Aletes

A son of Hippotes and a descendant of Heracles in the fifth degree. He is said to have taken possession of Corinth, and to have expelled the Sisyphids, thirty years after the first invasion of the Peloponnese by the Heraclidae. His family, sometimes called the Aletidae, maintained themselves at Corinth down to the time of Bacchis.1

Velleius Paterculus2 calls him a descendant of Heracles in the sixth degree. He received an oracle, promising him the sovereignty of Athens, if during the war, which was then going on, its king should remain uninjured. This oracle became known at Athens, and Codrus sacrificed himself for his country.3

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References

Notes

  1. Pausanias. Description of Greece ii, 4.3; v, 18.2; Strabo. Geography viii., 389; Callimachus. Fragments, 103; Pindar. Olympian Odes xiii, 17.
  2. i, 3.
  3. Conon. Narratives, 26.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.