InGreek mythology,Pandareus (Ancient Greek:Πανδάρεος,romanized: Pandáreos orΠανδάρεως,Pandáreōs) is the son ofMerops and anymph. His residence is usually given as eitherEphesus orMiletus, though he is also associated with the island ofCrete. Pandareus marriedHarmothoë and had several daughters by her before perishing for stealing a sacred dog that belonged toZeus, king of the gods.
Pandareus was the son of a man namedMerops and anymph, and a descendant of the godHermes. He was from a city calledMiletus, which is sometimes identified with a city inCrete, and not the more known one on the western coast ofAsia Minor.[1][2]Antoninus Liberalis associated Pandareus withEphesus, also on the Anatolian coast.[3]
By his wifeHarmothoë Pandareus was the father of three girls;Aëdon (the wife ofZethus),Cleothera andMerope.[4] According toPausanias, the last two were calledCameiro andClytia.[2] In another version, Cleothera and Merope are omitted in favour ofChelidon and an unnamed son, born to a wife whose name is not confirmed to be Harmothoë.[5]
Pandareus was said to have been favored by the goddessDemeter, who conferred upon him the benefit of never suffering from indigestion, however much food he should eat.[3][5]
At the request of his impious friend,Tantalus, Pandareus stole a golden dog from a sacred place toZeus on Crete; that dog had guarded Zeus during his infancy by the will ofRhea, Zeus' mother.[6] Pandareus carried off the dog and gave it to Tantalus for safekeeping, but when he later asked for the dog, Tantalus insisted he had never received it, swearing an oath on it. Zeus punished Pandareus for the theft by turning him into stone right as he stood.[6]
Several variations also exist; several scholiasts, such as Byzantine scholarEustathius of Thessalonica, write that both Pandareus and Tantalus attempted to steal the dog, which was a mechanic dog that had been crafted byHephaestus himself, and placed in a temple of Zeus in Crete. Zeus then sent his sonHermes to deal with the two thieves.[7][8] It was to Hermes that Tantalus lied about not having the dog, but Hermes found and seized the robot anyway, and brought it back to Zeus who buried Tantalus beneath Mount Sipylus.[9] After Tantalus' demise Pandareus fled toAthens and then to the island ofSicily, where he perished together with his wifeHarmothoë, leaving behind their orphaned daughters.[10][11]
After the deaths of Pandareus and Harmothoë,Aphrodite took care of their daughtersCleothera and Merope.Hera taught them to be proper women, andAthena made them accomplished; but when Aphrodite went to seeZeus to get them married to proper husbands, storm winds carried them away to the Underworld to become handmaidens of theFuries, never to be seen again.[12]
In another myth, Pandareus was alive during at least one of his daughters' marriage. Aëdon married the carpenterPolytechnus, and for some time they were happy until Hera sentEris to sow strife between them. One day Polytechnus came to him under the excuse that Aëdon wanted her sisterChelidon to come visit her, when in fact he owed his wife a female slave after she won a bet. Pandareus, not suspecting a thing, let Polytechnus take Chelidon, but then he proceeded to rape her and force her to serve as a slave for Aëdon.[13] The two sisters soon escaped after killing Polytechnus' sonItys and ran back to Pandareus, who had Polytechnus tied, smeared with honey and left to the mercy of flies. Aëdon however in pity kept the flies off of Polytechnus, angering Pandareus, his wife and his son, who saw her actions as betrayal. They were about to attack Aëdon, but Zeus interfered, and transformed them all into birds. Pandareus was changed into asea eagle, his wife into a kingfisher, his son into a hoopoe.[5]
This narrative is not present in theOdyssey, unlike the tale of Cleothera and Merope's fates. In the Homeric version, Aëdon was married toZethus and accidentally killed her own sonItylus in an attempt to murder her nephewAmaleus,[13] for she was jealous of the large number of children born to her sister-in-lawNiobe (the daughter of Tantalus).[3]
Pandareus' descend from Hermes is probably a motif fit for a story about theft.[1] Francis Celoria thinks that the thief of the dog (whose name is spelled with an omicron) and the father of Aëdon and Chelidon (whose name is spelled with an omega) were supposed to be separate figures.[14] Robin Hard speculates the part of Antoninus Liberalis' account where Tantalus lies toPandareus about the dog to be a mistake, since it is Zeus who punishes him for the perjury.[11]
Pandareus is possibly the doublet of onePandion, who is the father of Chelidon (but not Aëdon) in some early but poorly attested traditions,[15] otherwise identified withPandion I, the king of Athens and father of Chelidon's doubletPhilomela.[16][17] According toJoseph Fontenrose, the similarity of the names ‘Pandion’ and ‘Pandareus’ possibly caused confusion between the two and this is what caused Aëdon to join the Athenian mythos, under a new name,Procne.[18]
Other notable punishments in Greek mythology:
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