Telephus

• 1. Introduction

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  Telephus, son of Heracles and king of the Mysian land of Teuthrania, spent years with a wound that refused to heal. An oracle gave him the only route to a cure, and that route led him into the center of the enemy camp. His name became synonymous with inexplicable silence in the ancient world. His story begins with a prophecy about murder delivered before his birth. It ends with a dynasty carving his entire life into marble and calling themselves his descendants.

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• 2. The Oracle and the Priestess

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  Aleus, king of Tegea in Arcadia, made his daughter Auge a virgin priestess of Athena to ward off a specific prophecy. The Delphic oracle had told him that if Auge bore a son, that child would eventually kill Aleus' own sons. Heracles came through Tegea and was entertained by Aleus in the temple of Athena. Drunk during the visit, he raped Auge. When Aleus discovered the pregnancy, he gave Auge to a man named Nauplius with orders to drown her at sea.

  The historian Hecataeus, writing around 490 to 480 BC, provides the oldest surviving account placing Telephus' birth in Arcadia. He records that Heracles used to visit Auge repeatedly at Tegea. A fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, from around the sixth century BC, tells a different story: Auge had already arrived at King Teuthras' court in Mysia when Heracles fathered Telephus there. In the Arcadian tradition, Nauplius ignored his orders and sold both mother and child to the childless Mysian king Teuthras. Apollodorus adds a separate version: Auge hid the newborn inside Athena's temple, an oracle then attributed a famine to an impiety in the sanctuary, and a search of the building found the child.

  East-Ionian engraved gems carved around 480 BC already depicted the infant Telephus being suckled by a deer on a mountain slope. Coins struck at Tegea around 370 BC carry nearly identical images. The mythographer Hyginus adds a detail from the Mysian reunion: Teuthras rewarded Telephus for defeating an enemy named Idas by giving him Auge in marriage. A serpent appeared in the wedding chamber. Auge drew a sword and then called out to Heracles. Telephus recognized his mother only at that moment. That near-catastrophe in the wedding chamber came after a violence that Telephus had carried in silence all the way from Arcadia.

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• 3. The Silent Stranger

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  Telephus killed the sons of Aleus at some point before reaching Mysia, fulfilling the prophecy that had hung over his family since before his birth. Ancient sources confirm the killings. Almost nothing survives to explain how they happened. Fragments of Sophocles' lost play Aleadae suggest that a quarrel over Telephus' illegitimate birth may have led to the deaths. Whatever the circumstances, the act left Telephus carrying ritual blood-guilt.

  Aristotle, in his Poetics, refers to "the man who came from Tegea to Mysia without speaking," citing a play he calls the Mysians. Greek religious practice required those guilty of criminal homicide to remain silent until a purification rite had been completed. Telephus made the entire journey from Arcadia to Mysia unable to say a word. The silence was, by later accounts, proverbial.

  The comic poet Alexis wrote about a voracious dinner guest who sat like Telephus in speechless silence, making only signs when asked questions. The comic poet Amphis described fishmongers who stood mute "like Telephus" and noted that the comparison was fitting because "they all are homicides." Both writers relied on their audiences knowing exactly who Telephus was. The violence that caused that silence was prologue to a battle on the Caicus plain where the god Dionysus himself took a hand.

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• 4. Achilles' Spear

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  The Cypria, one of the poems of the Epic Cycle, records that the Greek fleet landed in Mysia on their way to Troy, having mistaken it for their destination. Telephus led the Mysian defense and killed Thersander, son of Polynices, driving the Greeks back to their ships. A vine tripped him as he fled from Achilles, and the spear entered his thigh. A late sixth-century or early fifth-century BC red-figure calyx krater already depicted the god Dionysus present at that moment. A scholiast on Homer's Iliad explains that Dionysus had caused the vine to trip Telephus because Telephus had failed to honor him.

  The Mysians won the battle. But Telephus' wound would not close. Apollo's oracle gave a reply that has stayed in the language: ho trosas iasetai, meaning "your assailant will heal you." Telephus traveled to Argos to find Achilles. Euripides staged his telling of that journey in 438 BC. Telephus arrived in rags, disguised as a beggar. When the disguise was exposed, he seized Orestes, the infant son of the Greek commander Agamemnon, and threatened to kill the child unless Achilles cured him. Attic red-figure pottery from possibly as early as the second quarter of the fifth century BC was already depicting that standoff.

  Achilles protested that he was no physician. Odysseus, according to the mythographer Hyginus, solved the problem: Apollo had not meant Achilles the man, but the spear. Rust scraped from the weapon went into the wound, and Telephus recovered. Pliny the Elder later described paintings that showed this treatment being performed. The pharmacologist John Ayrton Paris identified the substance as verdigris, which carries genuine medicinal properties. In exchange for the cure, Telephus agreed to guide the Greeks to Troy. He refused to fight on either side: his wife Laodice was a daughter of Priam, the king of Troy. His son Eurypylus did not stay neutral, and paid for it with his life at Troy.

