Butes- Greek HeroHero

The Only One Who Jumped

Butes, son of Teleon, sailed with the Argonauts on the quest for the Golden Fleece. Apollodorus lists this Athenian alongside Heracles, Orpheus, and the Dioscuri.

When the Argo drew near the Sirens' island, Orpheus struck up his lyre, weaving a counter-song that matched the creatures' deadly voices note for note and held the crew in their seats. Every Argonaut kept his grip on the oars — except Butes. The Sirens' voices cut through Orpheus's music and found him. He dropped his oar, climbed to the gunwale, and threw himself into the sea, swimming toward the rocky shore where the Sirens sang among the bones of those they had lured before. Where Odysseus would later need to be lashed to his mast, Butes had no such restraint. The song was stronger than his will, and he went.

Aphrodite's Rescue

Before Butes could reach the Sirens' rocks and the death that waited there, Aphrodite intervened. She snatched him from the waves and carried him through the air to the western coast of Sicily, setting him down near Mount Eryx — far from the Argo and his companions, who sailed on without him. There he became Aphrodite's lover, pulled from one enchantment into another.

From their union came Eryx, who gave his name to the mountain and founded the temple of Aphrodite Erycina on its summit. Sailors crossing to Sicily could see the sanctuary from their decks, and it stood into Roman times, when it was rededicated to Venus. Butes himself faded from the story, but the temple his son built on that Sicilian mountaintop outlasted every other trace of his life.