Αταλαντη
A heroine who featured in some accounts in the Arcadian cycle and also in connection with Boeotian legends. She is occasionally regarded as the daughter of Iasus (or Iasius), who was himself the son of Lycurgus and a descendant of Arcas (in which case his mother was Clymene, the daughter of Minyas, king of Orchomenus). In some versions (in Euripides for example) Atalanta's father was Menalus, who gave his name to Mount Menalus, and in others again (and this is the account most commonly followed since Hesiod) she is said to have been the daughter of Schoeneus, one of the sons of Athamas and Themisto after whom the Boetian town of Schoenontes was named (Table 33). Since her father wanted to have only sons, Atalanta was put out to die at birth on Mount Parthenon. A she-bear fed her until one day she was found by some huntsmen who brought her up among themselves. When she reached girlhood, Atalanta had no wish to marry but remained a virgin and devoted herself, like her protectress Artemis, to hunting in the woods. She took a leading part in the hunt for the Calydonian boar (see Meleager). At the funeral games held in honour of Pelias she won the prize either for the race or for wrestling against Peleus.
Atalanta was unwilling to marry, either because of her devotion to Artemis or because an oracle had told her that if she did marry she would be changed into an animal. Accordingly, to keep her suitors at a distance she had made it known that she would only marry a man who could beat her in a race. If she won, she would put the claimant to death. Now she was nimble and could run very fast. There is a story that she would begin by giving her opponent a slight start and would then set off in pursuit, carrying a spear with which she would pierce him when she caught up with him. Many young men had met their death in this way when a new challenger arrived, in some accounts called Hippomenes, the son of Megareus, in others Melanion or Milanion, the son of Amphidamas, and her first cousin (Table 26). This new arrival brought some golden apples with him; these had been given to him by Aphrodite. They came either from a shrine of the goddess in Cyprus of from the garden of the Hesperides. During the race, just as the young man was on the point of being caught, he threw the golden apples, one by one, in front of Atalanta. She, out of curiosity, though, (perhaps also through love of her opponent, and because she was happy to cheat herself) stopped to pick them up, and Melanion (or Hippomenes) won and received the agreed prize. Some time later during a hunt, the couple entered a shrine of Zeus (or, in another version, Cybele) and gave themselves over to the ecstasies of love. Furious at such sacrilege, Zeus changed them both into lions (which explains the belief that lions do not mate with each other, but with leopards). A spring, known as the Spring of Atalanta, could also be seen in the region of Epidaurus where Atalanta, in search of water to quench her thirst, had struck the rock with her pike and a spring had gushed forth. Atalanta had, by her husband, or perhaps by Ares or Meleager, a son called Parthenopaeus, who took part in the first expedition against Thebes.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Apollod. Bibl. 1, 8, 2; 3, 9, 2
- Callim. Hymn 3, 215ff.
- Diod. Sic. 4, 34; 65
- schol. on Euripides, Phoen. 151
- Euripides, Meleager (lost tragedy, Nauck TGF, edn 2, p. 525)
- Xen. Cyneg. 1, 7
- Apoll. Rhod. Arg. 1, 769ff.
- Prop. 1, 1, 9ff.
- Ovid, Met. 8, 316ff.; 10, 560ff.; Ars Am. 2, 185ff.; Am. 3, 2, 29ff.
- Serv. on Virgil, Aen. 3, 113
- Paus. 3, 24, 2; 5, 19, 2; 8, 35, 10; 8, 45, 2; 8, 45, 6
- Hyg. Fab. 70; 99; 173f; 185; 244; 270
- Aelian, VH 13, 1
- Palaeph. Incred. 13
- See also Meleager.