Telegonus
Who are Telegonus’s parents in Greek mythology?
What is Telegonus known for?
Who did Telegonus marry?
Telegonus, in Greek mythology, especially the lost epic Telegonia of Eugammon of Cyrene, the son of the hero Odysseus by the sorceress Circe (in some accounts he is the son of Odysseus and Calypso). He unwittingly killed his father with a spear tipped with the point of a stingray, thus fulfilling the prophecy in Homer’s Odyssey that death would come to Odysseus “from the sea.”
In the Odyssey Circe turned some of Odysseus’s crew into swine when they landed on her island, Aeaea, on their fraught voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Circe fell in love with Odysseus, on whom her magic failed because he had consumed the protective herb moly. He spent a year with Circe, and, according to later authors, Telegonus was born from their union. In Hesiod’s Theogony Circe also bore Odysseus two other sons, Latinus and Agrius, suggesting that Odysseus may have spent longer than a year with her or returned to Aeaea later.
In the Telegonia, of which only summaries by ancient authors, notably Proclus, exist, Odysseus had further adventures in Elis and Thesprotia after he regained his family and throne in Ithaca by killing the suitors of his wife, Penelope. In Aeaea Telegonus learned his true parentage from Circe, who armed him with the aforementioned spear, made by the divine smith Hephaestus, and sent him to Ithaca to find Odysseus. During the voyage, a storm forced Telegonus to land on an island which, unbeknownst to him, was actually Ithaca. When he began pillaging cattle for food, he was confronted by Odysseus, to whom the livestock belonged. Telegonus killed Odysseus in the dispute that followed. Father and son finally recognized each other as Odysseus lay dying.
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Telegonus returned with Odysseus’s widow, Penelope, and her son (his half-brother) Telemachus to Aeaea to bury Odysseus. Telemachus married Circe, and Telegonus married Penelope. The couple were granted immortality by Circe. According to the mythographer Hyginus, Telegonus and Penelope had a son, Italus, the eponymous hero of Italy. Telegonus was regarded as the founder of the ancient Roman towns of Praeneste and Tusculum.