Son of Thersander and, in Pausanias' reckoning, Demonassa daughter of Amphiaraus — the Epigon king's heir who was still too young to command when Telephus cut down his father in Mysia, so Thebes sent Peneleos to lead the Boeotian host to Troy in his stead.1
Pausanias closes his Theban king-list with the succession after Thersander: when Agamemnon's second expedition against Troy was being mustered, Peneleos was chosen to command the Boeotian contingent because Tisamenus, son of Thersander, was not yet old enough to lead.2
After Peneleos was killed by Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, the Thebans raised Tisamenus to the throne. Pausanias names his parents as Thersander and Demonassa, daughter of the seer Amphiaraus — linking the Epigon dynasty to the Melampid house through the marriage.3
The curse that had hunted the Labdacids did not touch this line at first: Pausanias says explicitly that the Erinyes of Laius and Oedipus did not pursue Thersander or Tisamenus — but they did pursue his son Autesion, who at the oracle's bidding migrated to the Dorians and left the throne to Damasichthon son of Opheltes.4
Through Autesion his house reached beyond Boeotia: Pausanias traces the colonist Theras, who led settlers to the island later called Thera after him, as son of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander — a Theban royal line remembered in the Cyclades and at Sparta.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story