Salmoneus was one of the seven sons of King Aeolus of Thessalia who led colonists to the Peloponnese, where Salmoneus created the kingdom of Salmonia in the region of, what is now known as, Pylos.
It was always said that Salmoneus was arrogant, impious, and just an overall rude man that demanded people worship him just as they worshipped Zeus, the king of the gods. It was said that Salmoneus even went as far as to impersonate the great king of the gods, riding around in chariots and waving torches in the air as if it was lightning. So, of course Zeus would have gotten mad and eventually punished him by death. But all those things that people believed for years about Salmoneus aren’t true. The truth was that Zeus really got mad and punished Salmoneus because his sexual orientation wasn’t what was common at that time . . . . . .
Salmoneus had relations with some other heroes and men such as Perseus of Argos and Cadmus of Thebes because their daughters were married to his brothers. Salmoneus’s grandson, Neleus, actually fought a war with the great Heracles. Another grandson, Pelias, went with Jason to capture and obtain the Golden Fleece. In fact, he had plenty of descendants that were Argonauts. So Salmoneus had lots of relations with men. However, he had closer relations to all of them than most people think.
Since the gods wanted everything to go their way and not anyone else’s, when they found that Salmoneus was homosexual, they got infuriated and needed to get rid of this “problem” right away. So Zeus speedily tried to find the best way to rid himself of Salmoneus. Zeus was actually trying to figure himself out as he was experimenting with same sex relationships himself, so since he was so very confused and furious at himself, he took all his anger out at Salmoneus. Salmoneus foresaw Zeus’s plans and needed to tell the people to help save him. He got himself a chariot and started riding around in the streets shouting that Zeus was soon going to punish him for a crime that wasn’t fair. He asked people to take pity on him and to help save him. To gather more attention, he would wave torches around in the air. Zeus took advantage of this situation and got rid of anyone who overheard him. To the rest of the world he simply claimed that Salmoneus was terribly impersonating him and that he deserved to be punished. To this day, the whole world believed that fake, fake story. But now, we all shall know the real truth. This story is so important because it isn’t just about Salmoneus. It is about all other Greek characters who had different sexual orientations than those that were common, so they had to suffer and experience pain because of the way that other, more superior Greek figures, reacted very badly to all of this.
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Analysis
A lot of mythical stories in Ancient Greece drive Greek characters to go crazy and do things that they would have never done before. So, I believe that it would make sense that someone in the long Greek history would have had romantic relations with people of the same sex. In addition to the previous statement, it has been said that other Greek characters such as Achilles, Narcissus, Hermes, Apollo, Heracles, and even Zeus may have had these types of relations as well. This would all make sense because Achilles, as one example, fought in the war between Troy and Sparta, which had armies of only men. They had to sleep, bathe, eat, and do everything together for years and years on end, so it would make sense if some of them may have had romantic relationships with each other. “While Homer never explicitly states a gay relationship between Achilles and sidekick Patroclus, many scholars read a romantic connection between the two, as only Patroclus ever drew out a compassionate side to the famously arrogant warrior. Patroclus’s death at the hands of Trojan Prince Hector sent Achilles into a rage in which he killed Hector and dragged his body around Troy.” (Jacob Ogles, 2). Narcissus is another Greek character, but in his case actually fell in love with himself and his own reflection. However it may have been something more. Possibly a similar story to my myth, he may have really just been in love with men, but, again, Zeus manipulated this situation and said that he was just in love with himself. Hermes was actually said to have romantic relations with Perseus, which in my myth, I implied that Perseus had romantic relations with Salmoneus too. Finally, Zeus had many, many romantic relationships with Greek characters, so why wouldn't he try something new. However, I think that there is more to the story...
