ABSTRACT
Son of Heracles and Auge, the daughter of King Aleus of Tegea. Aleus, because he knew of an oracle predicting that any son of Auge would cause the death of one of his sons, installed her as priestess in Athena’s temple, a post requiring perpetual virginity. However when Heracles came to Tegea he seduced her. On discovering that she was pregnant, Aleus was furious and sent his daughter to the sea to be drowned; on the way there, she bore a son, Telephus. When they reached Nauplia, King Nauplius placed both mother and son in a chest, and set it adrift; they eventually landed in Mysia, where Auge brought Telephus up. Another version of the story asserts that she bore the child in Athena’s temple and hid it there, as a result of which the goddess in her anger caused the land to be barren. Her father enquired the reason for this pestilence, and discovered his daughter’s offence. He therefore abandoned and exposed the child on Mount Parthenium, and sent Auge to Nauplius for sale as a slave overseas. She was sold to Teuthras, king of Teuthrania on the River Caicus in Mysia. Telephus was discovered by some shepherds in the care of a doe (elaphos) which was suckling him (thele, ‘a teat’), and in consequence the shepherds named him Telephus. They brought him up in the company of Parthenopaeus, who had been abandoned nearby. The two were great friends. Some said, however, that Auge herself abandoned Telephus on Mount Parthenium to hide her shame, or that she bore him there on the way to Nauplia.
