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Aeolus (son of Hippotes)

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In late Classical accounts, Aeolus came to be considered a minor god.

Mythology

In Homer's Odyssey, Aeolus is merely a mortal man, the ruler of Aeolia, who was given control over the winds by Zeus. However, in late Classical accounts, Aeolus came to be considered a minor god, who kept the winds penned up in a cave. Other gods would come to ask him to either calm or stir up his winds to aid or hinder certain sea travelers.

Valerius Flaccus

Kept the winds in a cave

Quintus Smyrnus

Ruler of the winds

Aeolus by Alexandre Jacovleff shows Aeolus as an embodiment of Wind himself.

According to Homer, Aeolus the son of Hippotes was the king of the floating island of Aeolia, whom Zeus had made the "keeper of the winds, both to still and to rouse whatever one he will."

Aeolus would command his wind at the gods bidding. Such a tradition can be seen as early as Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica where, at the request of Hera, Aeolus calmed all the winds but the "steady" west wind, to aid Jason and the Argonauts on their journey home.

In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeolus keeps the winds contained in a cave on Aeolia:

There closely pent in chains and bastions strong,
they, scornful, make the vacant mountain roar,
chafing against their bonds. But from a throne
of lofty crag, their king with sceptred hand
allays their fury and their rage confines.

Juno asking Aeolus to release the winds, by François Boucher, 1769, Kimbell Art Museum.

Because of her hatred of the Trojans, Juno (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hera) pleads with Aeolus to destroy Aeneas' ships, promising to give Aeolus the nymph Deiopea as wife. So Aeolus unleashed his winds against Aeneas. But Neptune, angry at this usurpation of his sovereignty over the sea, commands the winds to:

... Haste away
and bear your king this word! Not unto him
dominion o'er the seas and trident dread,
but unto me, Fate gives. Let him possess
wild mountain crags, thy favored haunt and home,
O Eurus! In his barbarous mansion there,
let Aeolus look proud, and play the king
in yon close-bounded prison-house of storms!

Neptune then quelled the monstrous waves that Aeolus' winds had stirred up, and Aeneas was saved.

So also, Quintus Smyrnaeus, in his Posthomerica, has the goddess Athena command Iris to have Aeolus to send his winds against the Greeks ships returning from the Trojan War, because the Greeks had committed sacrilege in her temple at Troy.

References

• Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, edited and translated by Neil Hopkinson, Loeb Classical Library No. 19, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-674-99716-5. Online version at Harvard University Press.

• Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, translated by J. H. Mozley, Loeb Classical Library No. 286. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. Online version at Harvard University Press.

Sources

Ancient

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

4.757–769

[Hera:] "dear Iris ... go to Aeolus too, Aeolus who rules the winds, children of the clear sky; an to him also tell my purpose so that he may make all winds cease under heaven and no breeze may ruffle the sea; yet let the breath of the west wind blow until the heroes have reached the Phacacian isle of Alcinous."

4.757–769

And thirdly she came to Aeolus, the famous son of Hippotas.

4.818–822

[Hera:] For blindness comes even upon the gods. Surely at my behest, I deem that Hephaestus will cease from kindling the fury of his flame, and that Aeolius, son of Hipotas, will check his swift rushing winds, all but the steady west wind, until they reach the havens of the Phacacians; do thou devise a return without bane.

Apollodorus

1.7.3

Hellen had Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus¹ by a nymph Orseis, Those who were called Greeks he named Hellenes after himself,² and divided the country among his sons. Xuthus received Peloponnese and begat Achaeus and Ion by Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, and from Achaeus and Ion the Achaeans and Ionians derive their names. Dorus received the country over against Peloponnese and called the settlers Dorians after himself.³ Aeolus reigned over the regions about Thessaly and named the inhabitants Aeolians.⁴ He married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus, and begat seven sons, Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and five daughters, Canace, Alcyone, Pisidice, Calyce, Perimede.⁵

E.7.10

Having put to sea with all his ships, he came to the island of Aeolia, of which the king was Aeolus.¹ He was appointed by Zeus keeper of the winds, both to calm them and to send them forth. Having entertained Ulysses, he gave him an oxhide bag in which he had bound fast the winds, after showing what winds to use on the voyage and binding fast the bag in the vessel. And by using suitable winds Ulysses had a prosperous voyage; and when he was near Ithaca and already saw the smoke rising from the town, he fell asleep.

1 As to the adventures of Ulysses with Aeolus, the Keeper of the Winds, see Hom. Od. 10.1-76; Hyginus, Fab. 125; Ov. Met. 14.223-232.

