Athamas- Greek FigureMortal"King of Orchomenus"

Nephele and the Golden Ram

Athamas ruled Orchomenus and married Nephele, a nymph born from cloud. She gave him two children, Phrixus and Helle, but the marriage did not hold. Nephele departed, and Athamas took a second wife: Ino, daughter of Cadmus.

Ino wanted the children gone. She parched the seed grain in secret before the spring sowing, and when the crops failed across the kingdom, she bribed the messengers sent to Delphi. They returned with a false oracle: sacrifice Phrixus, or the famine will not end. Athamas believed them. But before the blade could fall, Nephele sent a ram with fleece of gold. It snatched Phrixus and Helle from the altar and flew east. Helle lost her grip over the strait that still bears her name. Phrixus reached Colchis, where he hung the golden fleece in a sacred grove. It waited there for Jason.

The Madness of Athamas

At Zeus's command, Hermes delivered the infant Dionysus to Athamas and Ino for safekeeping. The child was Zeus's son by Ino's sister Semele, and Hera wanted him dead. They disguised the baby as a girl and raised him in secret. Hera found out.

She drove Athamas mad. He saw his son Learchus as a deer and shot him dead. Ino seized the younger boy, Melicertes, and threw herself with him into the sea. The gods transformed her into the sea goddess Leucothea, and Melicertes became Palaemon.

Exile

The killings cost Athamas his kingdom. An oracle told him to settle wherever wild animals offered him hospitality. In Thessaly he found wolves feeding on sheep. They fled at his approach, and he founded the city of Alos.

In Hyginus's telling, Athamas had also taken a third wife, Themisto, who plotted to murder Ino's children in the night by having the nurse dress them in dark garments. The nurse switched the clothes. Themisto killed her own sons by mistake.