Catreus

Catreus was a king of Crete in Greek mythology, a son of Minos and Pasiphae. An oracle told him that he would die at the hand of one of his children, and the prophecy came true when his son Althaemenes killed him on the island of Rhodes without knowing who he was (Apollodorus, Library 3.1.2, 3.2.1–2). Through his daughter Aerope he was the grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaus.

Family

Catreus was a son of Minos and Pasiphae, the daughter of the Sun; his brothers were Deucalion, Glaucus and Androgeos, and his sisters included Ariadne and Phaedra (Apollodorus, Library 3.1.2; Diodorus Siculus 4.60.4). Apollodorus gives him three daughters, Aerope, Clymene and Apemosyne, and a son, Althaemenes (Library 3.2.1). Diodorus calls him king of Crete (Diodorus Siculus 5.59.1). Pausanias says that the Cretans themselves held that Catreus was a son of Minos, and that a city in Crete was named after him (Pausanias 8.53.4).

The Prophecy

When Catreus asked the oracle how his life would end, the god answered that he would die by the hand of one of his children. Catreus hid the oracles, but Althaemenes heard of them (Apollodorus, Library 3.2.1). Diodorus gives the other side of the same story: Althaemenes, asking the oracle about other matters, was told that he was fated to kill his father with his own hand (Diodorus Siculus 5.59.1).

Afraid of becoming his father’s murderer, Althaemenes left Crete with his sister Apemosyne and settled at a place in Rhodes, which he called Cretinia. From the top of Mount Atabyrium he could see Crete, and there he founded an altar of Atabyrian Zeus (Apollodorus, Library 3.2.1). Diodorus says he sailed with a large company of followers, landed at Cameirus and founded the temple of Zeus Atabyrius on the mountain, from which Crete can be seen (Diodorus Siculus 5.59.2). Apemosyne did not live long: Hermes loved her and, when she outran him, spread fresh hides on the path by the spring so that she slipped; when she told her brother what had happened he did not believe that a god was responsible and kicked her to death (Apollodorus, Library 3.2.1).

Aerope and Clymene

Catreus gave his two other daughters, Aerope and Clymene, to Nauplius to sell into foreign lands. Of these two, Apollodorus says that Aerope became the wife of Plisthenes, who was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, and that Clymene became the wife of Nauplius and the mother of Oeax and Palamedes (Library 3.2.2). A different tradition, also in Apollodorus, makes Aerope the wife of Atreus; she was seduced by his brother Thyestes and gave him the golden lamb that decided the kingship of Mycenae; in it Agamemnon and Menelaus are sons of Atreus and Aerope (Epitome 2.10–12, 3.12). Either way, Menelaus, king of Sparta, is Catreus’ grandson through his mother.

The Death of Catreus

In his old age Catreus wished to hand the kingdom to Althaemenes, and sailed to Rhodes for that purpose. He landed with his companions at a deserted spot on the island, and the cowherds took them for pirates on a raid and chased them. Catreus told them the truth, but they could not hear him for the barking of the dogs. While they were throwing stones at him, Althaemenes arrived and killed him with a cast of a javelin, not knowing that he was Catreus (Apollodorus, Library 3.2.2). In Diodorus, Catreus, who had no male children at home and dearly loved Althaemenes, sailed to Rhodes to bring him back to Crete; he landed by night with a few followers, and in the fighting that followed, Althaemenes rushed to help the islanders and killed his father by throwing his spear (Diodorus Siculus 5.59.3).

When Althaemenes learned the truth, he prayed and disappeared into a chasm in the earth (Apollodorus, Library 3.2.2). In Diodorus, he could not bear his grief; he avoided all company and wandered alone in unfrequented places until he died, and the Rhodians later gave him the honours given to heroes, as an oracle had commanded (Diodorus Siculus 5.59.4).

The Funeral and the Trojan War

Apollodorus connects the death of Catreus with the beginning of the Trojan War. When Paris was a guest of Menelaus at Sparta, Menelaus went to Crete on the tenth day to perform the funeral rites of his mother’s father, Catreus. Paris then persuaded Helen to go away with him, and she left Sparta by night with most of the property on his ship (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.3).

Catreus Sources

Apollodorus, Library 3.1.2, 3.2.1–2; Epitome 2.10–12, 3.3, 3.12; Diodorus Siculus 4.60.4, 5.59.1–4; Pausanias 8.53.4.

See Also: Minos, Pasiphae, Aerope, Clymene, Althaemenes, Menelaus, Helen, Paris, Trojan War