Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tithonus

TITHONUS, a character of Greek mythology, a son or, according to others, a brother of Laomedon, king of Troy. He was beloved by Eos (the Morning), who carried him away and dwelt with him at the limit of the world, by the Ocean stream. Eos begged of Zeus that her lover might live for ever, and her request was granted; but she forgot to ask immortal youth for him, so he shrivelled up into a hideous old man, whom Eos kept shut up in a chamber. At last Tithonus prayed to be rid of the burden of old age and was turned into a grasshopper. Eos had two sons by him Memnon, king of ^Ethiopia, and Emathion. Memnon was killed before Troy by Achilles; but the legend is later than the Iliad, which does not mention it. As to Eos herself, her name is etymologically identical with the Sanskrit ush and the Latin aurora, both meaning " morning." Ac cording to Hesiod, Eos was a daughter of Hyperion and Thea, and sister of the Sun and Moon. Homer represents her arising every morning from the couch of Tithonus to carry light to gods and men, drawn in a chariot up the sky by her swift steeds Lampus and Phaethon. Her com mon epithet in Homer is " rosy-fingered," the meaning of which is disputed. Besides Tithonus she loved Orion, till Artemis shot him with an arrow in Ortygia. She also loved and carried off the youthful hunter Cephalus; he was already married to Procris, to whom, in spite of his infidelity, he was afterwards reconciled. A peculiar form of the Cephalus legend is given by Apollodorus (iii. 14, 3): Cephalus, a son of Hermes and Herse, was carried off by Eos, and from their union in Syria sprang Phaethon. By Astrseus, Eos became the mother of the Morning Star and all the starry host.

With regard to representations in art, the combat between Achilles and Memnon was figured on the chest of Cypselus (Pausanias, v. 19, 1), and it appears on early Greek vases of Melos, Corinth, and Chalcis. There was a group of Eos carrying off Cephalus on the roof of the Stoa Basileios at Athens, and the same scene was represented on the throne at Amyclæ (Paus., i. 3, 1; iii. 18, 12). It also appears on vases, and formed an acroterion group on the temple at Delos. Eos in her chariot is represented on vases.

See Roscher, Ausführliches Lexicon der griech. u. röm. Mythologie, p. 1252 sq.