In Greek mythology, Telephus (; )See for example, Knight, p. 433. According to the mythographic tradition, Telephus' name derived from his being suckled by a doe, e.g. Apollodorus, 2.7.4, 3.9.1 (Frazer note 2 to 2.7.4: 'Apollodorus seems to derive the name Telephus from θηλή, “a dug,” and ἔλαφος, “a doe."'). See also Huys, p. 295 ff.; Webster, pp. 238–239; Hyginus, Fabulae 99; Diodorus Siculus, 4.33.11; Moses of Chorene, Progymnasmata 3.3 (= Euripides, Auge test. iib, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267): "He got his name from circumstances". According to Kerényi his name was "more accurately ... Telephanes, 'he who shines afar'" (Kerényi, p. 337). The feminine form is Telephassa, of whom Kerényi writes, "She bore the lunar name Telephassa or Telephae, 'she who illuminates afar', or Argiope 'she of the white face'". (Kerényi, p. 27). was the son of Heracles and Auge, who was the daughter of king Aleus of Tegea. He was adopted by Teuthras, the king of Mysia, in Asia Minor, whom he succeeded as king. Telephus was wounded by Achilles when the Achaeans came to his kingdom on their way to sack Troy and bring Helen back to Sparta, and later healed by Achilles. He was the father of Eurypylus, who fought alongside the Trojans against the Greeks in the Trojan War. Telephus' story was popular in ancient Greek and Roman iconography and tragedy. Telephus' name and mythology were possibly derived from the Hittite god Telepinu.Dignas, p. 124; Stewart p. 113.
Birth to adulthood
Summary Telephus' mother was Auge, the daughter of Aleus, the king of Tegea, a city in Arcadia, in the Peloponnese of mainland Greece. His father was Heracles, who had seduced or raped Auge, a priestess of Athena. When Aleus found out, he tried to dispose of mother and child, but eventually both ended up in Asia Minor at the court of Teuthras, king of Mysia, where Telephus was adopted as the childless king's heir.
There were three versions of how Telephus, the son of an Arcadian princess, came to be the heir of a Mysian king.Gantz, p. 431. For general discussions see Hard, pp. 543–544; Gantz, 428–431. In the oldest extant account, Auge goes to Mysia, is raised as a daughter by Teuthras, and Telephus is born there.Hesiod (Pseudo), Catalogue of Women fr. 165 (Merkelbach–West numbering) from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri XI 1359 fr. 1 (Most, pp. 184–187; Stewart, p. 110; Grenfell and Hunt, pp. 52–55); Hyginus, Fabulae 99, 100. In some accounts Telephus arrives in Mysia as an infant with his mother, where Teuthras marries Auge, and adopts Telephus.Alcidamas, Odysseus 16 (Garagin and Woodruff, p. 286); Euripides, Auge (Collard and Cropp 2008a, p. 261, Webster, pp. 238—240); Strabo, 12.8.2, 12.8.4, 13.1.69; Moses of Chorene, Progymnasmata 3.3 (= Euripides, Auge test. iib, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267). In others, while Auge (in various ways) is delivered to the Mysian court where she again becomes wife to the king, Telephus is instead left behind in Arcadia, having been abandoned on Mount Parthenion, either by AleusApollodorus, 2.7.4, 3.9.1. Compare with Moses of Chorene, Progymnasmata 3.3 (= Euripides, Auge test. iib, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267) which says that Aleus "ordered Telephus to be cast out in a deserted place". or by Auge when she gave birth while being taken