Abderus
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Abderus (Ἄβδηρος, "son of battle") was in Greek mythology a divine hero, a son of Hermes by some accounts, and eponym of Abdera.[1]
To fulfill his Eighth Labor, Heracles brought his eromenos, Abderus and some other youths to help him capture the four savage mares of the Thracian King Diomedes. Heracles overpowered the grooms and drove the Mares of Diomedes to the sea and left them in the care of Abderus. While Heracles was away, the horses devoured Abderus. In revenge, Heracles fed Diomedes's still living flesh to his own mares. Heracles founded the city of Abdera near the boy's tomb, where agones (ἀγῶνες), athletic games consisting of boxing, pancratium and wrestling were held in honor of Abderus (but chariot races were banned, in memory of his killers). Bernard Sergent concludes that Abderus thus was in Abdera, in conjunction with Heracles, his erastes, the mythical founder of a pederasty that had pedagogical and probative value.
The paternity of Abderus is variously given in the sources. Some say he was the son of the god Hermes. According to other writers, he was the son of Thromius the Locrian.[2] Still others claimed he was the son of Heracles's friend Opian Menoetius, making Abderus a brother to Patroclus who died at Troy.
In some traditions, Abderus (or Abdertis) was a servant of Diomedes, the king of the Thracian Bistones, and was killed by Heracles together with his master and his four men-devouring horses.[3]
[edit] References
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), “Abderus”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, pp. 2
- ^ Apollodorus ii. 5. § 8; Strabo, Geographica vii. p. 331.
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 30; cf. Philostratus, Heroicus 3. § 1 ; 10. § 2.
[edit] Other sources
- On Abderus as eromenos of Heracles: Apollodorus II 5.8 and Ptolemy Khennos in Photius' Bibliotheca 147b.
- On the agones: Philostratus II 25.
