Αυττολεων
When the Locrians went into battle they used to leave a gap in the ranks in honour of their compatriot Ajax, in the belief that the hero would come and do battle in their midst. One day, when they were fighting against the inhabitants of Crotona, one of the adversaries, named Autoleon, sought to pass through this gap in the Locrian lines but he was severely wounded in the thing by a ghost and the wound would not heal. On being consulted, the oracle directed him to go to the White Island, at the mouth of the Danube (see Achilles), there to offer sacrifices to the heroes and especially to Ajax of Locri. There he saw Helen, who entrusted him with a message to the poet Stesichorus, who had been struck by blindness for having spoken evil of her in one of his poems. Helen told him to tell Stesichorus that he would regain his sight if he sang a recantation: he did, and his sight was restored. This is the version given by Conon, but Pausanias, who also tells this story, calls its hero Leonymus.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Conon, Narr. 18
- Paus. 3, 19, 11ff.