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In Greek mythology, Telephus (; Greek: Τήλεφος, Tēlephos, "far-shining") was the son of Heracles and Auge, who was the daughter of king Aleus of Tegea. He was adopted by Teuthras, the king of Mysia, in Asia Minor, whom he succeeded as king. Telephus was wounded by Achilles when the Achaeans came to his kingdom on their way to sack Troy and bring Helen back to Sparta, and later healed by Achilles. He was the father of Eurypylus, who fought alongside the Trojans against the Greeks in the Trojan War. Telephus' story was popular in ancient Greek and Roman iconography and tragedy. Telephus' name and mythology were possibly derived from the Hittite god Telepinu. Birth to adulthood Summary Telephus' mother was Auge, the daughter of Aleus, the king of Tegea, a city in Arcadia, in the Peloponnese of mainland Greece. His father was Heracles, who had seduced or raped Auge, a priestess of Athena. When Aleus found out, he tried to dispose of mother and child, but eventually both ended up in Asia Minor at the court of Teuthras, king of Mysia, where Telephus was adopted as the childless king's heir. There were three versions of how Telephus, the son of an Arcadian princess, came to be the heir of a Mysian king. In the oldest extant account, Auge goes to Mysia, is raised as a daughter by Teuthras, and Telephus is born there. In some accounts Telephus arrives in Mysia as an infant with his mother, where Teuthras marries Auge, and adopts Telephus. In others, while Auge (in various ways) is delivered to the Mysian court where she again becomes wife to the king, Telephus is instead left behind in Arcadia, having been abandoned on Mount Parthenion, either by Aleus, or by Auge when she gave birth while being taken to the sea by Nauplius to be drowned. However Telephus is suckled by a deer found and raised by King Corythus, or his herdsmen. Seeking knowledge of his mother, Telephus consulted the Delphic oracle which directed him to Mysia, where he was reunited with Auge and adopted by Teuthras. Sources A surviving fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (sixth century BC), representing perhaps the oldest tradition, places Telephus' birth in Mysia. In this telling Telephus' mother Auge had been received at the court of Teuthras in Mysia (possibly at the command of the gods) and raised by him as a daughter. And It is in Mysia that Heracles, while seeking the horses of Laomedon, fathers Telephus. All other surviving sources have Telephus born in Arcadia. The oldest such account (c. 490–480 BC), by the historian and geographer Hecataeus, says that Heracles used to have sex with Auge whenever he came to Tegea. We are told this by the second-century traveler Pausanias, who goes on to say, perhaps drawing upon Hecataeus, that when Aleus discovered that Auge had given birth to Telephus, he had mother and child shut up in a wooden chest and cast adrift on the open sea. The chest made its way from Arcadia to the Caicus river plain in Asia Minor, where the local king Teuthras married Auge. Sophocles, in the fifth century BC, wrote a tragedy Aleadae (The sons of Aleus), which apparently told the circumstances of Telephus' birth. The play is lost and only fragments now remain, but a declamation attributed to the fourth-century BC orator Alcidamas probably used Sophocles' Aleadae for one of its sources. According to Alcidamas, Auge's father Aleus had been warned by the Delphic oracle that if Auge had a son, then this grandson would kill Aleus' sons, so Aleus made Auge a priestess of Athena, telling her she must remain a virgin, on pain of death. But Heracles passing through Tegea, being entertained by Aleus in the temple of Athena, became enamored of Auge and while drunk had sex with her. Aleus discovered that Auge was pregnant and gave her to Nauplius to be drowned. But, on the way to the sea, Auge gave birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenion, and according to Alcidamas, Nauplius, ignoring his orders, sold mother and child to the childless Mysian king Teuthras, who married Auge and adopted Telephus, and "later gave him to Priam to be educated at Troy". Alcidamas' version of the story must have diverged from Sophocles in at least this last respect. For, rather than the infant Telephus being sold to Teuthras, as in Alcidamas, an Aleadae fragment seems to insure that in the Sophoclean play, as in many later accounts (see above), the new-born Telephus was instead abandoned (on Mount Parthenion?), where he is suckled by a deer. Euripides wrote a play Auge (408 BC?) which also dealt with Telephus' birth. The play is lost, but a summary of the plot can be pieced together from various later sources, in particular a narrative summary, given by the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene. A drunken Heracles, during a festival of Athena, rapes "Athena's priestess Auge, daughter of Aleus, as she conducted the dances during the nocturnal rites." Auge gives birth secretly in Athena's temple at Tegea, and hides the new-born Telephus there. The child is discovered, and Aleus orders Telephus exposed and Auge drowned, but Heracles returns and apparently saves the pair from immediate death, and the play perhaps ended with the assurance (from Athena to Heracles?) that Auge and Telephus would be wife and son to Teuthras. Strabo, gives a version of the story similar to Pausanias', saying that, after discovering "her ruin by Heracles", Aleus put Auge and Telephus into a chest and cast it into the sea, that it washed up at the mouth of the Caicus, and that Teuthras married Auge, and adopted Telephus. Later accounts by the first-century BC Historian Diodorus Siculus and the 1st or second-century AD mythographer Apollodorus provide additional details and variations. Diodorus, as in Alcidamas' account, says that Aleus gave the pregnant Auge to Nauplius to be drowned, that she gave birth to Telephus near Mount Parthenion, and that she ended up with Teuthras in Mysia. But in Diodorus' account, instead of being sold, along with his mother, to Teuthras, Telephus is abandoned by Auge "in some bushes", where he is suckled by a doe, and found by herdsmen. They give him to their king Corythus, who raises Telephus as his son. When Telephus grows up, wishing to find his mother, he consults the oracle at Delphi, which sends him to king Teuthras in Mysia. There he finds Auge and, as before, is adopted by the childless king, and made his heir. Apollodorus, as in Euripides' Auge, says that Auge delivered Telephus secretly in Athena's temple, and hid him there. Apollodorus adds that an ensuing famine, was declared by an oracle to be the result of some impiety in the temple, and a search of the temple caused Telephus to be found. Aleus had Telephus exposed on Parthenion, where as in Sophocles' Aleadae, he is suckled by a doe. According to Apollodorus, he was found and raised by herdsman. As in Diodorus' account, Telephus consults the oracle at Delphi, is sent to Mysia, where he becomes the adopted heir of Teuthras. According to the my.... Discover the Jacques Jouanna Steven Rendall popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jacques Jouanna Steven Rendall books.