to the sea by Nauplius to be drowned.Diodorus Siculus, 4.33.9, 11. Compare with Hyginus, Fabulae 99 which has Auge abandoning Telephus on Parthenion while fleeing to Mysia. Telephus was probably also abandoned on Mount Parthenion (by either Aleus or Auge) in Euripides's lost play Telephus (see Gantz, p. 429), since in Telephus fr. 696, Collard and Cropp 2008b, pp. 194, 195, Telephus says he was born on Mount Parthenion but later "came to the plain of Mysia, where I found my mother and made a home." The infant Telephus is suckled by a deerAlmost certainly in Sophocles, Aleadae (see Gantz, p. 429; Huys, p. 293; Sophocles, Aleadae fr. 89 (Lloyd-Jones, pp. 40, 41), and probably also in Euripides, Auge (see Huys, p. 293; Collard and Cropp 2008a, p. 261; Webster, p. 239). See also Diodorus Siculus, 4.33.11; Ovid, Ibis 255–256; Hyginus, Fabulae 99, 252; Apollodorus, 2.7.4, 3.9.1; Pausanias, 8.48.7, 8.54.6; Quintus Smyrnaeus, 6.139–142; Moses of Chorene, Progymnasmata 3.3 (Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267). In the Telephus frieze from the Pergamon Altar, Telephus is shown being suckled by a lioness (Heres, p. 85). until he is found and raised by either King CorythusDiodorus Siculus, 4.33.11. or his herdsmen.Apollodorus, 3.9.1; compare with Hyginus, Fabulae 99, where shepherds found Telephus along with Parthenopeus (who had been exposed by his mother Atalanta) and raised both boys. Seeking knowledge of his mother, Telephus consults the Delphic oracle which directs him to Mysia,Diodorus Siculus, 4.33.11; Apollodorus, 3.9.1; Hyginus, Fabulae 100. where he is reunited with Auge and adopted by Teuthras.Euripides, Telephus fr. 696 (Collard and Cropp 2008b, pp. 194, 195; Page, pp. 130, 131; Webster, p. 238); Diodorus Siculus, 4.33.12; Apollodorus, 3.9.1. See also Palatine Anthology, 3.2 (Paton, pp. 150–153).
Sources
A surviving fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (sixth century BC),Hard, p. 544; Gantz, p. 428; Hesiod (Pseudo), Catalogue of Women fr. 165 (Merkelbach–West numbering) from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri XI 1359 fr. 1 (Most, pp. 184–187; Stewart, p. 110; Grenfell and Hunt, pp. 52–55). representing perhaps the oldest tradition,Stewart, p. 110. places Telephus' birth in Mysia. In this telling Telephus' mother Auge had been received at the court of Teuthras in Mysia (possibly at the command of the gods) and raised by him as a daughter.Compare with Hyginus, Fabulae 99, 100 which also have Auge adopted by Teuthras. And it is in Mysia that Heracles, while seeking the horses of Laomedon, fathers Telephus.
All other surviving sources have Telephus born in Arcadia.Gantz, p. 428. The oldest such account (c. 490–480 BC), by the historian and geographer Hecataeus, says that Heracles used to have sex with Auge whenever he came to Tegea. We are told this by the second-century traveler Pausanias, who goes on to say, perhaps drawing upon Hecataeus, that when Aleus discovered that Auge had given birth to Telephus, he had mother and child shut up in a wooden chest and cast adrift on the open sea. The chest made its way from Arcadia to the Caicus river plain in Asia Minor, where the local king Teuthras married Auge.Stewart, p. 110; Gantz, p. 428; Hecataeus, fr. 29 Jacoby (= Pausanias, 8.4.9). Strabo, 13.1.69, gives a similar account, which he attributes to Euripides (see below).
