In Greek mythology , Epilais ( Ancient Greek : Ἐπιλάϊδος) was a Thespian princess as one of the 50 daughters of King Thespius and Megamede , daughter of Arneus (or by one of his many wives). She bore Astyanax to the hero Heracles .
6-470: When the Cithaeronian lion was harassing the kine of Thespius, the latter asked Herakles to kill the lion. The son of Zeus hunted it for fifty days and finally slayed the beast. The Thespian king entertained him as a guest in a brilliant fashion during that span of time, making Heracles drunk and slept unwittingly with each of his fifty daughters, including Epilais. The hero having thought that his bed-fellow
12-497: A connection with him. The hero thinking that he had been insulted, condemned her to remain a virgin all her life, serving him as his priest. This article relating to Greek mythology is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lion of Cithaeron The Lion of Cithaeron was a lion in Greek mythology which harassed the lands of king Amphitryon and king Thespius or of king Megareus . Some myths say that it
18-679: A helmet. According to the Suda, it was killed near Thespiae, before Heracles killed the Nemean lion . According to Pausanias , writing in the second century BC, the Megarians believed that the Cithaeronian Lion killed many people, including Euippus , the son of their king Megareus . Consequently, Megareus promised that whoever killed the Lion would marry his daughter and inherit his throne. Alcathous killed
24-419: The lion came from Cithaeron to hunt the cattle belonging to Amphitryon and to King Thespius of Thespiae. When Heracles was eighteen years old, Thespius asked him to kill the lion. The hunt took Heracles fifty days, during which Thespius hosted him (and each night of which Heracles slept with a different daughter of the king). After Heracles slew the lion, he dressed himself in its skin and wore its scalp as
30-419: Was always the same. Thespius intended this to happen because he strongly desired that all his daughters should have children by Hercules. In another version of the myth, the latter had an intercourse with Epilais and her siblings for one week, seven laid with Heracles each night. In some accounts, Heracles bedded in a single night with Epilais and her sisters except for one, probably Anthea , who refused to have
36-596: Was killed by Heracles , while others say it was slain by Alcathous of Elis . According to the Suda , it was also called the Thespian lion and the Ravine lion ( Ancient Greek : Χαραδραῖος λέων , Charadraios leōn ) because it lived in a place called "Ravine" ( Ancient Greek : χαράδρα , charadra ). One account of the myth, recorded by Apollodorus in the Bibliotheca , states that
#355644