E.7.11

But his comrades, thinking he carried gold in the bag, loosed it and let the winds go free, and being swept away by the blasts they were driven back again. And having come to Aeolus, Ulysses begged that he might be granted a fair wind; but Aeolus drove him from the island, saying that he could not save him when the gods opposed.

Diodorus Siculus

4.67.3

In the times before that which we are discussing the rest of the sons of Aeolus, who was the son of Hellen, who was the son of Deucalion, settled in the regions we have mentioned, but Mimas remained behind and ruled as king of Aeolis. Hippotes, who was born of Mimas, begat Aeolus by Melanippê, and Arnê, who was the daughter of Aeolus, bore Boeotus by Poseidon.

5.7.6–7

And when Liparus had already come to old age, Aeolus, the son of Hippotes, came to Lipara with certain companions and married Cyanê, the daughter of Liparus; and after he had formed a government in which his followers and the natives shared equally he became king over the island. To Liparus, who had a longing for Italy, Aeolus gave his aid in securing for him the regions about Surrentum, where he became king and, after winning great esteem, ended his days; and after he had been accorded a magnificent funeral he received at the hands of the natives honours equal to those offered to the heroes. 7 This is the Aeolus to whom, the myth relates, Odysseus came in the course of his wanderings.​ He was, they say, pious and just and kindly as well in his treatment of strangers; furthermore, he introduced sea-farers to the use of sails and had learned, by long observation of what the fire​ foretold, to predict with accuracy the local winds,​ this being the reason why the myth has referred to him as the "keeper of the winds";​ and it was because of his very great piety that he was called a friend of the Gods.

5.8.1

To Aeolus, we are told, sons were born to the number of six, Astyochus, Xuthus, and Androcles, and Pheraemon, Jocastus, and Agathyrnus, and they every one received great approbation both because of the fame of their father and because of their own high achievements. Of their number Jocastus held fast to Italy and was king of the coast as far as the regions about Rhegium, but Pheraemon and Androcles were lords over Sicily from the Strait as far as the regions about Lilybaeum. Of this country the parts to the east were inhabited by Siceli and those to the west by Sicani.

5.81.6

And it was during this time that Lesbos, the son of Lapithes, the son of Aeolus, the p321 son of Hippotes, in obedience to an oracle of Pytho, sailed with colonists to the island we are discussing, and, marrying Methymna, the daughter of Macareus, he made his home there with her; and when he became a man of renown, he named the island Lesbos after himself and called the folk Lesbians.

Euripides

Aeolus

test. ii (Collard and Cropp, pp. 16, 17)

Aeolus, which begins ... The plot is this: Aeolus, who had the mastery of the winds from the gods and lived on the islands off Etruria, had fathered six sons and as many daughters. the youngest of these,¹ Macareus, fell in love with one of his sisters and violated her; ...

¹ Macareus is 'youngest' also in [Plutarch], Moralia 312c, 'oldest' in Stobaeus 4.20.72.

fr. 14 (Collard and Cropp, pp. 16, 17) [= Strabo 8.3.32]

for the king there was her [Tyro's] father Salmoneus, as Euripides too says in his Aeolus.

fr. 14 (Nauck, p. 366) [Not in Collard and Cropp]

"Έλλην ... Διός ... Αἰογος ... Σίσυφς ... Ἀθάμας τε Κρηθευς ... Σαμωνεὺς ...

[Need to compare with: Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. V: Euripides, editor Richard Kannicht, 2004]

• Gantz, p. 169

Euripides began his play [Aiolos] with a prologue that mentioned Aeolos, son of Hellen and father of Sisyphos, Athamas, Kretheus, and Salmoneus (fr. 14 N²)

Hesiod

Catalogue of Women

fr. 10 Most (Most, pp. 52–55) [= fr. 10a MW = Turner papyrus fr. 1-3 col. I-II = Oxyrhynchus papyrus 2822 fr. 2 = Scholium on Pindar's Pythians 4.253c = Hesiod fr. 4 Evelyn-White (pp. 156, 157)]

pergit 10 [10a MW; 5 H]

10 (continued)

And [Xuthus made Creusa.] who had a lovely form. [20]

the beautiful-cheeked daughter] of godly Erechtheus,

by the will of the immortals his dear] wife,

and she bore him] Achaeus [and Ion] of the famous horses,

commingly in love, and] fair-formed Diomede

And sons of Aeolus were born, law-administering kings, [25]

Cretheus and Athamas and shifty-counseled Sisyphus;

and unjust Salmoneus and high-spirited Perieres

and big Deion] and [ ] celebrated among men

who, in their father;s lofty houses.] adolescents

] and they bore famous children [30]

Again, to Aeolus Aenarete.] bedded with him,

bore beautiful-haired maidens] who had a [very] lovely form

Peisidice and Alcyone.] similar to the Graces,

and Calyce and Canace and] fair-formed Perimede. [34]

...

he longs for Alcyone [96]

...

