Telegonus (son of Odysseus)
In Greek mythology, Telegonus (/təˈlɛɡənəs/; Ancient Greek: Τηλέγονος means "born afar") was the youngest son of Circe and Odysseus[1][2] and thus, brother to Agrius and Latinus[3] or Nausithous and Nausinous,[4] and Cassiphone.[5] In some accounts, he was called the son of the nymph Calypso and Odysseus instead.[6]
Mythology
When Telegonus had grown to manhood, his mother Circe sent him in search of Odysseus, who by this time had finally returned to Ithaca from the Trojan War. Shipwrecked on Ithaca by a storm, Telegonus believed mistakenly that he had made landfall on Corcyra (Corfu) and, assailed by hunger, began plundering the island. Odysseus and his oldest son, Telemachus, defended their city and, in the ensuing melée, Telegonus accidentally killed his father with a lance tipped with the venomous spine of a stingray. Telemachus married Telegonus' mother, the enchantress Circe, while Telegonus took to wife Odysseus' widow Penelope.[7] By Penelope, he was the father of Italus who, according to some accounts, gave his name to Italy.[2]
This is the story told in the
In Italic and Roman mythology, Telegonus became known as the founder of Tusculum, a city just to the southeast of Rome, and sometimes also as the founder of Praeneste, a city in the same region (modern Palestrina).[8] Ancient Roman poets regularly used phrases such as "walls of Telegonus" (e.g. Propertius 2.32) or "Circaean walls" to refer to Tusculum.
See also
Notes
References
- .
- Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
- Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Moralia with an English Translation by Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.