Salmoneus

A son of Aeolus by Enarete, and a brother of Sisyphus.1 He was first married to Alcidice and afterwards to Sidero; by the former wife he was the father of Tyro.2 He originally lived in Thessaly, but emigrated to Elis, where he built the town of Salmone.3

He there went so far in his presumption and arrogance, that he deemed himself equal to Zeus, and ordered sacrifices to be offered to himself; he even imitated the thunder and lightning of Zeus, by driving his chariot over a brass bridge and hurling flaming brands at his subjects. The father of the gods was not amused and killed the presumptuous man with a real thunderbolt, destroyed his town, and punished him in the lower world.

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References

Notes

  1. Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library i, 7.3; Scholiast on Pindar's Pythian Odes iv, 252.
  2. Homer. Odyssey xii, 235; Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library i, 9.8; Diodorus Siculus. Historical Library iv, 68.
  3. Strabo. Geography viii, p. 356.

Sources

  • Claudian. Against Rufinus, 514.
  • Hyginus. Fabulae, 60, 61, 250.
  • Lucian. Timon or The Misanthrope, 2.
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library i, 9.7.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Virgil. Aeneid vi, 585 ff.

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