... Myrmidon [99]

married Peisidice [ [100]

she bore Antiphus [and Actor as her sons

and she,³ [mingling in the arms of] Poseidon

Aeolus' [beautiful-haired] daughter [

³ Canace

Homer

Odyssey

10.1–45

“Then to the Aeolian isle we came, where dwelt Aeolus, son of Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods, in a floating island, and all around it is a wall of unbreakable bronze, and the cliff runs up sheer. [5] Twelve children of his, too, there are in the halls, six daughters and six sturdy sons, and he gave his daughters to his sons to wife. These, then, feast continually by their dear father and good mother, and before them lies boundless good cheer. [10] And the house, filled with the savour of feasting, resounds all about even in the outer court by day, and by night again they sleep beside their chaste wives on blankets and on corded bedsteads. To their city, then, and fair palace did we come, and for a full month he made me welcome and questioned me about each thing, [15] about Ilios, and the ships of the Argives, and the return of the Achaeans. And I told him all the tale in due order. But when I, on my part, asked him that I might depart and bade him send me on my way, he, too, denied me nothing, but furthered my sending. He gave me a wallet, made of the hide of an ox nine years old,2 which he flayed, [20] and therein he bound the paths of the blustering winds; for the son of Cronos had made him keeper of the winds, both to still and to rouse whatever one he will. And in my hollow ship he bound it fast with a bright cord of silver, that not a breath might escape, were it never so slight. [25] But for my furtherance he sent forth the breath of the West Wind to blow, that it might bear on their way both ships and men. Yet this he was not to bring to pass, for we were lost through our own folly. “For nine days we sailed, night and day alike, and now on the tenth our native land came in sight, [30] and lo, we were so near that we saw men tending the beacon fires.3 Then upon me came sweet sleep in my weariness, for I had ever kept in hand the sheet of the ship, and had yielded it to none other of my comrades, that we might the sooner come to our native land. But my comrades meanwhile began to speak one to another, [35] and said that I was bringing home for myself gold and silver as gifts from Aeolus, the great-hearted son of Hippotas. And thus would one speak, with a glance at his neighbor: “‘Out on it, how beloved and honored this man is by all men, to whose city and land soever he comes! [40] Much goodly treasure is he carrying with him from the land of Troy from out the spoil, while we, who have accomplished the same journey as he, are returning, bearing with us empty hands. And now Aeolus has given him these gifts, granting them freely of his love. Nay, come, let us quickly see what is here, [45] what store of gold and silver is in the wallet.’

10.46–76

“So they spoke, and the evil counsel of my comrades prevailed. They loosed the wallet, and all the winds leapt forth, and swiftly the storm-wind seized them and bore them weeping out to sea away from their native land; but as for me, [50] I awoke, and pondered in my goodly heart whether I should fling myself from the ship and perish in the sea, or endure in silence and still remain among the living. However, I endured and abode, and covering my head lay down in the ship. But the ships were borne by an evil blast of wind [55] back to the Aeolian isle; and my comrades groaned. “There we went ashore and drew water, and straightway my comrades took their meal by the swift ships. But when we had tasted of food and drink, I took with me a herald and one companion [60] and went to the glorious palace of Aeolus, and I found him feasting beside his wife and his children. So we entered the house and sat down by the doorposts on the threshold, and they were amazed at heart, and questioned us: “‘How hast thou come hither, Odysseus? What cruel god assailed thee? [65] Surely we sent thee forth with kindly care, that thou mightest reach thy native land and thy home, and whatever place thou wouldest.’ “So said they, but I with a sorrowing heart spoke among them and said: ‘Bane did my evil comrades work me, and therewith sleep accursed; but bring ye healing, my friends, for with you is the power.’ [70] “So I spoke and addressed them with gentle words, but they were silent. Then their father answered and said: “‘Begone from our island with speed, thou vilest of all that live. In no wise may I help or send upon his way that man who is hated of the blessed gods. [75] Begone, for thou comest hither as one hated of the immortals.’ “So saying, he sent me forth from the house, groaning heavily.

Hyginus

Fabulae

125

ODYSSEY ... [Odysseus] came to Aeolus, son of Hellen, to whom control of the winds had been given by Jove. He welcomed Ulysses hospitably, and gave him as a gift a bag full of winds. But his comrades took it, thinking it to be gold and silver, and when they wished to divide it, they opened the bag secretly, and the winds rushed out. He was carried again to Aeolus, who cast him out because the divinity of the gods seemed hostile to him.

