Myrmidon

Myrmidon, in Greek legend, any of the inhabitants of Phthiotis in Thessaly.

In the poet Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women, Aeacus, the son of Zeus and the nymph Aegina, grows up alone on the deserted island of Aegina. (In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the island has been devastated by a plague.) In answer to Aeacus’s prayers for company, Zeus transforms the island’s ants into men and women who are called the Myrmidons. Either Aeacus or his son Peleus takes the people to Thessaly, and from there they follow Peleus’s son Achilles to fight at Troy. Later accounts tell of the Myrmidons’ move from Thessaly to Aegina; the fact that Mount Pelion (from Peleus) in Thessaly was named long ago may indicate that this story is an early one.

According to the writer of the mythography Bibliotheca (1st or 2nd century ad; Library), the Myrmidons were descended from Myrmidon, the son of Zeus and Eurymedusa, who was seduced by Zeus in the form of an ant.

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