IDOMENEUS

in Greek legend, son of Deucalion, grandson of Minos and Pasiphae, and king of Crete. He courted Helen and took a distinguished part in the Trojan War. According to the Odyssey, he returned home safely, but a later tradition relates that he was overtaken by a violent storm and vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon the first living thing that met him when he reached home. The first to greet him was his son, whom he thus slew; as a result, a plague developed, and Idomeneus was driven out. He fled to the district of Sallentum in Calabria and subsequently to Colophon in Asia Minor, where he settled near the Temple of the Clarian Apollo.