Learchus

Learchus was the elder son of Athamas and Ino in Greek mythology. His father, driven mad by Hera, killed him; his mother then leapt into the sea with his brother Melicertes and became the sea goddess Leucothea. The story is told differently by Apollodorus, Ovid and Pausanias, who disagree on both the reason for the madness and the manner of the boy’s death.

Family

Learchus was the son of Athamas and his second wife Ino, and his brother was Melicertes (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1). Pausanias says that Learchus was the elder and Melicertes the younger of Ino’s children (Pausanias 1.44.7). Athamas had earlier had children with Nephele, among them Phrixus and Helle, who were Learchus’s half-siblings. Ino was a daughter of Cadmus and a sister of Semele, the mother of Dionysus.

Why Athamas Went Mad

In Apollodorus’ account, Zeus gave the infant Dionysus to Hermes, who brought him to Ino and Athamas and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. Hera, angry, drove them mad (Apollodorus, Library 3.4.3; see also 1.9.2, where Athamas loses Ino’s children through Hera’s wrath). Ovid has Juno resent Ino, who proudly speaks of the power of her nephew, the new god, and sends the Fury Tisiphone from the Underworld to infect Athamas and Ino with madness (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.416–431, 4.481–511).

Pausanias gives a second explanation. When Athamas learned that the famine at Orchomenus and the supposed death of Phrixus were not accidents of heaven but the work of Ino, the stepmother, he turned his unbridled rage on her and her children (Pausanias 1.44.7). In Apollodorus, Ino had persuaded the women to parch the seed-wheat, which made the crops fail, in order to destroy the children of Nephele (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1).

The Death of Learchus

The sources differ on how Learchus died. In Apollodorus, Athamas, mad, hunted his elder son Learchus as if he were a deer and killed him (Library 3.4.3); in another passage, Apollodorus says he shot him with an arrow (Library 1.9.2). In Ovid, Athamas cries out to his companions to spread nets in the woods, for he has seen a lioness with two cubs; he takes the laughing Learchus, stretching out his small arms, from his mother’s lap, whirls him two or three times through the air like a sling, and dashes his head against a stone (Metamorphoses 4.512–519). Pausanias says only that Learchus was killed by his father, either in a fit of madness or in rage at Ino (Pausanias 1.44.7; see also 9.34.7).

What Happened to Ino and Melicertes

After the killing, Ino fled with Melicertes in her arms and leapt into the sea. In Ovid she rushes mad from the house crying “Euhoe Bacchus” and throws herself from a cliff above the sea with her son (Metamorphoses 4.519–530). Pausanias names the Molurian Rock on the road from Megara to the Isthmus as the place from which she jumped (Pausanias 1.44.7). In Apollodorus, Ino first threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron and then sprang into the deep with the dead child (Library 3.4.3).

Both were then honoured as sea gods. Apollodorus says that sailors call her Leucothea and the boy Palaemon, since they help storm-tossed seamen (Library 3.4.3). In Ovid, Venus asks Neptune to take pity on her granddaughter Ino, and Neptune takes from them what was mortal, gives them a venerable majesty, and calls Ino Leucothea and the boy Palaemon (Metamorphoses 4.531–542). In the Odyssey, Ino, daughter of Cadmus, is already a sea goddess, Leucothea, who was once a mortal with human speech, and she helps the shipwrecked Odysseus (Homer, Odyssey 5.333–335).

Melicertes was carried ashore on the Isthmus of Corinth by a dolphin; Sisyphus found him and buried him, and instituted the Isthmian games in his honour (Pausanias 1.44.8; 2.1.3; Apollodorus, Library 3.4.3).

Learchus Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.9.1–2 and 3.4.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.416–431 and 4.481–542; Pausanias 1.44.7–8, 2.1.3 and 9.34.7; Homer, Odyssey 5.333–335.

See Also: Athamas, Ino, Melicertes, Dionysus, Semele, Zeus, Hera