Autolycus- Greek HeroHero"Prince of Thieves"

Son of the Trickster God

Autolycus was the son of Hermes and Chione — born the same night his twin brother Philammon was conceived by Apollo, though the two could not have been less alike. Philammon became a musician; Autolycus became a thief. From his father he inherited the power to transform whatever he stole, changing the color of cattle and altering the shape of goods so that no owner could recognize his own property. He lived on Mount Parnassus, where he built his fortune from the livestock and treasures of his neighbors.

The Sisyphus Affair

Autolycus raided his neighbors' herds for years, altering the cattle's markings beyond recognition. Only Sisyphus, king of Corinth, proved his match in cunning. Where others branded their cattle's hides — marks Autolycus simply altered — Sisyphus scratched his name into their hooves. When he followed the tracks to Autolycus's stable and turned the animals over to reveal the proof, the thief was so impressed that he gave Sisyphus his daughter Anticlea. In one tradition, Anticlea conceived Odysseus that night, making Sisyphus rather than Laertes the hero's biological father.

Grandfather of Odysseus

Anticlea married Laertes, king of Ithaca, and bore Odysseus. When the child was laid on Autolycus's knees, the old thief named him Odysseus — "man of wrath" — after his own life of making enemies. He gave the boy his first lessons in hunting on Mount Parnassus, and it was there that a wild boar gored young Odysseus's thigh, leaving the scar by which the nurse Eurycleia would recognize her master decades later upon his return to Ithaca.

Autolycus also stole a boar-tusk helmet from Amyntor of Eleon — a distinctive piece of armor studded with white tusks and lined with felt. Homer traces it through five owners in the Iliad: from Amyntor to Autolycus, then through Amphidamas, Molos, and Meriones before Odysseus wore it on his night raid into the Trojan camp.