Melicertes

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Melicertes (sometimes Melecertes, later called Palaemon), in Greek mythology, the son of the Boeotian prince Athamas and Ino, daughter of Cadmus.

Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth, Both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree. Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian Games and sacrifices in his honour.

Within the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia, Pausanias saw a temple of Palaemon,

"with images in it of Poseidon, Leucothea and Palaemon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaemon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it."

— Pausanias, 2.2.1

There seems little doubt that the cult of Melicertes was of foreign, probably Phoenician, origin, and introduced by Phoenician navigators on the coasts and islands of the Aegean and Mediterranean. He is a native of Boeotia, where Phoenician influences were strong; at Tenedos he was propitiated by the sacrifice of children which seems to point to his identity with Melqart. The premature death of the child in the Greek form of the legend is probably an allusion to this.

The Romans identified Palaemon with Portunus (the harbour god). No satisfactory origin of the name Palaemon has been given. It has been suggested that it means the "wrestler" or "struggler" and is an epithet of Heracles, who is often identified with Melqart, but there does not appear to be any traditional connection between Heracles and Palaemon. Melicertes being Phoenician, Palaemon also has been explained as the ?burning lord? (Baal-haman), but there seems little in common between a god of the sea and a god of fire.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.