Telamon

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In Greek mythology, Telamon (in Greek, Τελαμών), son of the king Aeacus, of Aegina, and Endeis and brother of Peleus, accompanied Jason as one his Argonauts, and was present at the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. He also participated in the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks, along with his son, Ajax. He and Peleus were also close friends with Heracles, assisting him on his expeditions against the Amazons and against Troy (see below).

After killing their half-brother, Phocus, Telamon and Peleus had to leave Aegina. King Cychreus of Salamis welcomed Telamon and befriended him. Telamon married his daughter Periboea, who gave birth to Ajax. Later, Cychreus gave Telamon his kingdom. In other versions of the myth Cychreus' daughter is named Glauce, and Periboea is Telamon's second wife, and the daughter of Alcathous. Telamon also figures in both versions of Heracles' sacking of Troy, which was ruled by King Laomedon (or Tros in the alternate versions). Before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy.

In the King Tros version, Heracles (along with Telamon and Oicles) agreed to kill the monster if Tros would give him the horses he received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus' kidnapping Ganymede, Tros' son. Tros agreed; Heracles succeeded and Telamon married Hesione, Tros' daughter, giving birth to Teucer by him. In the King Laomedon version, Laomedon planned on sacrificing his daughter Hesione to Poseidon in the hope of appeasing him. Heracles rescued her at the last minute and killed both the monster and Laomedon and Laomedon's sons, except for Ganymede, who was on Mt. Olympus, and Podarge, who saved his own life by giving Heracles a golden veil Hesione had made. Telamon took Hesione as a war prize and married her, and she gave birth to Teucer by him.

Other uses

• In architecture, a telamon (plural telamones or telamons) is a sculpted support or column in the form of a man, the male equivalent of a caryatid. Such a sculptural support is better known as an atlas (plural atlantes).
• The Battle of Telamon, between the forces of the Roman Republic and the Gauls, took place in 224 BC near the Tuscany coast at a place called Telamon, modern Talamone.
• In Robert Jordan's fictional series The Wheel of Time, Lews Therin Telamon is one of the primary historical figures.
• Telamon is also a small volleyball team in Salamis Island.

Sources

• Apollodorus. Bibliotheke I, viii, 2 and ix 16; II, vi, 4; III, xii,6-7.
• Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica I, 90-94.
• Ovid. Metamorphoses, VIII, 309.

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