114 HISTORY OF GREECE. husband. She had already perished, when Herakles, the ancieni guest and friend of Admetus, arrived during the first hour of lamentation ; his strength and daring enabled him to rescue the deceased Alkestis even from the grasp of Thanatos (Death), and to restore her alive to her disconsolate husband. 1 The son of Pelias, Akastus, had received and sheltered Peleus when obliged to fly his country in consequence of the involuntary murder of Eurytion. Kretheis, the wife of Akastus, becoming enamored of Peleus, made to him advances which he repu- diated. Exasperated at his refusal, and determined to procure his destruction, she persuaded her husband that Peleus had attempt- ed her chastity : upon which Akastus conducted Peleus out upon a hunting excursion among the woody regions of Mount Pelion, contrived to steal from him the sword fabricated and given by Hephaestos, and then left him, alone and unarmed, to perish by the hands of the Centaurs or by the wild beasts. By the friendly aid of the Centaur Cheiron, however, Peleus was pre- served, and his sword restored to him : returning to the city, he avenged himself by putting to death both Akastus and his perfid- ious wife. 9 But amongst all the legends with which the name of Pelias is connected, by far the most memorable is that of Jason and the Argonautic expedition. Jason was son of ^Eson, grandson of Kretheus, and thus great-grandson of ^Eolus. Pelias, having consulted the oracle respecting the security of his dominion at lolkos, had received in answer a warning to beware of the man who should appear before him with only one sandal. He was celebrating a festival in honor of Poseidon, when it so happened that Jason appeared before him with one of his feet unsandaled : he had lost one sandal in wading through the swollen current of the river Anauros. Pelias immediately understood that this was 1 Eurip. Alkestis, Arg. ; Apollod. i. 9, 15. To bring this beautiful legend more into the color of history, a new version of it was subsequently framed : Herakles was eminently skilled in medicine, and saved the life of Alkestis when she was about to perish from a desperate malady (Plutarch. Amatoi c. 17. vol. iv. p. 53, Wytt.).
- The legend of Akastus and Peleus was given in great detail in the Cata-
logue of Hcsiod (Catalog. Fragm. 20-21, Marktscheff.) ; Schol. Pindar Njm.iv. 95. Scha.' Apoll. Rhod. i.224 ; Apollod. iii 13, 2.