186

MELANIPPE: Neptune seduced Melanippe, a very beautiful girl, daughter of Desmontes or as other poets say, of Aeolus, and begat by her two sons. When Desmontes found this out, he blinded Melanippe, and shut her in a prison, with commands that only scant food and water be given to her, and that the children be thrown to wild beasts. When they had been thrown out, a cow in milk came to the children and offered them her udders, and cowherds, seeing this, took the children to rear. In the meantime Metapontus, King of Icaria, demanded of his wife Theano that she bear children to him, or leave the kingdom. She, in fear, sent to the shepherds asking them to find a child she could present to the king. They sent her the two babies they had found, and she presented them to king Metapontus as her own. Theano later bore two sons to Metapontus. Since, however, Metapontus, was exceedingly fond of the first two, because they were very handsome, Theano sought to get rid of them and save the kingdom for her own sons. A day came when Metapontus went out to perform sacrifices to Diana Metapontina, and Theano, seizing the opportunity, revealed to her sons that the older boys were not her own. "So, when they go out to hunt, kill them with hunting knives." When they had gone out in the mountains, at their mother's instructions, they started fighting. But with the aid of Neptune, Neptune's sons overcame them and killed them. When their bodies were borne into the palace, Theano killed herself with a hunting knife. The avengers, Boeotus and Aeolus, fled to the shepherds where they had been reared, and there Neptune revealed to them that they were his sons and that their mother was held in custody. They went to Desmontes, killed him, and freed their mother, whose sight Neptune restored. Her sons brought her to Icaria to King Metapontus, and revealed Theano's treachery to him. After this, Metapontus married Melanippe, and adopted the two as his sons. In Propontis they founded towns called by their names — Boeotus, Boeotia, and Aeolus, Aeolia.

238

THOSE WHO KILLED THEIR DAUGHTERS ... Aeolus killed Canace, because of incest with her brother Macareus, whish [sic] she confessed.

242

MEN WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE ... Macareus, son of Aeolus

Ovid

Epistles

11

Canace to Macareus

[Canace:] ... Fierce, and far more cruel than his eastern ministers of storms, he would view without a tear the mortal wound. For it is infectious to live with savage winds; and therefore he contracts the temper of his people. He commands the South, the Zephyr, and the northern blasts of Thrace; and, surly East, he checks thy rigid wing. He controls indeed the winds; ... This is the true picture of Canace writing to her brother ... Meantime a messenger came from my father [Aeolus], his countenance sad, and his words full of cruelty. Æolus sends thee this sword (he then gave the sword into my hand), and says, that the sense of thy own demerits will teach thee what it means. I know what it means; and will boldly urge the piercing steel: my father's gift shall be treasured in my breast. ... And now he [Aeolus] commanded his little grandchild to be thrown out a prey to dogs and hungry birds, and left in some solitary place.

Metamorphoses

1.262

And instantly

he shut the Northwind in Aeolian caves

Protinus Aeoliis Aquilonem claudit in antris

11.415–416

Before [Ceyx] went he told his faithful queen,

his dear Halcyone.

11.431

Halcyone [Hippotades]

11.444–445

“Oh, let no false assurance fill your mind

because your [Ceyx's] father-in-law is Aeolus.

11.457–458

Such words and tears of the daughter of Aeolus

gave Ceyx,

11.745–748

Each winter during seven full days of calm

Halcyone broods on her floating nest—

her nest that sails upon a halcyon sea:

the passage of the deep is free from storms,

throughout those seven full days; and Aeolus

restraining harmful winds, within their cave,

for his descendants' sake gives halcyon seas.

14.223–232

Macareus. Ulixes et Circe.

Then Macareus told him of Aeolus,

the son of Hippotas, whose kingdom is

the Tuscan sea, whose prison holds the winds,

and how Ulysses had received the winds

tied in a bull's hide bag, an awesome gift,

how nine days with a favoring breeze they sailed

and saw afar their longed for native land.

How, as the tenth day dawned, the crew was moved

by envy and a lust for gold, which they

imagined hidden in that leathern bag

and so untied the thong which held the winds.

These, rushing out, had driven the vessel back

over the waves which they had safely passed,

back to the harbor of King Aeolus.

Tristia

2.384

nobilis est Canace fratris amore sui.

[Canace is famous for her brother's love.]