Sophocles, in the fifth century BC, wrote a tragedy Aleadae (The sons of Aleus), which apparently told the circumstances of Telephus' birth.Lloyd-Jones, pp. 32–41 (frs. 77–89); Jebb, Headlam and Pearson, Vol. 1 pp. 46 ff. (frs. 77–89). The play is lost and only fragments now remain, but a declamation attributed to the fourth-century BC orator Alcidamas probably used Sophocles' Aleadae for one of its sources.Gantz, pp. 428–429; Jebb, Headlam and Pearson, Vol. 1 pp. 46–47. According to Alcidamas, Auge's father Aleus had been warned by the Delphic oracle that if Auge had a son, then this grandson would kill Aleus' sons, so Aleus made Auge a priestess of Athena, telling her she must remain a virgin, on pain of death.Alcidamas, Odysseus 14-16 (Garagin and Woodruff, p. 286). Alcidamas is the only source for the oracle given to Aleus (see Jebb, Headlam and Pearson, Vol. 1, p. 47). But Heracles passing through Tegea, being entertained by Aleus in the temple of Athena, became enamored of Auge and, while drunk, had sex with her. Aleus discovered that Auge was pregnant and gave her to Nauplius to be drowned. But, on the way to the sea, Auge gave birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenion, and according to Alcidamas, Nauplius, ignoring his orders, sold mother and child to the childless Mysian king Teuthras, who married Auge and adopted Telephus, and "later gave him to Priam to be educated at Troy". Alcidamas' version of the story must have diverged from Sophocles in at least this last respect. For, rather than the infant Telephus being sold to Teuthras, as in Alcidamas, an Aleadae fragment seems to insure that in the Sophoclean play, as in many later accounts (see above), the new-born Telephus was instead abandoned (on Mount Parthenion?), where he is suckled by a deer.Gantz, p. 429; Huys, p. 293; Jebb, Headlam and Pearson, Vol. 1 p. 47; Sophocles, Aleadae fr. 89 (Lloyd-Jones, p. 40, 41).
Euripides wrote a play Auge (408 BC?) which also dealt with Telephus' birth. The play is lost, but a summary of the plot can be pieced together from various later sources, in particular a narrative summary given by the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene.Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 259–277; Huys, pp. 81–82; Gantz, pp. 429–430; Webster, pp. 238–240. A drunken Heracles,Euripides, Auge fr. 272b (= 265 N), Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 274, 275, has Heracles say: "As it is, wine made me lose control. I admit I wronged you, but the wrong was not intentional." during a festival of Athena, rapes "Athena's priestess Auge, daughter of Aleus, as she conducted the dances during the nocturnal rites."Euripides, Auge test. iib, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267 (= Moses of Chorene, Progymnasmata 3.3). Pompeian frescoes (which show Auge being raped while washing clothing) and Pausanias, 8.47.4, place the rape at a spring, and this version of events may reflect Euripides' Auge. See Collard and Cropp 2008a. p. 262, Euripides, Auge test. iia (Hypothesis), Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 264, 265, with n. 1; Rosivach, p. 44 with n. 126; Kerényi, p. 338). Auge gives birth secretly in Athena's temple at Tegea, and hides the new-born Telephus there.Collard and Cropp 2008a, p. 260; test. iii, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267 (= Tzetzes On Aristophanes, Frogs 1080); fr. 266, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 270, 271 (= Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 7.3.23.4). See also Euripides' Telephus, fr. 696, which has Telephus say that Auge "bore me secretly" (Collard and Cropp 2008b, pp. 194, 195; cf. Page, pp. 130, 131). The child is discovered, and Aleus orders Telephus exposed and Auge drowned, but Heracles returns and apparently saves the pair from imminent death. The play perhaps ended with the assurance (from Athena to Heracles?) that Auge and Telephus would be wife and son to Teuthras.Collard and Cropp 2018a, p. 261; Gantz, p. 430; Huys, p. 82; Webster, p. 240; Euripides, Auge test. iib, Collard and Cropp 2008a, pp. 266, 267 (= Moses of Chorene, Progymnasmata 3.3).
Strabo gives a version of the story similar to Pausanias', saying that, after discovering "her ruin by Heracles", Aleus put Auge and Telephus into a chest and cast it into the sea, that it washed up at the mouth of the Caicus, and that Teuthras married Auge, and adopted Telephus.See Strabo, 13.1.69, which attributes this to Euripides. If so then this would have presumably been in Euripide's Auge (see Gantz, p. 429; Webster, p. 238) however Strabo's attribution may be erroneous (see Collard and Cropp 2008a, p. 261); see also 12.8.2, 12.8.4.