The victims of Greek Mythology’s abductors
You’ve probably heard the story of Zeus kidnapping Europa. But did you know abductions were a popular subject in Greek Mythology?
Whether you were a god, a hero, or a king, as long as you had some influence and power, you could try to force someone to love you. And although kidnapping is wrong in every single way [disclaimer], the stories behind these abductions are fascinating and an excellent way to get to know some key figures in Greek Mythology.
Some ancient Greek characters, like King Laius, only tried to abduct someone once. Others, like the hero Theseus, made a sport out of kidnapping women. But it wasn’t just men who abducted girls. Eos, the goddess of dawn, was known for her abductions of handsome young mortals.
Occasionally, it might’ve happened that the victim fell in love with the abductor. But most often, whoever was taken away from their home, was dragged into unwanted drama and tragedy.
Brace yourself for some weird plots, forced loves, and sad endings. These are some of the victims of the Greek gods, kings, and so-called heroes.
Ganymede
It’s only fitting to start a list of Greek abduction victims with one that was caused by the ruler of sky and earth himself, Zeus. Just as the king of the gods had done with Europa when he transformed himself into a bull, Zeus disguised himself as an eagle to go after his next victim. His eyes fell on Ganymede, a prince from the island of Lesbos.
The god kidnapped the boy and gave him the questionable honor of being his cupbearer, which meant Ganymede had to serve wine and be sexually available whenever Zeus felt like it.
In exchange, Ganymede was granted immortality, eternal youth, and… love? The ancient Greeks believed the boy adored Zeus and that they were a happy couple. Although the fact that Zeus was married to his sister Hera, the goddess of marriage, and that he regularly slept with mortals, might indicate a more complicated relationship.
When the reign of the Greek gods came to an end, Zeus sent Ganymede up into the sky to become the constellation of the cupbearer: Aquarius.
Cephalus
The ancient Greek goddesses would just as quickly abduct mortal men as Zeus would.
One of the unfortunate souls was Cephalus, the husband of princess Procris, daughter of the first king and queen of Athens. The young prince captured the eye of Selene, the moon goddess. She abducted him and installed him in a luxurious palace.
But Cephalus missed Procris and demanded that Selene let him go. That’s what she did, but not after the scorned goddess made Cephalus believe his wife had been unfaithful to him during his absence. The prince naively believed the mood goddess and banished Procris from their home.
A year later, Procris returned, begging Cephalus to take her back. He did, but the two did not live happily ever after. Cephalus would accidentally shoot and kill his wife in a hunting accident.
Selene had successfully destroyed their marriage (and maybe Cephalus’s hunting skills).
All the men Eos abducted
Just like her sister Selene, Eos, the goddess of dawn, wasn’t innocent when it came to kidnapping handsome men. If anything, she was worse. After Eos had slept with Ares, the god of war, and Aphrodite’s lover, the goddess of love had punished the dawn goddess with an insatiable sexual desire.
To fulfill her endless desire, Eos kidnapped the mortal Cleitus, who quickly died of old age, something that broke Eos’s heart. She also fell for a man named Cephalus — a different Cephalus from the story above — and, for an unclear reason, took him to Syria to sleep with him. And because she loved to travel, Eos took the tall huntsman Orion to the Greek island of Delos, where he became her lover.
After all her partners’ deaths, Eos swore that she would handle her relationships differently. When she fell for Tithonus, she asked Zeus to make the youth immortal. Zeus granted her wish, but after Eos realized that Tithonus was still getting older, she knew that she had forgotten about something.
Eos had failed to tell Zeus that she wanted Tithonus to stay young and beautiful forever, just like her. Because Tithonus became old and weak but was unable to die, Eos turned him into the noisy insect cicada. She probably hadn’t only put Tithonus out of his misery, but mostly herself.
Eos wasn’t the only one punished by Aphrodite. If you’d like to find out who else was on the love goddess’s blacklist, check out this post.
Chrysippus
Probably drawing inspiration from the gods, ancient Greek kings were known to abduct good looking youngsters once in a while.
The story of Chrysippus is an example of a forced love that became lethal. Chrysippus was the illegitimate son of King Pelops of Pisa — not the modern Italian city but an ancient Greek city that had the same name.
Pelops also raised another boy: Laius. He was the heir to the throne of Thebes and was staying in Pisa for protection from his enemies.
Laius wasn’t a good guest, however, because he abducted Chrysippus when he went to Thebes to reclaim his throne. Everybody at court knew Laius forced the boy to sleep with him. Chrysippus was so ashamed of their relationship that he committed suicide.
Pelops cursed his former guest and his future children forever, which would result in the tragedy of Oedipus, Laius’s future son. Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother, and three of the children he would have with her would die by the hand of family members. Pelops had had his revenge.