Pausanias

10.38.4

It is said that the name of the city is derived from Amphissa, daughter of Macar [Μάκαρος], son of Aeolus,

Plutarch

Parallela minora

28

Aeolus, king of the Etruscans, begat from Amphithea six daughters and the like number of sons. Macareus, the youngest, for love violated one of his sisters and she became pregnant. Her plight was discovered and her father sent her a sword ; she judged herself a law-breaker and made away with herself. Macareus also did likewise.¹ So Sostratus in the second book of his Etruscan History.

1 Cf. Stobaeus, Florilegium, lxiv. 35 (iv. p. 472 Hense); Ovid, Heroïdes, xi.

Quintus Smyrnaeus

Posthomerica

14.466–484

She [Athena] quickly sent Iris to go from heaven over the misty sea to immortal Aeolus: he was to hurl the full weight of all the winds around the cape of rocky Caphereus so that they continuously smashed against it, and to make big the sea as they raged with their deadly blasts. When she heard her orders, she hastened to make her way in an arc through the clouds: one would have thought fire and black water were mixed with the air. She arrived at Aeolia, where enclosed in its rough rocks are the hollow, echoing caves of the gusting Winds; and very close by is the dwelling of Aeolus, son of Hippotes. Finding him at home with his wife and twelve children, she told him of Athena’s plans for the return journey of the Danaans. He obediently went out of his house and with his unwearying arms gave the great mountain a blow from his trident: this was where the Winds, with their boisterous din, were quartered in a vacant lair which never ceased to echo with the sound of their roaring and howling. He broke open the mountainside by main force, and they came pouring out.

Strabo

8.3.32 [= Euripides fr. 14 Collard and Cropp]

Salmone is situated near the spring of that name from which flows the Enipeus River. The river empties into the Alpheius, and is now called the Barnichius. It is said that Tyro fell in love with Enipeus:

"She loved a river, the divine Enipeus."

For there, it is said, her father Salmoneus reigned, just as Euripides also says in his Aeolus.⁴

⁴ See Eur. Fr. 14 (Nauck), and the note.

Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica

1.574–576

Meantime fierce Boreas from his eyrie in Pangaeus spied the sails set to the wind in the midst of the deep, and straightway turns his rapid course to Aeolia and the Tyrrhene caves.

1.576–578

for at that time no Aeolus was their [the winds] master,

1.590–597

until the All-powerful thundered from the sky upon the trembling blasts and appointed them a king [Aeolus], whom the fierce band were bidden to revere: iron and a twofold wall of rocks quell the East winds within the mountain. When this king can no longer curb their roaring mouths, then of his own will he unbars the doors and by granting egress lulls their savage complaints.

Virgil

Aeneid

1.50–64

So, in her fevered heart complaining still,

unto the storm-cloud land the goddess [Juno] came,

a region with wild whirlwinds in its womb,

Aeolia named, where royal Aeolus

in a high-vaulted cavern keeps control

o'er warring winds and loud concourse of storms.

There closely pent in chains and bastions strong,

they, scornful, make the vacant mountain roar,

chafing against their bonds. But from a throne

of lofty crag, their king with sceptred hand

allays their fury and their rage confines.

Did he not so, our ocean, earth, and sky

were whirled before them through the vast inane.

But over-ruling Jove, of this in fear,

hid them in dungeon dark: then o'er them piled

huge mountains, and ordained a lawful king

to hold them in firm sway, or know what time,

with Jove's consent, to loose them o'er the world.

To him proud Juno thus made lowly plea:

1.65–75

"Thou in whose hands the Father of all gods

and Sovereign of mankind confides the power

to calm the waters or with winds upturn,

great Aeolus! a race with me at war

now sails the Tuscan main towards Italy,

bringing their Ilium and its vanquished powers.

Uprouse thy gales. Strike that proud navy down!

Hurl far and wide, and strew the waves with dead!

Twice seven nymphs are mine, of rarest mould;

of whom Deiopea, the most fair,

I give thee in true wedlock for thine own,

to mate thy noble worth; she at thy side

shall pass long, happy years, and fruitful bring

her beauteous offspring unto thee their sire.”"

Latin:

Aeole, namque tibi divom pater atque hominum rex

et mulcere dedit fluctus et tollere vento,

1.76–80

Then Aeolus: “'T is thy sole task, O Queen,

to weigh thy wish and will. My fealty

thy high behest obeys. This humble throne

is of thy gift. Thy smiles for me obtain

authority from Jove. Thy grace concedes

my station at your bright Olympian board,

and gives me lordship of the darkening storm.”

