Autolycus
Master-thief of Mount Parnassus, the heteropaternal twin of Philammon: son of Hermes by the mortal Chione of Phocis (greek_chione), born the same night as Apollo's son Philammon (Ovid Met. 11.301-317). Authored as a demigod (Olympian father Hermes + mortal mother Chione → divinity fraction 0.5). From Hermes he had unmatched skill in theft, the power to disguise and re-colour what he stole, and the binding oath (Homer Od. 19.394-397); he taught Heracles to wrestle (Apollod. 2.4.9, possibly conflated with the homonymous Argonaut). Father of Anticlea (greek_anticlea_ithaca) and maternal grandfather of Odysseus (greek_odysseus), whom he named at the cradle and on whose Parnassus boar-hunt the scar-recognition of Odyssey 19 turns. Wired to greek_chione + greek_hesiod_hermes as parents and reciprocally to his twin greek_philammon.
Parentage
Domains
- thievery and trickery
- oaths and cunning speech
- wrestling and the palaestra
Powers
- Steals so cunningly as never to be caught
- Changes the form and colour of what he steals
- Swears and exploits binding oaths
Epithets
- πολύτροπος (in spirit — the all-cunning), the master-thief of Parnassus
Relations
Sources
- Homer, Odyssey 19.394-466 (the locus classicus: Autolycus son-of-Hermes, father of Anticlea, namer of Odysseus, Parnassus boar-hunt)
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.301-317 (parentage by Hermes of Chione; twin of Philammon; the shape-changing theft-craft)
- Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4.9 (wrestling-master of Heracles); 1.9.16 (father of Anticlea)
- Hyginus, Fabulae 200-201 (Autolycus, Chione, and the cattle-theft contest with Sisyphus)
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993), pp. 173-176