Since Zeus may have also had very close relations with people of the same sex, why would he have gotten so infuriated with Salmoneus? Well, I surmise that it was maybe because Zeus was confused and didn’t know what to do. Even though he was a god, I think this was what pushed him to murder Salmoneus for having same sex romantic relationships. Especially, since he was the king of all the gods, he had lots of pressure placed on him to be perfect. Now, in other myths it showed Zeus to be a bad guy, which clearly showed that he definitely wasn’t perfect, but, in the past, it was a very big thing if you had same sex romantic relationships, and people believed that you deserved to be punished for that. Who better to put that thought in people’s minds than gods. People had very, very large connections to gods in the past and believed in this so much, so the gods and goddesses may have convinced them all that having same sex relationships was a very terrible thing. Nonetheless, if Zeus had same sex relationships, why would he lead people to believe that same sex relations are such a terrible thing? Well, I believe that Hera was the one that pressured him to believe that. Hera definitely has a sneaky and, in some cases, corrupt past with Zeus’s love life. She was very jealous of all of Zeus’s mistresses and one of the best examples of this is Heracles. She tried to murder him because he was a creation of Zeus and some other woman. The jealousy got to such a point that it is even said that Hera actually tried to murder Zeus himself, all out of jealousy! So Hera was clearly a very jealous goddess, and the fact that Zeus now had the whole other half of the world to have relationships with must have made her extremely furious. That could have all easily pushed her to try and convince Zeus that same sex relationships are terrible. Since Zeus must have been confused, she probably quickly and easily convinced him, with no difficulty at all. Especially since Hera is Zeus’s dear wife and sister, he probably didn’t think she had any selfish intentions to why she thought that way.
Now for the heroes… I chose some of these specific heroes because they have had instances where people have believed them to have same sex romantic relations. Some of these historic male characters also didn’t really have the best experiences with women and may have needed a release or escape, which may have encouraged them to look for love elsewhere. For example, Perseus was the great hero that slayed Medusa and her Gorgon sisters. He already had this terrible view on women, which, in that time, may have pushed him to change his sexuality. He had also been said to have romantic relations with Hermes, like I previously mentioned, so that means that he could have been open to having sexual relationships with Salmoneus as well. In addition, they were especially close because Salmoneus’s brother married his daughter, so they would have probably spent a lot of time together. Salmoneus also had many descendants that were part of the great Greek army during the battle of Troy, which are said to have also had sexual relations because they were so very close during the great battle. Heracles has also not had the best experience with women and, like Perseus, could have been pushed to change his sexuality to deal with all the pain that women had caused him through his lifetime. Furthermore, Heracles had terrible experiences with Hera, who even tried to kill him when he was just a baby! She is the goddess of marriage, the life of women, and protector of women in childbirth, so if she had a vendetta against Heracles while she had so much power over women, she must have tried to use all that power against Heracles. All that hate towards Hera could have caused Heracles to go a little crazy (as was common in Greek myths) and murder his first wife, which, again, could have caused him to despise women. “Hercules is known for his 12 labors, but it is because of his first wife that he was required to complete these 12 labors. Had Hercules not killed his wife and children, he may have never had to complete 12 grueling and near impossible physical tasks.” (Madeleine, 1). “To attempt to destroy him once again, Hera sends a madness upon Hercules as he is praying to the gods. Hera makes Hercules believe that his wife, Megara, and his sons are his enemies Hera and Lycus. Fearing for his and his family’s lives, he kills Megara and his three sons.” (Madeleine, 1). He also had pretty close relationships with men, just like Salmoneus, especially when he went to do his very famous 12 labors. Over that time, he met lots of men. “The famous hero had a number of male companions through his many trials.” (Jacob Ogles, 10). In addition to that, he did not have much contact with women when he was doing his labors and he was just constantly working on his labors, so his primitive male sexual drive may have been very high and the only people around were men.
During the composition of my myth, I also took into account about why Zeus would just punish Salmoneus for being homosexual. Well, Perseus and a lot of the other men that Salmoneus supposedly had intimate relationships were sons of Zeus or sons of other important figures in ancient Greek mythology, such as kings of great lands. However, Salmoneus was the son of Aeolus and Iphis, which aren’t names that were mentioned continuously in very famous myths. So, I believe that Zeus killed Salmoneus rather than anyone else because those other men were his own sons or sons of very powerful people. Now, Zeus wasn’t the most ethical and may have killed his sons or daughters before once or twice, but I believe that the reason he spared them this time was because they were huge heroes. Perseus killed Medusa and her Gorgon sisters which was a giant feat, Heracles completed 12 impossible tasks that no one thought was possible to do before him and was made a god when he died. I don’t think that Zeus wanted to bring shame to those names because that may have brought shame to his name and that would have been one terrible scandal.
This was all a very old way of thinking and now the world is much more modern and wouldn’t dare look at anyone this way for having same sex relations. Nevertheless, this myth all makes sense because in the past people did murder people for being homosexual and it makes sense that a god would have started all those beliefs because believing in a god is a very powerful thing and leads you to follow everything they do, no matter what.
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