Amyntor (son of Ormenus)

This article is about the mythological son of Ormenus and father of Phoenix. For other mythological figures, see Amyntor (mythology).

In Greek mythology, Amyntor (Ancient Greek: Ἀμύντωρ, translit. Amýntor, lit. 'defender') was the son of Ormenus, and a king of Eleon or Ormenium.^[1] Amyntor's son Phoenix, on his mother's urgings, had sex with his father's concubine, Clytia or Phthia. Amyntor, discovering this, called upon the Erinyes to curse him with childlessness. In a later version of the story, Phoenix was falsely accused by Amyntor's mistress and was blinded by his father, but Chiron restored his sight.

Amyntor was also the father of a son Crantor, and a daughter Astydamia. When Amyntor lost a war with Achilles' father Peleus, king of Phthia, Amyntor gave Crantor to Peleus as a pledge of peace. Strabo reports a genealogy for Amyntor which made him the grandson of Cercaphus, the son of Aeolus, and the brother of Euaemon, the father of Eurypylus.

When Amyntor refused Heracles permission to pass through his kingdom, Heracles killed Amyntor and fathered a son Ctesippus, by Astydamia. During the Trojan War, Odysseus received a helmet that had originally belonged to Amyntor.

Mythology

According to the Iliad, Amyntor, the son of Ormenus, was a king in Hellas,^[2] and the father of Phoenix, who became a tutor of Achilles, whom he accompanied to the Trojan War. In a speech, addressed to Achilles, Phoenix tells of the conflict between himself and his father. When Amyntor forsook his wife, Phoenix's mother, for a concubine, at the urging of his jealous mother, Phoenix had sex with Amyntor's concubine. To punish this crime Amyntor called upon the Erinyes to curse Phoenix with childlessness. Outraged Phoenix intended to kill Amyntor, but was finally dissuaded. Instead he fleeing through Hellas, Phoenix went to Peleus in Phthia, where he became king of the Dolopians.^[3] Also according to the Iliad, the thief Autolycus broke into Amyntor's house in Eleon and stole a helmet, which Meriones gave to Odysseus during the Trojan War.^[4]

The mythographer Apollodorus gives a different version of Phoenix's story, probably drawn from a lost play by the tragedian Euripides.^[5] In this account Phoenix was falsely accused of having sex with Amyntor's concubine Phthia, and was blinded by Amyntor. Peleus brought Phoenix to the centaur Chiron who restored his sight, after which Peleus made him king of the Dolopians.^[6] According to Apollodorus, Amyntor was a king of Ormenium, and one day when Heracles wished to pass through his land, Amyntor took up arms and opposed him, and was killed by Heracles, who then fathered a son Ctesippus, by Amyntor's daughter Astydamia.^[7]

Brief references to Amyntor are found in the poems of the third-century BC poets Callimachus and Lycophron. Callimachus, mentions the sons of Ormenus inviting Erysichthon to games associated with the cult of Athena at Itone in Thessaly,^[8] while Lycophron refers to Amyntor blinding Phoenix.^[9] According to Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, Amyntor had a son Crantor, whom he gave to Peleus when he sued for peace, and who died fighting alongside Peleus in the Centauromachy, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs at the wedding feast of Pirithous.^[10]

Strabo reports that, according to the Greek grammarian Demetrius of Scepsis, Amyntor's father Ormenus was the eponymous founder of the city of Ormenium (which Strabo identifies with a village called Orminium which he located at the foot of Mount Pelion, near the Pegasitic Gulf). According to this account Ormenus was the son of Cercaphus, the son of Aeolus, and Ormenus had two sons Amnytor and Euaemon, and that Amyntor had a son Phoenix, and Eumaemon had a son Eurypylus who succeeded to the throne, because Phoenix had fled to Peleus in Phthia.^[11]

Scholia name Phoenix's mother either Cleobule^[12] or Hippodameia,^[13] and the concubine as either Clytia or Phthia.^[14]

Notes

1. Tripp, s.v. Amyntor, p. 48; Smith, s.v. Amyntor, s.v. Phoenix 2.
2. For the "hopeless confusion" in Homer's statements concerning the location of Amyntor's kingdom see Leaf's note to Iliad 9.447, p. 403.
3. Homer, Iliad 9.432–495.
4. Homer, Iliad 10.260– 271.
5. Gantz, p. 618; Frazer's note 3 to Apollodorus, 3.13.8.
6. Apollodorus, 3.13.8.
7. Apollodorus, 2.7.7–8; c.f. Pindar, Olympian 7.23–24, which refers to "descendants of Amyntor, through Astydameia". According to Diodorus Siculus, 4.37.4, Astydameia was the daughter of king Ormenius, and when Heracles asked Ormenius for permission to marry Astydameia, Ormenius refused, so Heracles killed Ormenius, took Astydameia, and fathered Ctesippus by her.
8. Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter 75–76 with notes a, b.
9. Lycophron, Alexandra 417–423.
10. Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.361–368.
11. Strabo, 9.5.18.
12. Tzetzes, John (2015). Allegories of the Iliad. Translated by Goldwyn, Adam; Kokkini, Dimitra. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. pp. 33, Prologue 432, pp. 41, Prologue 524. ISBN 978-0-674-96785-4.
13. Tzetzes ad Lycophron, Alexandra. 421; Eustathius ad Homer p. 762
14. Gantz, p. 618; Frazer's note 3 to Apollodorus, 3.13.8;

References

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Callimachus, Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair ; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Internet Archive.
• Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Online version by Bill Thayer
• Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
• Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Leaf, Walter, The Iliad: Editied, with Apparatus Criticus, Prolegomena, Notes, and Appendices, Walter Leaf, Vol. I, Books 1-12, Second edition, Macmillan and Company, limited, 1900. Internet Archive
• Lycophron, Alexandra (or Cassandra) in Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair ; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Internet Archive.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Pindar, Odes, Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Strabo, Geography, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (1924). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Books 6–14
• Tripp, Edward, Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). ISBN 069022608X.
• Tzetzes, John, Allegories of the Iliad translated by Goldwyn, Adam J. and Kokkini, Dimitra. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Harvard University Press, 2015. ISBN 978-0-674-96785-4