Μαιων
- A Theban, a son of Haemon, who fought against the Seven Chiefs. With Lycophontes he led the unfortunate ambush set against TYDEUS. Maeon was the only one of the ambush party who was not killed, as Tydeus spared him. When Tydeus died at the siege of Thebes Maeon buried him. A tradition used by Euripides made Maeon a son of Haemon and Antigone though Haemon was more often said to be her fiancé.
- Another Maeon gave his name to the family to which Homer belonged. In poetry he was often described as Maeonides. This relationship with the poet varies from author to author: some say he was his father, married to CRITHEIS and the brother of Dius, who was the father of Hesiod. At other times he is said to have been not the husband but the guardian of Critheis, or even the grandfather of Homer, or the adoptive father of the poet who was said to be the son of a demon.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
(1)
- Hom. Il. 4,392;
- Apollod. Bibl. 3,6,5;
- Stat. Theb. 2,693;
- Paus. 9,18,2;
- Euripides, lost tragedy Antigone (Nauck, TGF, edn 2, p. 404ff., fragments 157ff.);
- Hyg. Fab. 72;
- Diod. Sic. 4,65.
(2)
- See CRITHEIS;
- cf. Hellanicus, fragment 6 Müller (FHG I, p. 46).