Thersanon

In Greek mythology, Thersanon or Thersanor^{[note 1]} is one of the Argonauts, the crew of the legendary Argo. Born on the island of Andros, Thersanon was the son of the sun god Helios by a woman named Leucothoe; he joined Jason and the other Argonauts in the quest for the golden fleece, kept by King Aeëtes of Colchis, who was himself a son of Helios and thus one of Thersanon's paternal half-brothers.^[2]

Parentage

Hyginus names Leucothoe as his mother; according to Ovid, Leucothoe was a mortal princess of Babylon that Helios fell in love with; but when her father discovered the affair thanks to Clytie, he buried Leucothoe alive, and afterwards her dead body was turned into a frankincense tree by Helios.^[3][4][5] Hyginus assigning them a son might indicate that he knew a very different version of the myth in which Leucothoe survives, or at least lives long enough to bear a child; alternatively Hyginus is perhaps referring to another woman, such as the sea goddess Leucothea, whom he elsewhere refers to as "Leucothoe" in the same work.^[6][7][8]

See also

• Ancient Greece portal
• Mythology portal

• Augeas
• Phaethon
• Argonautica
• List of Argonauts

Footnotes

1. The text of the Fabulae is corrupted, and the Argonaut's name has been corrected to either Thersanon or Thersanor; the form "Thersanor" appears in an alphabetic list of Argonauts on a papyrus (POxy 61.4097).^[1]

References

1. Scott Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 103; p. 189
2. Hyginus, Fabulae 14.4
3. Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.192–270
4. Hard, p. 45
5. Gantz, p. 34
6. Hyginus, Fabulae 125
7. William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology Leucothoe
8. Forbes Irving 1990, p. 266.

Bibliography

• Forbes Irving, Paul M. C. (1990). Metamorphosis in Greek Myths. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-814730-9.
• Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
• Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books.
• Ovid. Metamorphoses, Volume I: Books 1-8. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library No. 42. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977, first published 1916. ISBN 978-0-674-99046-3
• Scott Smith R.; Trzaskoma, Stephen M., Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2007, ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6. Google books.
• Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.