InHomeric Greece, the islands ofTaphos/ˈteɪˌfɒs/ (Τάφος) lay in theIonian Sea off the coast ofAcarnania in northwestern Greece, home of seagoing andpiratical inhabitants, theTaphians/ˈteɪfiənz/ (Τάφιοι).Penelope mentions the Taphian sea-robbers when she rebukes the chief of hersuitors.[1]Athena is disguised asMentes, "lord of the Taphian men who love their oars", who accepts the hospitality ofTelemachus and speeds him on his journey fromIthaca toPylos.[2] The Taphians dealt in slaves.[3]
By the time ofEuripides, the islands were identified with theEchinades: in Euripides'Iphigeneia at Aulis (405 BCE), the chorus of women from Chalcis have spied the Hellenes' fleet and seen Eurytus who "led the Taphian warriors with the white oar-blades, the subjects of Meges, son of Phyleus, who had left the isles of the Echinades, where sailors cannot land."[4] Modern scholars, such as the editors of theBarrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, identify the island of Taphos as the island ofMeganisi just east of the larger islandLefkada (Leucas).
The Taphians accounted themselves the descendants ofPerseus, for the mother ofTaphius, theireponymous colonizer, was a granddaughter of Perseus and lay withPoseidon to beget the heroic founder. Another tradition holds that Taphius was one of theLeleges, and grandson ofLelex. Their most noted king wasPterelaos, rendered immortal by Poseidon by the single golden hair among the hairs of his head, but undone by his faithless daughter (Comaetho) who plucked it while he slept, so that the Mycenaean adventurerAmphitryon ofTiryns could overcome and kill him and retrieve the cattle Pterelaos' sons had rustled from Mycenae, along with many spoils besides. As he was returning with his spoils to his bride atThebes,Zeus preceded him by one night: taking Amphitryon's shape, and brandishing a Taphian cup as a sign of his success, the king of gods fatheredHeracles.
They are often identified with theTilevoides (Τηλεβόιδες), islands in theIonian Sea.
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