1.81–87

Replying thus, he smote with spear reversed

the hollow mountain's wall; then rush the winds

through that wide breach in long, embattled line,

and sweep tumultuous from land to land:

with brooding pinions o'er the waters spread,

east wind and south, and boisterous Afric gale

8.416

An island near Aeolian Lipara

Modern

de Weever

s.v. Eolus

EOLUS. Aeolus was the ruler of the winds and the father of Alcyone and Athamas (Met IV.487, XI.431, 748). As a servant of Juno, he lived on Aeolia, an island near Thrace, where he kept the winds in a cave (Aeneid I.50-87). In medieval iconography Aeolus was represented blowing two trumpets, as in a miniature in a manuscript of Fulgentius Metaforalis (c. 1331), by John Ridewall (Panofsky, Plate XIII). There Aeolus blows two trumpets while working a pair of bellows with his feet. The trumpets and bellows are briefly described by Albericus Philosophus, De deorum imaginibus libellus XIII (1342). The trumpets of Fame appear in Gower's Mirour de l'omme, 22129-22152.

...

Eolus, the ME and OF development of Latin Aeolus, ...

H. J. Rose

s.v. Aeolus (1)

(1) the ruler of the winds (perhaps by derivation 'the changeable'); in Od. 10.2 ff., a mortal, son of Hippotes; he lives in Aeolia, a floating island, with his six sons and six daughters, who have married one another; he can tie up the winds in a sack to prevent them blowing. In Aen. 1.51 ff. he is a minor god and keeps the winds in a cave on Aeolia. Sometimes confused with (2) a son of Hellen ...

Gantz

p. 167

To Hellen, son of Deukalion ... Aiolos (not to be confused with the Aiolos son of Hippotes visited by Odysseus as keeper of the winds)

p. 169

Although as noted above Aiolos, son of Hellen, is quite different from the Aiolos encountered by Odysseus in Homer, the two are inevitably (at times even deliberately) identified, ... The author chiefly responsible for confounding the two seems Euripides. in whose lost Aiolos, a daughter Kanake plays a major role. What the Odyssey tells us is that Aiolos, son of Hippotes lived happily with his wife and twelve children (six sons and six daughters) on a kind of island paradise free of care, that he married the six sons to the six daughters, and that they all lived happilly together (Od 10.1-12). Euripides is clearly inspired by this, or something like it, From Plutarch (Mor 312c-d) and other references we get the following story: Macareus, the youngest (or oldest) of the six sons, has fallen in love with and raped his sister Kanake. Fearful lest her pregnancy (and his deed) be discovered, he proposes to their father that all six sons marry their six sisters. Unfortunately ... As it stands, this tale has only the name of Kanake in common with the family of Aiolos, son of Hellen, but Euripides began his play with a prologue that mentioned Aiolos, son of Hellen and father of Sisyphos, Athamas, Kretheus, and Salmoneus (fr. 14 N²); it would seem then that either he fused the two Aioli together (witn the twelve new children offspring of a second marriage?) or made Aiolos somehow related to this original one. Not impossibly, given the large number of sons and daughters assigned to each of them, they were in a more distant past the same person. Kanake's tragic story also appears in epistle form in Ovid's Heroides (11), where the father is clearly the ruler of the winds, and the child apparently thrown to the dogs.

Grimal

s.v. Aeolia 1

I. the Odyssey the island of Aeolia is the home Aeolus the Lord of the Winds. It was a rocky floating island, surrounded by a wall of bronze. In later days it was sometimes identified as the island of Strongyle (today's Stromboli) and sometimes as the island of Lipari, both of which belong to the group of Aeolian Islands. [Hom. Od. 10.1ff.; Strabo 1.2.32, p. 40; Diod. Sic. 5.9]

s.v. Aeolus

(Αἴολος) Several characters are known under this name, though they are not easy to distinguish.

1. The first is the son of Hellen ... This Aeolus was sometimes identified with the Lord of the Winds (see below), but this title is more often given to Aeolus 2. Aeolus played a part in the tragic love affair of his daughter Canace with Macareus.

2. Aeolus, son of Arne and Poseidon, was the grandson of Aeolus the son of Hellen ...

Aeolus son of Poseidon, was often identified with Aeolus the Lord of the Winds who appears in ther Odyssey (see 1 above). When Odysseus landed on the island of Aeolia during his travels Aeolus received him in friendly fashion, and kept him at his side for a month. When Odysseus left Aeolus gave him a goatskin bottle which contained all the winds except one — the one that would take him straight to Ithica. But when Odysseus was asleep his companions opened the bottle, thinking it was full of wine; the winds escaped, and caused a storm which drove the ship back to Aeolia. Aeolus assumed that the hero was the victim of divine wrath; he refused to have anything more to do with him, and sent him packing.

Hard

p. 48.

According to differing conceptions that can both be found in Homer, the winds could be regarded either as independent agents or as being subject to the control of Aiolos, the lord of the winds (see p. 493).

p. 409.

