Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Salmoneus,
a man cursed and condemned by the gods and a man of impressive lineage.
His sin was hubris and his crime was scorning the gods. He honored
himself in their stead and tried to deify himself by impersonating Zeus,
going so far as to toss torches and drag around pots to simulate lightning and thunder. His fate
was that of the buzzing pest that annoys someone to the point of being swatted,
Zeus striking him down with a thunderbolt and sending him down to Tartarus.
He was only a few generations removed from the first man and the first woman,
and the grandson of Hellen - not Helen of Troy but the son of Deucalion - from whom the tribes
of ancient Greece claimed ancestry. Exploring this later on will take us from the first
Titan-born humans and the time of the great flood to the tragic death of the hero Jason.
Alright, let’s get into it.
In Greek mythology there are three crimes considered especially egregious, swift and
severe justice meted out to those who perpetrate them. These three crimes are: (1) violating the
sanctity of hospitality, pertaining to which the murder of a guest, or guests, is the most flagrant
and least forgivable, (2) the murder of one’s own kin - the closer the relation, the harsher the
condemnation - and (3) hubris against the gods. This last was Salmoneus’ offense. He thought
himself a god. He dedicated the sacrifices and libations that should have gone to the gods to
himself, and he even went so far as to impersonate Zeus, tossing torches and dragging around clanging
metal to emulate the fire and flash of lightning and the booming rumble of thunder. As you no doubt
have already guessed, this didn’t sit well with Zeus and didn’t end well for Salmoneus,
who was struck down with a thunderbolt and cast down to the abyss of Tartarus, a place beneath
the earth not unlike a mirrored reflection of the sky, the great chasm below instead of the great
vault above, a place reserved for those who defied the gods, be they immortal, such as the titans,
or the worst of the mortal sinners, to whose infamous ranks Salmoneus' was imminently destined.
According to The Library of Greek Mythology, written by Pseudo-Apollodorus,
Salmoneus endeavored to make himself a god and to be perceived as an equal of Zeus. He claimed
to be the king of Olympus and decreed that all sacrifices be dedicated to him. In an effort
to impersonate Zeus, Salmoneus paraded around in a chariot, throwing lit torches into the sky. As
well, dried hides and bronze kettles were dragged behind the chariot. The light of the torches
tossed aloft and the jarring cacophony in tow were intended to mimic lightning and thunder, the idea
being, preposterously so, to legitimize his divine affectation. After keeping up this ostentatious
charade for a time, Zeus eventually decided to rid himself of this vexation. He struck down
Salmoneus with a thunderbolt and then wiped the city Salmoneus founded off the face of the earth.
Of Salmoneus’ demise and punishment, we know from the Aeneid, written by the poet Virgil,
that he did indeed - at least in this version, end up in Tartarus, this information coming to
us when Aeneas, a member of the Trojan royal family and the eponymous hero of the story,
ventures into the underworld. What exactly happens to Salmoneus isn’t really detailed,
but some interesting information about Tartarus is given. Here’s the passage:
“ "[Aeneas journeys to the underworld where he sees the souls of the damned in Tartarus :] Aeneas
looks back, and under a cliff on the left sees a broad castle, girt with triple wall and encircled
with a rushing flood of torrent flames . . . Salmoneus, too, I saw [i.e. within the prison],
who paid a cruel penalty… [for imitating] Jove's [Zeus'] fires and the thunder of Olympus.
An interesting aspect of Salmoneus’s mythology is his lineage, which we will
now take a look at to wrap up the video, beginning with the great flood and ending
with the story of Jason and the Argonauts, the latter punctuated by Jason’s tragic end.
In Greek mythology, a continent-consuming deluge, one that would even swallow up most
of the mountains - only the loftiest peaks staying above a world awash with the wrath
of Olympus - was sent by the gods - specifically, Zeus and Poseidon - to drown the earth. There were
only two human survivors, Deucalion (the son of the Titan Prometheus, the nymph Pronoia sometimes
said to be his mother) and his wife Pyrrah (the daughter of the Titan Epimetheus and of Pandora,
the first woman). They became the seed from which humanity again grew. And this,
how humanity proliferated from them, is twofold. They each threw stones over their shoulders. Those
thrown by Deucalion became men, and those thrown by Pyrrah became women. However, they also have
sons and daughters who are specifically said to be their children in a more traditional sense.
They both created people by throwing stones and produced children by coupling in intimacy
as husband and wife. Of those named few, those who could be categorized as their biological children,
the most important was Hellen, as said before, not to be confused with Helen, as in Helen of Troy.
Another name for the Ancient Greeks was the Hellenes. Hellen, from whom the Ancient
Greeks claimed ancestry, was the eponymous personage from which this denotation derived.
The tribes of ancient Greece were said to descend from Hellen’s sons, Dorus, Ion, Achaeus
and Aeolus. These tribes were, respectively, the Dorians, Ionians, Achaens, and the Aeolians. And
as is often the case in Greek mythology, there are different, even conflicting versions, which
makes sense given that many of our most seminal sources were written about a thousand years apart.
Pertaining to this video, the most important of Hellen’s children was Aeolus - this Aeolus not
to be confused with Aeolus the wind king, whom Odysseus encounters in the Odyssey. Aeolus the
son of Hellen, like his father and grandfather before, was also an important sire in Greek
mythology. Aeolus had a lot of children - a lot of sons, in particular - and a couple of them
were some of the baddest boys in Greek mythology. And by bad I don’t mean they were great warriors;
I mean they royally pissed the gods off and were cast down to Tartarus and condemned to
eternal punishment. One of these was Salmoneus, the star of this video, and another was Sisyphus,
probably, of all humanity, the most notorious nuisance to the gods in Greek mythology. His
story - his punishment, rather - is one that transcends the mythos of the Ancient
Greeks and has permeated western culture, the image of a man rolling a boulder up a hill,
only to have it roll back down to the bottom again once reaching the top, is and enduring
image of futility and something often known even to those unfamiliar with Greek mythology.
The most important of Salmoneus’s children was Tyro, the direct ancestor of both the
antagonist and the protagonist of the Argonautica, which is the story of Jason
and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. By Poseidon she bore Pelias,
portrayed as the usurper of the throne, who it was that sent Jason to find and bring
back the Golden Fleece, and by Cretheus (Salmoneus’s brother), she bore Aeson,
the father of Jason, the very same Jason who would retrieve the Golden Fleece.
Though Jason succeeds in his quest, his end is a tragic one. He brought back a sorceress named
Medea with him. Without her he would have failed, dying or returning empty handed. Once home, he
took a liking to and married a new woman. Medea, understandably, felt betrayed. She killed the two
children her and Jason had together and contrived the murder of Jason’s new wife, arranging for a
poisoned dress to be sent to her as a gift. Medea, when confronted by Jason, left in style, making a
dramatic exit in a flying chariot pulled by two dragons, sent by her grandfather Helios, the god
who personified the sun. In the end, Jason is left broken and alone, dying in miserable solitude.
And that’s it for this video. If you enjoy the content,
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