A son of Oeneus who, banished for kindred blood, fled to Argos and came to Adrastus, married his daughter Deipyle and begat Diomedes, then marched against Thebes with Adrastus and died of a wound dealt by Melanippus.1
Tydeus belonged to the royal house of Aetolia: of the three sons of Portheus who dwelt in Pleuron and steep Calydon — Agrius, Melas, and the horseman Oeneus — it was Oeneus who fathered him, so that Diomedes after him could name 'goodly Oeneus' as father to his father. Apollodorus makes him a son of Oeneus by Periboea, half-brother to Meleager and to Deianira, and Hyginus names his mother the captive Periboea.2
Grown to be a gallant man, he was banished for a killing within his own kin. The ancient accounts could not agree whom he slew: Apollodorus offers Alcathous, brother of Oeneus, or the sons of Melas who had plotted against Oeneus, or — on Pherecydes' authority — his own brother Olenias; Hyginus says his father drove him out for killing his brother Menalippus at a hunt.3
He went wandering to Argos and came to Adrastus, who received him and gave him his daughter Deipyle to wife; by her he begat Diomedes. In Homer's telling Tydeus simply 'went wandering to Argos, and there was settled, and wedded one of the daughters of Adrastus'; Hyginus tells how he arrived at the king's court wrapped in a boar's skin, fulfilling an oracle that bound Adrastus to wed his daughters to a boar and a lion.4
Once sent by the Argives as an envoy into Thebes, Tydeus challenged the Cadmeans to feats of strength and, with Athena beside him, vanquished them all with ease. As he departed they set fifty youths to ambush him under Maeon and Polyphontes, and he killed them every one, sparing only Maeon in obedience to the portents of the gods.5
He marched against Thebes among the Seven, in the cause of Polynices and under his father-in-law Adrastus, and there met his end. Apollodorus tells the grim sequel: wounded in the belly by Melanippus, he lay half dead while Athena brought a drug from Zeus to make him immortal; but Amphiaraus, who hated him, cut off Melanippus' head and gave it him, and Tydeus split it open and gulped up the brains — at which the goddess in disgust withheld the gift. Hyginus too counts him among the Seven kings who set out for Thebes.6
⁂
the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
