Anticleia

A daughter of Autolycus, wife of Laërtes, and mother of Odysseus.1 According to Homer she died of grief at the long absence of her son, who met her and spoke with her in Hades.2 According to other traditions, she put an end to her own life after she had heard a report of the death of her son.3

Hyginus4 also states, that previous to her marrying Laërtes, she lived on intimate terms with Sisyphus; whence Euripides5 calls Odysseus a son of Sisyphus.6

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References

Notes

  1. Homer. Odyssey xii, 85.
  2. ibid. xv, 356 ff.; xii, 202 ff.
  3. Hyginus. Fabulae, 243.
  4. ibid., 201.
  5. Iphigeneia in Aulis, 524.
  6. Comp. Sophocles. Philoctetes, 417; Ovid. Metamorphoses xiii, 32; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid vi, 529.

Sources

  • Grimal, Pierre; Kershaw, Stephen. (1992). The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology. London: Penguin Books.
  • 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.