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• 5. Three Tragedians, One Hero

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  Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that "the best tragedies are written about a few families," and listed Telephus alongside Oedipus, Orestes, and Thyestes. Each of the three great Athenian tragedians wrote multiple plays about Telephus and his family. Every one of those plays is now lost.

  Aeschylus wrote two plays on the subject. His Mysians may have told of Telephus arriving in Mysia to seek purification after the killing of his maternal uncles. His Telephus apparently dramatized the trip to Argos and the healing of the wound. Sophocles probably wrote four plays and possibly a fifth involving Telephus. A fourth-century BC inscription mentions a Telepheia by Sophocles, possibly a connected trilogy or tetralogy. His Aleadae told the story of the killings; his Mysians and Telephus continued the narrative through Asia Minor and Argos. His Eurypylus dramatized the death of Telephus' son at Troy. Eurypylus was killed there by Achilles' son Neoptolemus with the same spear that had wounded and healed his father. Euripides wrote an Auge, staged around 408 BC, and a Telephus staged in 438 BC. Of all the treatments of the myth, the Telephus drew more attention from later writers than any other version.

  Two surviving comedies of Aristophanes extensively parodied Euripides' Telephus. Aristophanes lived from around 446 to around 386 BC. In the Acharnians, the comic hero Dicaeopolis borrows Telephus' beggar costume from Euripides himself, who appears as a character in the play. Dicaeopolis takes a charcoal basket as his hostage in place of Orestes. In Women at the Thesmophoria, a character disguised as a woman is exposed. He then seizes a wineskin disguised as an infant and takes refuge at an altar. Both parodies relied on audiences recognizing every point of departure from the original. Later tragic poets including Agathon, Iophon, Cleophon, and Moschion each wrote plays called Telephus. The Roman poets Ennius, born around 239 BC, and Accius, born around 170 BC, both wrote plays with that title. The Attalid dynasty of Pergamon eventually turned that cultural weight into something more permanent.

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• 6. The Attalid Claim

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  Pergamon's ruling dynasty, the Attalids, made Telephus their official founding ancestor from at least 241 BC. A Milesian inscription dated after 129 BC calls the people of Pergamon the Telephidai, meaning descendants of Telephus. Pausanias records that the Pergamenes claimed descent from the Arcadians who had come with Telephus when he arrived in Mysia. Formal inscriptions preserved the connection between Pergamon and Tegea. The most important cult in Pergamon, the worship of Athena, was said to have been carried from Tegea to Pergamon by Auge herself.

  Telephus received formal hero worship at Pergamon, where the Pergamenes sang hymns and made offerings to him. A claimed descent from the son of Heracles gave the Attalids both a Greek identity and a source of political legitimacy. He was also worshipped on Mount Parthenion in Arcadia and honored at Tegea. At Tegea, his battle with Achilles appeared on the west pediment of the Temple of Athena Alea, completed around 350 to 340 BC. Pausanias also mentions seeing a portrait painting of Auge inside that same temple. The political investment in Telephus' memory reached its fullest expression in a single monument built into the walls of the Pergamon Altar.

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• 7. The Pergamon Frieze

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  The Telephus frieze ran along the inside walls of the colonnade surrounding the raised inner court of the Pergamon Altar. It was nearly 60 meters long, composed of around 74 marble panels each standing 1.58 meters high. Forty-seven of those panels are completely or partially preserved. The sequence moves from events before Telephus' birth to what may be his death and elevation to heroic status.

  Panel 3 has been interpreted as showing Heracles' first glimpse of Auge in an oak grove. Panels 5 and 6 show carpenters building the vessel that will carry Auge to the sea. Panel 10 shows Teuthras finding Auge on the Mysian shore. Panel 12 depicts Heracles discovering the abandoned Telephus suckled by a lioness. Every other surviving version of that scene uses a deer instead. Panels 16 through 18 show Telephus receiving arms from Auge and leaving for a war against Idas. Panel 20 shows Teuthras giving Auge to Telephus in marriage. Panel 21 depicts the serpent that separates them on their wedding night, at the moment when Auge calls out and Telephus recognizes his mother.

  Panels 22 through 24 show Telephus' wife Hiera on horseback, leading a contingent of Mysian women cavalry into battle. Panels 30 and 31 depict Achilles, aided by Dionysus, wounding Telephus on the Caicus plain. Later panels trace Telephus consulting the oracle of Apollo about his wound. He arrives at Argos in panels 34 and 35 and is welcomed there in panels 36 through 38. His identity is revealed at a banquet in panels 39 and 40. Panel 42 shows Telephus threatening the infant Orestes at an altar. The final preserved panels, 47 and 48, may depict the death of Telephus and his heroizing. Plutarch records one tradition that reaches even further: that Telephus fathered a daughter named Roma, from whom the city of Rome itself took its name.

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