Periclymenus was a son of Neleus and Chloris, and so brother of Nestor and of the many Neleid sons whom Heracles later slew. Homer names him among Neleus's children in the Odyssey; Hesiod's Catalogue of Women treated his gift of metamorphosis at greater length. He sailed with the Argonauts (Apollonius Rhodius, the Orphic Argonautica, Apollodorus, Valerius Flaccus, Hyginus).
He is called father of Penthilos, or — by Pisidice — of Borus, father of Penthilus, in genealogies that continue the Neleid line after the sack of Pylos.
II.Shape-shifting and death at Pylos
Poseidon granted Periclymenus the ability to assume many animal forms. When Heracles attacked Pylos — in revenge for Neleus's refusal to purify him, or in other war traditions — Periclymenus fought as lion, snake, bee, and other shapes. He was slain nonetheless; in Apollodorus and Ovid he tries to escape as an eagle. Of Neleus's sons only Nestor survived, being away or spared.
Nonnus later alludes to the bee-form among the transformations.
III.Homonyms
The name also belongs to a Theban son of Poseidon and Chloris daughter of Tiresias, who nearly killed Amphiaraus in the war of the Seven (the earth swallowed Amphiaraus first) and who may have slain Parthenopaeus; and to a Zacynthian suitor of Penelope killed by Odysseus. This atlas entry is only the Neleid Argonaut of Pylos (periclymenus-neleus).