Melicertes. In Greek mythology, Melicertes is the son of the Boeotian prince Athamas and Ino, daughter of Cadmus.
Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth, Both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea, noted by Homer, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree.
Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian Games and sacrifices in his honor. Palaemon appears for the first time in Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris, where he is already the guardian of ships.
The paramount identification in the Latin poets of the Augustan age is with Portunus, the Roman god of safe harbours, memorably in Virgil's Georgics. Ovid twice told the story of Ino's sea-plunge with Melicertes in her arms.
Ovid's treatment in his Fasti identifies for the first time as the location the Isthmus without literally naming it: A land there is, shrunk within narrow bounds, which repels twin seas, and single in itself, is lashed by two-fold waters. In later Latin poets there are numerous identifications of Palaemon with the sanctuary at the Isthmus, where no archaeological evidence was found for a pre-Au
Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth, Both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea, noted by Homer, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree.
Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian Games and sacrifices in his honor. Palaemon appears for the first time in Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris, where he is already the guardian of ships.
The paramount identification in the Latin poets of the Augustan age is with Portunus, the Roman god of safe harbours, memorably in Virgil's Georgics. Ovid twice told the story of Ino's sea-plunge with Melicertes in her arms.
Ovid's treatment in his Fasti identifies for the first time as the location the Isthmus without literally naming it: A land there is, shrunk within narrow bounds, which repels twin seas, and single in itself, is lashed by two-fold waters. In later Latin poets there are numerous identifications of Palaemon with the sanctuary at the Isthmus, where no archaeological evidence was found for a pre-Au
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