[Greek heroic] Telephus appeared in the Homeric Cypria, one of the so-called epic cycles which relate events left out of the Homeric epics. His story is later retold many times by Greek and Roman dramatists, notably Euripides and the Roman Ennius. The story of Telephus exhibits many features common in world mythology. He was the son of Heracles and the princess Auge, from Tegea. Auge's father, fearing an oracle that said his grandson would kill his uncles either, a) made the pregnant Auge a priestess of Athena and exposed the infant Telephus on Mt. Parthenion, who was then miraculously saved or suckled by a deer, and/or b) the infant Telephus and his mother were thrown into a crate and put into the sea where they landed in Asia Minor. The story of a child born under a curse and then exposed or set adrift and miraculously saved is common in Greek mythology, and in these respects Telephus differs hardly at all from Perseus, Oedipus, Romulus and Remus, or Heracles 1. Telephus became king of the ...
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