Aethalides

The name Aethalides appears for two distinct individuals in Greek narrative sources. In the roster tradition of the Argonauts he is recorded as the son of Hermes and Eupolemeia (daughter of King Myrmidon of Phthia) and listed among the companions of Jason on the voyage of the Argo. Separately, in the Dionysian episode concerning the Tyrrhenian sailors, an individual named Aethalides is listed among sailors who tried to delude Dionysus and, as punishment in that tale, was turned into a dolphin by the god. The available citations place each Aethalides within these larger myth cycles (the Argonautica tradition and the myth of Dionysus and the Tyrrhenian sailors) but provide no continuous biography tying the two names to a single continuous identity.

The sources supply no descriptive portrait of either Aethalides beyond their narrative roles. The Argonaut Aethalides is attested only by name and parentage (son of Hermes and Eupolemeia) in lists of the Argonauts; no physical description is given. The Tyrrhenian-sailor Aethalides is reported in the Dionysian tale to have been metamorphosed into a dolphin by Dionysus, so his appearance in that episode is explicitly transformed into that of a dolphin; prior to transformation he is implied to have been human like the other sailors.

The cited traditions do not ascribe particular supernatural powers or distinctive abilities to either bearer of the name. The Argonaut Aethalides is noted genealogically as a son of Hermes, which indicates divine parentage in the roster tradition but the sources do not detail any special acts, skills, or powers for him in the supplied passages. The Tyrrhenian-sailor Aethalides takes part in an attempt to deceive a god and is subject to Dionysian metamorphosis; the narrative attributes the ability to transform him to Dionysus rather than to Aethalides himself.