Megaletor

Megaletor
Information
Gender	Male
Title	Prince
Relatives	Munichus (father) Lelante (mother) Alcander, Philaeus (brothers) Hyperippe (sister)
Birthplace	Molossia

In Greek mythology, Megaletor (Ancient Greek: Μεγαλήτωρ Megalḗtо̄r "great-hearted") is a minor figure, a prince of the Molossians, who was transformed into a bird by the will of Zeus, the god of justice, in order to escape a fiery death.

Family

Philaeus was one of the sons of the Molossian king Munichus by his wife Lelante. He had two brothers, Alcander and Philaeus, and a sister named Hyperippe.

Mythology

The entire family was seen as just and righteous and therefore especially favored by the gods. One day raiders attacked them in the fields; the family ran off to their house and began to throw various objects at them in self-defense, whereupon the offenders set the house ablaze. The god of justice, Zeus would not let his favourites suffer such a cruel and undeserving death that he changed them all six of them into various birds in order to save them from the flames; Megaletor himself was changed into a 'ichneumon bird', a bird that is very hard to say what it could be identified with.

See also

• Artemiche
• Erodius
• Hippodamia

Bibliography

• Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, Volume II: Books 9-15. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 43. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916.