Αλκηστις
One of the daughters of Pelias, king of Iolcos, and his wife Anaxibia (Table 21). She was the most beautiful and pious of women, and the only one of Pelias' children who had no hand in the murder of Medea, by means of tricks and spells, brought about his death at the hands of his own sons (see Jason). When Admetus, king of Pheres in Thessaly, appeared to ask for the hand of Alcestis, Pelias forced him to accept certain conditions which, with the help of Apollo, he met. Euripides tells us that their marraige was a model of connubial bliss, to the extent that Alcestis agreed to die in place of her husband. But after her death Heracles plunged into Hades and he brought her back more beautiful and younger than ever. There was also a story that Persephone, moved by Alcestis' devotion, had spontaneously returned her to the land of the living.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Euripides, Alcestis, passim
- Hyg. Fab. 51
- Diod. Sic. 4, 52, 2
- Apollod. Bibl. 1, 9, 5
- Plato, Symp. 179c