A
mythic Greek hero. Son of Aeactus, King of
Aegina, and brother of
Telamon. He participated in the voyage of the
Argo.
After he and Telamon killed their brother, Phocus, he escaped to Phthia in Thessaly, where he was purified from his crime by King Eurytion, and married Eurytion's daughter, Antigone (not the Theban Antigone).
He, Eurytion and Telamon participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, where Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion and had to flee again. He fled to Iolcos where the new king, Acastus, purified him of his second crime. However, Acastus' wife, Astydameia, has fallen in love with him, and when he rejected her advances, she told Antigone that Peleus asked for the hand of Astydameia's daughter, and that he was planning on leaving Antigone. Antigone was so overwhelmed by the news that she hanged herself.
Astydameia then told Acastus that Peleus tried to force himself on her, and so Acastus invited Peleus for a hunting trip where he deserted Peleus unarmed in front of a pack of marauding centaurs. It was Peleus' good fortune that Chiron passed by and gave him a sword to defend himself. Peleus managed to escape unharmed.
Peleus then gathered his troops and occupied and pillaged Iolcos. He killed Astydameia, severed her body and marched his army between the two pieces of her body.
Then Peleus married the Nereid Thetys, and begot Achilles.
Thetys tried to make Achilles immortal by placing him in a holy fire, but Peleus then entered the room and, in his ignorance, was so frightened for the baby that he interrupted the ceremony. Thetys was so upset that she left him. Peleus then placed Achilles in the hands of Chiron for tutalage.
There are two versions as to Peleus' end: in one Acastus' sons attack and kill him in revenge of their father's death; and in the other he is given immortality and he joins his wife.