Eleuther

In Greek mythology, the name Eleuther (Ἑλευθήρ) may refer to:

• Eleuther, son of Apollo and Aethusa.^[1] He is renowned for having an excellent singing voice, which earned him a victory at the Pythian games,^[2] and for having been the first to erect a statue of Dionysus,^[3] as well as for having given his name to Eleutherae.^[4] His sons were Iasius^[5] and Pierus.^[3] He also had several daughters, who spoke impiously of the image of Dionysus wearing a black aegis, and were driven mad by the god; as a remedy, Eleuther, in accordance with an oracle, established a cult of "Dionysus of the Black Aegis".^[6]

• Eleuther, one of the twenty sons of Lycaon. He and his brother Lebadus were the only not guilty of the abomination prepared for Zeus, and fled to Boeotia.^[7]

• Eleuther, one of the Curetes, was said to have been the eponym of the towns Eleutherae and Eleuthernae in Crete.^[8]

References

1. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 10. 1
2. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10. 7. 3
3. Hyginus, Fabulae, 225
4. Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Eleutherai
5. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9. 20. 1
6. Suda s. v. melanaigida Dionyson
7. Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, 39
8. Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. Eleutherai, Eleuthernai