Aiolos, son [sic] of Deukalion, should be distinguished from the Aiolos who is keeper of the winds in the Odyssey (see p. 403), even if the two are occasionally confused in ancient sources.

p. 493.

(v) After his encounter with the Kyklopes, Odysseus made a happier landfall at Aiolia, the island of AIOLOS, ruler of the winds, who entertained him and his men without stint for a full month. Each of the six sons of Ailos was married to one of his six daughters, and all of them lived together at the palace with their father [cont.]

p. 494.

and mother, feasting continually day after day. His kingdom is a purely mythical place in the Odyssey, a floating island surrounded by cliffs of unyielding bronze; but it came to be suggested in the later tradition that he lived on one of the Aeolian (Lipari) islands to the north of Sicily. He finally helped Odysseus on his way by enclosing all but one of the winds in a leather bag and attaching it to his ship, so that only the gentile west was left to blow him safely home. When Ithica came within sight and there seemed no further occasion to worry, Odysseus fell asleep after his long exertions at the helm, and his men took advantage of this to investigate the contents of the bag, supposing that it contained gifts of silver and gold that he intended to keep for himself; but as soon as they opened it up, the winds rushed out and blew them straight baack to their starting point. Aiolos turned Odysseus away without further help, saying that it would be wrong for him to offer assistance to a man who was evidently hated by the gods.^{80 [Hom. Od. 10.1-76]}

p. 589.

Aeneas ... set sail for western Italy in the following year, but the goddess Juno (the Roman equivalent of Hera), who had long hated the Trojans, persuaded Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, to unleash a violent storm in the hope of wrecking his fleet; but though some of the ships were destroyed, Neptune calmed the storm, and Aneas made for the nearest shore with the seven surviving vessels, making a safe landfall on the African coast near Carthage.

Parada

s.v. Aeolus 2

King of the Aeolian Islands, appointed by Zeus keeper of the winds, both to calm them and to send them forth. Having entertained Odysseus, he gave him a bag in which he had bound fast the winds. But when they were near Ithica, his comrades, thinking he carried gold in the bag, loosed it and the winds go free and they were driven back again and Odysseus begged Aeolus 2 that he might be granted a fair wind, but Aeolus 2 drove him away form his island.

•Hippotes 1 ∞ Melanippe 3.

••Cyane 2.

•••a)Six daughtyers and six sons married to each other.

•••b)Arne, Lapithus 2, Astyochus, Xuthus 2, Andocles, Pheraemon, Jocasta, Agathymus, +Polemele 3, +Diores 3.

N.Vir.Aen.1.65. D.Apd.Ep.7.10., Hom.Od.10.1ff., Ov.Mert.14.223ff. D.-•-••-•••a)Hom.Od.10.1. D.••Dio.5.7.5. •••b)Dio.5.81.6 •Val.1.610. •-•••b)Dio.4.67.3 •••b)Dio 5.8.1. •••b)+Part.2.2 •••b)Hyg.Fab.186.

Smith

s.v. Aeolus

In the mythical history of Greece there are three personages of this name, who are spoken of by ancient writers as connected with one another, but this connexion is so confused, that it is impossible to gain a clear view of them. (Müller, Orchom. p. 138, &c.) We shall follow Diodorus, who distinguishes between the three, although in other passages he confounds them.

1. A son of Hellen and the nymph Orseis, and a brother of Dorus and Xuthus. He is described as the ruler of Thessaly, and regarded as the founder of the Aeolic branch of the Greek nation. He married Enarete, the daughter of Deimachus, by whom he had seven sons and five daughters, and according to some writers still more. (Apollod. 1.7.3; Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. 4.190.) According to Müller's supposition, the most ancient and genuine story knew only of four sons of Aeolus, viz. Sisyphus, Athamas, Cretheus, and Salmoneus, as the representatives of the four main branches of the Aeolic race. The great extent of country which this race occupied, and the desire of each part of it to trace its origin to some descendant of Aeolus, probably gave rise to the varying accounts about the number of his children. According to Hyginus (Hyg. Fab. 238, 242) Aeolus had one son of the name of Macarcus, who, after having committed incest with his sister Canace, put an end to his own life. According to Ovid (Ov. Ep. 11) Aeolus threw the fruit of this love to the dogs, and sent his daughter a sword by which she was to kill herself (Comp. Plut. Parallel. p. 312.)

2. Diodorus (4.67) says, that the second Aeolus was the great-grandson of the first Aeolus, being the son of Hippotes and Melanippe, and the grandson of Mimas the son of Aeolus. Arne, the daughter of this second Aeolus, afterwards became mother of a third Aeolus. (Comp. Paus. 9.40.3.) In another passage (5.7) Diodorus represents the third Aeolus as a son of Hippotes.

