MYRMIDONS

In Greek legend, the Myrmidons were a race of people famous for their devotion to duty. Although originally from an island in the Saronic Gulf about 17 miles (27 km) southwest of Athens, the race eventually settled at Phthia in Thessaly, a mainland region of east-central Greece on the Aegean Sea. They were best known as the people whom the great Greek warrior Achilles led in the siege of Troy.

Etymologically, the name Myrmidon is related to the Greek word myrmex (“ant”), and there are various accounts of how the link was formed. According to some, the Myrmidon tribe took its name from that of a legendary ancestor, Myrmidon, a son of Zeus, who was said to have been conceived when the chief god came to Myrmidon’s mother, Eurymedusa, in the form of an ant. According to other versions, Zeus took the form of an eagle and pursued the nymph Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus. When he caught her he took her to an island called Oinone. There she bore him a son, Aeacus, who became the first permanent inhabitant of the island, which was henceforth named Aegina for his mother. Zeus then turned the ants of the island into people so that Aeacus would have a proper kingdom over which to rule. Aeacus was renowned for his piety and discernment, and after his death he became a judge in the underworld.

Other accounts say that Aeacus originally had a people to rule on Aegina, but that Hera, angry at the infidelity of her husband, Zeus, sent a plague of snakes,

Below: This 16th-century engraving depicts Aeacus discovering that the ants of his island have been transformed into people. Zeus watches from above.