Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Philaeus () is a minor figure, a prince of the

Molossians The Molossians () were a group of ancient Greek tribes which inhabited the region of Epirus in classical antiquity. Together with the Chaonians and the Thesprotians, they formed the main tribal groupings of the northwestern Greek group. On t ...

, who was transformed into a bird by the will of

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

, the god of justice, in order to escape a fiery death.

Family

Philaeus was one of the sons of the

Molossian The Molossians () were a group of ancient Greek tribes which inhabited the region of Epirus in classical antiquity. Together with the Chaonians and the Thesprotians, they formed the main tribal groupings of the northwestern Greek group. On th ...

king Munichus by his wife

Lelante In Greek mythology, Lelante () is a minor figure, a queen of the Molossians, who was transformed into a bird by the will of Zeus, the god of justice, in order to escape a fiery death. Family She was the wife of the Molossian king Munichus an ...

. He had two brothers, Alcander and Megaletor, and a sister named Hyperippe.

Mythology

The entire family was seen as just and righteous and therefore especially favored by the gods. One day raiders attacked them in the fields; the family ran off to their house and began to throw various objects at them in self-defense, whereupon the offenders set the house ablaze. The god of justice,

would not let his favourites suffer such a cruel and undeserving death that he changed them all six of them into various birds in order to save them from the flames; Philaeus became a 'dog bird', an entirely unidentifiable avian creature.

Antoninus Liberalis Antoninus Liberalis () was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between the second and third centuries AD. He is known as the author of ''The Metamorphoses'', a collection of tales that offers new variants of already familiar myths ...

14
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References

Bibliography

, ''The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis'' translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992)
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* *

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

, ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'', Volume II: Books 9-15. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

43. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

, 1916. Deeds of Zeus Princes in Greek mythology Metamorphoses into birds in Greek mythology Epirotic mythology {{greek-myth-royal-stub

Family

Mythology

See also

References

Bibliography