3. According to some accounts a son of Hippotes, or, according to others, of Poseidon and Arne, the daughter of the second Aeolus. His story, which probably refers to thus emigration of a branch of the Aeolians to the west, is thus related : Arne declared to her father that she was with child by Poseidon, but her father disbelieving her statement, gave her to a stranger of Metaponttum in Italy, who took her to his native town. Here she became mother of two sons, Boeotus and Aeolus (iii.), who were adopted by the man of Metapontum in accordance with an oracle. When they had grown up to manhood, they took possession of the sovereignty of Metapontum by force. But when a dispute afterwards arose between their mother Arne and their foster-mother Autolyte, the two brothers slew the latter and fled with their mother front Metapontum. Aeolus went to some islands in the Tyrrhenian sea, which received from him the name of the Aeolian islands, and according to some accounts built the town of Lipara. Diod. 4.67. 5.7. Here he reigned as a just and pious king, behaved kindly to the natives, and taught them the use of sails in navigation, and foretold them from signs which he observed in the fire the nature of the winds that were to rise. Hence, says Diodorus, Aeolus is described in mythology as the ruler over the winds, and it was this Aeolus to whom Odysseus came during his wanderings. A different account of the matter is given by Hyginus. (Fab. 186.)

In these accounts Aeolus, the father of the Aeolian race, is placed in relationship with Aeolus the ruler and god of the winds. The groundwork on which this connexion has been formed by later poets and mythographers, is found in Homer. (Od. 10.2, &c.) In Homer, however, Aeolus, the son of Hippotes, is neither the god nor the father of the winds, but merely the happy ruler of the Aeolian island, whom Cronion had made the ταμίης of the winds, which he might soothe or excite according to his pleasure. (Od. 10.21, &c.) This statement of Homer and the etymology of the name of Aeolus from ἀέλλω were the cause, that in later times Aeolus was regarded as the god and king of the winds, which he kept enclosed in a mountain. It is therefore to him that Juno applies when she wishes to destroy the fleet of the Trojans. (Verg. A. 1.78.) The Aeolian island of Homer was in the time of Pausanias believed to be Lipara (Paus. 10.11.3), and this or Strongyle was accordingly regarded in later times as the place in which the god of the winds dwelled. (Verg. A. 8.416, 1.52; Strab. vi. p.276.) Other accounts place the residence of Aeolus in Thrace (Apollon. 1.954, 4.765; Callim. Hymm. in Del. 26), or in the neighbourhood of Rhegium in Italy. (Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 732; comp. Diod. 5.8.) The following passages of later poets also shew how universally Aeolus had gradually come to be regarded as a god: Ov. Met. 1.264, 11.748 14.223; V. Fl. 1.575; Quint. Smyrn. 14.475. Whether he was represented by the ancients in works of art is not certain, but we now possess no representation of him.

Tripp

s.v. Aeolus 1

The eponym of the Aeolians. Aeolus was a son of Hellen ... This Aeolus was regarded by many late authors as the same as Aeolus the guardian of the winds.

s.v. Aeolus 2

The keeper of the winds. Aeolus, a son of Hippotas, was king of the island of Aeolia, which came to be identified with one or another of the Aeolian Islands, including Lipara, Hiera, and Stromboli, that lie north of eastern Sicily. For some reason Zeus gave Aeolus charge of the winds, which he kept confined in a cave but could release at will. He lived an easy life with his wife and their six sons and six daughters, who were married to one another. Aeolus often either freed or penned up the winds at the bidding of some deity. Hera, for example, requested him to still the winds, except for a gentlke west wind, in order to ensure easy homeward passage for the Argo. Later she commanded him the destroy the ships of Aneas, but Poseidon, jealous of his authority over the sea, interfered and quieted the storm.

Aeolus hospitably entertained ODYSSEUS [F] and his shipmates after their misadventure in Polyphemus' cave. He gave Odysseus all the winds, except the west wind, tied in a bag of oxhide. The ships came within sight of Ithaca, but Odysseus' men secretly opened the bag and the ships were driven back to Aeolus' island. Fearing to aid anyone who was so obviously hated by the gods, Aeolus this time drove them away.

Late Classical writers came to regard Aeolus as a god, rather than a mere mortal whom Zeus had honored. They also often confused him with Hellen's son Aeolus, eponym of the Aeolians. [Homer, Odyssey, 10.1-77; Virgil, Aeneïd, 1.50-865, 8.416; Apolloniuys Rhodius 4.818-822.]