Meleager

The fields around Calydon lie ruined, the grain destroyed and the people threatened with famine. Oeneus, king of Calydon in Aetolia, had offered a general sacrifice after a plentiful harvest, but had failed to honour Artemis. The goddess sent a wild boar of extraordinary size and strength. It ravaged the crops, killed cattle and labourers, and laid waste to the land.

Meleager, Oeneus’s son, returned from the Argonautic expedition and found his country under attack. He called on the celebrated heroes of Greece to join him in hunting the beast. The company included Dryas, Idas, Lynceus, Castor, Polydeuces, Theseus, Admetus, Ancaeus, Cepheus, Jason, Iphicles, Peirithoos, Peleus, Telamon, Eurytion, Atalanta, Amphiaraus, and the sons of Thestius. They came from Calydon, Messene, Lacedaimon, Athens, Pherae, Arcadia, Iolcos, Thebes, Larissa, Phthia, Salamis, and Argos. Atalanta, daughter of Schoineus, came from Arcadia as a hunter.

Oeneus entertained the assembled hunters for nine days. On the tenth day, Cepheus, Ancaeus, and some of the others objected to hunting beside a woman. Meleager declared that, unless they abandoned this objection, he would cancel the hunt. He wished Atalanta to take part, and he had also developed feelings for her, although another passage says that he was married to Idas’s daughter, Cleopatra. The objections were set aside, and the company went out against the boar.

Meleager led the heroes, including Atalanta, in the chase. They hunted the creature that Artemis had sent against Calydon and killed it. This gathering became the first of the great adventures in which major heroes from different parts of Greece took part together.

Althaea reached for her newborn son in the royal bedchamber of Calydon. The child had a shock of black hair and made a deep chuckling sound instead of crying. The midwife then screamed and retreated, for a tall, emaciated old woman had appeared in the room. She had lank white hair, a wrinkled face, eyes like the core of a flame, and a staff in her hand. She was Atropos, Lady of the Shears.

Atropos threw a stick into the fire on the hearth. She declared that Meleager would live only while the brand remained unburned. In another account, the Fates appeared when Meleager was seven days old and announced that he would die when the log was fully consumed. Althaea immediately left the bed, snatched the brand from the flames, and put out the fire upon it with a pitcher of water. She then hid it in a chest.

Althaea later told Oeneus, king of Calydon, that the Fates had allowed her to guard their son’s life. Oeneus doubted the story and objected that his son’s life could not depend on hags, sticks, and promises. Althaea warned him not to call it nonsense, since he had already offended the eldest Fate. She opened a great brass chest and showed him the charred stick. Oeneus remained doubtful, but the sight of the blackened branch and his wife’s expression persuaded him that she believed the warning.

Meleager grew into a bold and valiant fighter. He was said to be invulnerable and became the best javelin-thrower in Greece. One account says that his true father was Ares, although Oeneus was named as Althaea’s husband and his father in the account of Calydon’s royal family.

Meleager married Cleopatra, daughter of Idas and Marpessa. He was Meleager, son of Oineus of Calydon, although another tradition makes Ares his father. Cleopatra came from a family linked with Messene. Her father, Idas, was the son of Aphareus. Her mother, Marpessa, was the daughter of Evenos.

Marpessa had been courted by Apollo, but Idas carried her away in a winged chariot that Poseidon had given him. Evenos pursued them as far as the River Lycormas. When he could not catch Idas, he killed his horses and threw himself into the river, which was thereafter called the Evenos. Idas and Marpessa later became the parents of Cleopatra.

Meleager’s marriage took place before the gathering for the Calydonian boar hunt. Oineus received the hunters as guests, and Meleager joined them with Idas, Lynceus, Castor, Polydeuces, Theseus, Atalanta, and others. During the preparations, Meleager developed a sudden love for Atalanta. One account says that he wanted to have a child by her and supported her participation in the hunt, although he was already married to Cleopatra.

Traditions assign Meleager and Cleopatra children, including Polydora. Polydora later married Protesilaus, who was the first Greek to leap ashore when the fleet reached Troy. Cleopatra is also named among the women who killed themselves after their husbands died. The account places her beside Marpessa and Evadne in this tradition concerning widows.