Hesione
And like kings, like heroes. Heracles, probably the best known Greek hero, didn’t always do what’s right. Kidnapping Hesione and forcing her into marriage might’ve been one of his worst deeds.
Hesione was a princess of Troy and sister of Tithonus (who was abducted by Eos) and Priam, the future king of the city (and father of Paris, who would later abduct Helen of Sparta). Hesione’s father, king Laomedon, had asked the sea god Poseidon to construct Troy’s impressive city walls. But after Poseidon had done Laomedon’s bidding, the king refused to pay tribute to the god.
Poseidon unleashed a sea monster that tormented Troy’s citizens. The only way the sea god would leave the city alone was if the monster could eat Hesione. That’s why Laomedon tied his daughter to a rock and waited for the monster to devour her.
By chance, the hero Heracles passed Troy and realized the grim situation the princess was in. He killed the sea monster, saved Hesione, and told Laomedon that he wanted the king’s horses as a thank you. The greedy Laomedon refused to pay his debt once again.
That resulted in Heracles and his men burning Troy to the ground, only saving Priam, its future king, and Hesione, who was forced to marry Telamon, king of the Greek island Aegina.
Antiope
Theseus, the hero who stars alongside Ariadne in the story of the Minotaur, seemed to love abducting women. The first of those, was Antiope, an Amazon warrior, and sister of the Amazonian queen Hippolyta.
After Theseus, the king of Athens, abducted Antiope and made her his queen, she grew to love her abductor. The couple had a son together: Hippolytus, named in honor of Antiope’s sister.
But the new family’s happiness didn’t last long. The Amazons were fierce female warriors who were voluntary single, so marriage to a man was considered a sin. The warriors were offended by Antiope’s betrayal and attacked Athens in what would become known as the Attic War.
Antiope was killed by her fellow Amazons before the female tribe lost the war.
Helen
After Antiope’s death, Theseus had a midlife crisis and decided he wanted to remarry. His best friend Pirithous, king of Larissa, wanted a new wife as well. The two agreed to work together.
Theseus and Pirithous set out for what seemed the Greek equivalent of a pub crawl going wrong. Because both men had a divine lineage, they figured they needed wives with the most divine blood. Zeus, the king of the gods, had precisely the two daughters Theseus and Pirithous were interested in: Helen of Sparta and Persephone, the queen of the underworld.
The two men abducted Helen, the underaged princess of Sparta, before she was married to Menelaus, the future king of Sparta. Theseus dropped the girl off in his kingdom and immediately set for the underworld, whose queen the friends wanted to abduct next.
Helen would soon be rescued by her brothers, Polydeuces and Castor, while Theseus was on his quest for Persephone. Helen’s brothers even kidnapped Pirithous’s sister and Theseus’s mother as revenge. Sigh.
Helen would later become queen after marrying Menelaus but would get abducted by Paris, the prince of Troy. Helen’s second abduction would be the start of the Trojan War.
Persephone
While Helen was left in Athens, Theseus and Pirithous were in the underworld with the plan to kidnap Persephone. Years before that, the woman had already been abducted by Hades, the king of the underworld, who was madly in love with her.
Probably recognizing Theseus and Pirithous’ plan because he had already abducted his wife himself, Hades bound them to chairs by live snakes and left the men to rot. Their plan to make Persephone Pirithous’s wife had failed.
Theseus and Pirithous would’ve probably stayed imprisoned in the underworld for eternity if Heracles hadn’t come along years later.
When Heracles tried to free Pirithous, the earth started to shake. It was Hades, letting the hero know that releasing Pirithous was not going to happen. Heracles only managed to free Theseus, although the king’s bottom was stuck and left behind in the underworld. Heracles and Theseus left Pirithous behind.
The ass-less Theseus eventually remarried, although that ended in tragedy. If you’d like to find out how Theseus’s son Hippolytus and his second wife Phaedra came to their ends, check out this post.
Don’t get kidnapped
Although their stories are entertaining, the gods, kings, and heroes of Greek Mythology were far from innocent. From serial abductors, like Eos and Theseus, to the occasional kidnappers, like Selene and Hercules, the ancient Greeks didn’t seem to be shocked by people being taken away by gods and mortals.
But however standard the practice was, it nearly always ended badly for the ones who were stolen from their homes. Hunting accidents, being turned into insects, suicides, and being the start of wars were only some of the bad things that would happen to the kidnapped.
You better hope that there’s no god up in the sky obsessed with you.
Sources:
Fry, Stephen. Heroes. London: Penguin, 2019.
Fry, Stephen. Mythos. London: Penguin, 2017.
