Agaptolemus

Agaptolemus is presented in Greek genealogical mythography as one of the fifty sons of King Aegyptus. Sources name his mother variably — often a Phoenician woman (making him full brother to Cercetes, Eurydamas, Aegius, Argius, Archelaus and Menemachus), while alternate traditions list Eurryroe (daughter of the river-god Nilus) or Isaie (daughter of King Agenor of Tyre) as his mother. He was married to Pirene, one of the Danaids (daughter of Danaus and an Ethiopian woman). In the Danaid cycle, Agaptolemus shared the common fate of most of his brothers: he was slain on his wedding night by his wife at Danaus's command, the sole notable exception among the brothers being Lynceus, who survives in the tradition.

Extant sources that mention Agaptolemus are prosopographic and genealogical lists; they supply no physical description, iconography, or distinctive bodily attributes. He is attested only by name and kinship relations within lists of the sons of Aegyptus and in accounts of the Danaid marriages and massacre, so no trustworthy details of appearance are recorded in the supplied material.

The supplied accounts treat Agaptolemus as a mortal mythic prince rather than a supernatural actor: they do not ascribe supernatural powers, magical capacities, or cultic functions to him. His principal narrative role and action in the corpus is as one of the grooms who is murdered on his wedding night by the Danaid who married him; beyond his genealogical placement and his fate as a victim in the Danaid story, sources offer no behaviors or abilities beyond ordinary human agency.