Xuthus
Son of Hellen who colonized Achaea and the Peloponnese and was the father of Ion and Achaeus.
The Legend of Xuthus
Xuthus was the son of Hellen and the nymph Orseis, making him a grandson of Deucalion and Pyrrha and a brother of Aeolus and Dorus. Hellen divided Greece among his three sons: Aeolus received Thessaly, Dorus the northern lands, and Xuthus the Peloponnese. Xuthus married Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus of Athens, and by her had two sons: Ion and Achaeus, who became the eponymous ancestors of the Ionian and Achaean peoples. However, Euripides' Ion complicates this genealogy: in that play, Xuthus is told by Apollo's oracle that the first person he encounters upon leaving the sanctuary is his son — that person being Ion, who is actually Apollo's son by Creusa. Xuthus accepts Ion as his son in good faith, without knowing the truth. Achaeus went to establish his people in the northern Peloponnese, while Ion's descendants populated Attica and Ionia. Xuthus thus functions as the genealogical bridge linking Athens to the Ionian peoples.
Parents
Hellen (father); Orseis (mother)
Children
Ion, Achaeus
Symbols
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