In the Greek Mythology, Éaque (in Greek old Αἴακος / Aiakos ) is the son of Zeus and the nymph Égine. He is the mythical ancestor of the “Éacide S”.

Myth

King of Myrmidons

In the form of a eagle, Zeus carries Égine in the airs and demounting on the island of Œnone, called since Égine. It is there that it gives up Éaque at once after having put it at the world.

Having grown, he suffers from loneliness on this island then deserted. He asks his father to populate it. Zeus agrees and transforms to it into human the Fourmi S which lived on the trunk of a Chêne crowned. Thus is born the people from the Myrmidons (word formed starting from myrmex , “ant” in Greek), whose Éaque becomes the king.

He then marries Endéis which gives him two wire: Shovelful, the future father of Achilles, and Télamon, which will become the father of Ajax. Éaque is thus the grandfather of the two heroes of the Trojan War. Néréide Psamathée, it generates also Phocos.

Civilizing hero

Éaque is famous to have fortifé the island of Égine. According to Pindare, it would have also helped Apollon and Poséidon to raise the ramparts of Troy. Three dragons sent by Zeus tried the climbing of it; only that which attacked the part set up by Éaque makes a success of its company. It is on this predicts that predicted Apollon that the city could fall only by this place and under the blows from Éacide (descendant of Éaque).

Known for its piety and its uprightness, Éaque is the favorite of the gods, who will ask until him to arbitrate their quarrels. At the time of the great dryness called upon by Minos against the Greece, the oracle of Delphes reveals that only its prayers will be able to save the country.

After its death, it becomes with Minos and Rhadamanthe one of the three judges of the Enfers. According to the Pseudo-Apollodore, it is him which keeps the keys of them.

Éaque was the subject of a heroic worship on the island of Égine.

Sources

• (III, 12,6).

• (IV, 61,1; IV, 72,6).
• (v. 1004).
• (LII).
• Isocrate, Évagoras (14).
• (VII, 453-522).
• (II, 29).
• ( Olympic , IX, 39-61).
• (II, 20).
• Sénèque, Apocoloquintose (XIV-XV).

See too

Related article

• Éacide