Still angry over Heracles ' theft of Cerberus, Aeacus threatens to unleash several monsters on him in revenge.

The Epicureans believed that the soul was a thin tissue of atoms that dissipated into the cosmos upon death, and that conventional mythological views of the afterlife and its geography and inhabitants were inane fictions — a view encapsulated by a funeral inscription at Rome that reads: Do not go forth nor pass along without reading me ; but stop, listen to me and do not leave before you have been instructed: there is no crossing ferry to Hades, nor Charon the ferryman, nor Aeacus holding the keys, nor the dog Cerberus.

The next encounter is with Aeacus, who mistakes Dionysus for Heracles due to his attire.

When Aeacus returns to confront the alleged Heracles ( i. e. Xanthias ), Xanthias offers him his " slave " ( Dionysus ) for torturing, to obtain the truth as to whether or not he is really a thief.

After each is whipped, Dionysus is brought before Aeacus ' masters, and the truth is verified.

Dionysus and Aeacus fight the Indians in the river and the army crosses the Hydaspes.

Once crossed, the soul would be judged by Aeacus, Rhadamanthus and King Minos.

Ovid, on the other hand, supposes that the island was not uninhabited at the time of the birth of Aeacus, and states that, in the reign of Aeacus, Hera, jealous of Aegina, ravaged the island bearing the name of the latter by sending a plague or a fearful dragon into it, by which nearly all its inhabitants were carried off, and that Zeus restored the population by changing the ants into men.

Aeacus and Telamon by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune.

He was such a favourite with the latter, that, when Greece was visited by a drought in consequence of a murder which had been committed, the oracle of Delphi declared that the calamity would not cease unless Aeacus prayed to the gods that it might.

Aeacus himself showed his gratitude by erecting a temple to Zeus Panhellenius on mount Panhellenion, and the Aeginetans afterwards built a sanctuary in their island called Aeaceum, which was a square place enclosed by walls of white marble.

When the work was completed, three dragons rushed against the wall, and while the two of them which attacked those parts of the wall built by the gods fell down dead, the third forced its way into the city through the part built by Aeacus.

Aeacus was also believed by the Aeginetans to have surrounded their island with high cliffs to protect it against pirates.

Several other incidents connected with the story of Aeacus are mentioned by Ovid.

By Endeïs Aeacus had two sons, Telamon and Peleus ( father of Achilles ), and by Psamathe a son, Phocus, whom he preferred to the two others, both of whom contrived to kill Phocus during a contest, and then fled from their native island.

The Athenians were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking Aegina for thirty years, and content themselves meanwhile with dedicating a precinct to Aeacus, when their projects were interrupted by the Spartan intrigues for the restoration of Hippias.

She bore at least two children: Menoetius by Actor, and Aeacus by Zeus.

This was the ' good ' king Minos, and he was held in such esteem by the Olympian gods that, after he died, he was made one of the three ' Judges of the Dead ', alongside his brother Rhadamanthys and half-brother Aeacus.

An etiological myth of their origins, expanding upon their etymology — the name in Classical Greek was interpreted as " ant-people ", from μυρμηδών ( murmedon ) " ant's nest " and that from μύρμηξ ( murmex ) " ant " — was first mentioned by Ovid, in Metamorphoses: in Ovid's telling, King Aeacus of Aegina, father of Peleus, pleaded with Zeus to populate his country after a terrible plague.

His mother, the Nereid goddess of sand beaches, transformed herself into a seal when she was ambushed by Aeacus, and was raped as a seal ; conceived in the rape, Phocus ' name means " seal ".

The brothers hid the corpse in a thicket, but Aeacus discovered the body and punished Peleus and Telamon by exiling them from Aegina.

The goddess of sand beaches, Psamathe was the wife of Proteus and the mother of Phocus by Aeacus.

Ajax is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus, and his first wife Periboea.

Ajax, who in the post-Homeric legend is described as the grandson of Aeacus and the great-grandson of Zeus, was the tutelary hero of the island of Salamis, where he had a temple and an image, and where a festival called Aianteia was celebrated in his honour.

The identification of Ajax with the family of Aeacus was chiefly a matter which concerned the Athenians, after Salamis had come into their possession, on which occasion Solon is said to have inserted a line in the Iliad ( 2. 557 – 558 ), for the purpose of supporting the Athenian claim to the island.

Aeacus ( also spelled Eacus, ) was a mythological king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.

According to some accounts Aeacus was a son of Zeus and Europa.

Some traditions related that at the time when Aeacus was born, Aegina was not yet inhabited, and that Zeus changed the ants () of the island into men ( Myrmidons ) over whom Aeacus ruled, or that he made men grow up out of the earth.

Aeacus while he reigned in Aegina was renowned in all Greece for his justice and piety, and was frequently called upon to settle disputes not only among men, but even among the gods themselves.

Aeacus prayed, and it ceased in consequence.

Aeacus was believed in later times to be buried under the altar in this sacred enclosure.

A legend preserved in Pindar relates that Apollo and Poseidon took Aeacus as their assistant in building the walls of Troy.

After his death, Aeacus became ( along with the Cretan brothers Rhadamanthus and Minos ) one of the three judges in Hades, and according to Plato especially for the shades of Europeans.

Aeacus had sanctuaries both at Athens and in Aegina, and the Aeginetans regarded him as the tutelary deity of their island.

In act 4, scene 14, “ an un-Romaned Antony ” laments, “ O, thy vile lady !/ She has robb'd me of my sword ,” ( 22-23 )— critic Arthur L. Little Jr. writes that here “ he seems to echo closely the victim of raptus, of bride theft, who has lost the sword she wishes to turn against herself.

However, Jeremiah ’ s laments are made unique by his insistence that he has been called by Yahweh to deliver his messages.

The death of Germanicus, by Nicholas Poussin, laments the passing of Rome's last Republican.

A Scotland Yard inspector ( Graham Chapman ) retrieves the joke, but despite the playing of sombre music on gramophone records and the chanting of laments by fellow policemen to create a depressing mood, also dies laughing.

Dhritarāshtra sometimes asks questions and doubts and sometimes laments, knowing about the destruction caused by the war, to his sons, friends and kinsmen.

Opis sees and laments Camilla's death and shoots Arruns in revenge as directed by Diana.

Desdemona laments her suffering, remembering the fate of her mother's maid, who was forsaken by her lover.

He also frequently laments that cinemas outside major cities are " booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes ", making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most American moviegoers.

Nursed in his final moments by a remorseful von Rauffenstein, de Boeldieu laments that their usefulness to society ( as aristocrats ) will end with this war.

Dying, the woman laments that the breeze by whose name she was deceived would now carry away her spirit, and her husband weeps, holding her in his arms.

When the girl has been gripped by desire, she laments her humanity, for if she and her father were animals, there would be no bar to their union.

After making an introductory appeal to " Re-Horakhte, Set, and Nephthys " for the ultimate resolution of this issue by the royal Vizier, the prophet ( named Pra ' emhab ) laments his workload.

The Convention of Cintra is also the name of a pamphlet written by the future British Poet Laureate William Wordsworth in 1808 ; he also wrote a passionate sonnet that, in his own words, was " composed while the author was engaged in writing a tract occasioned by " the Convention, in which he laments the bondage felt by " suffering Spain ".

Meanwhile Fairfax, still disguised as Leonard Meryll, laments his hurried marriage to a bride he cannot identify, for her face was concealed by the blindfold.

Upon discovering he has killed his father, the son laments " From London by the king was I pressed forth ./ My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man ,/ Came on the part of York, pressed by his master " ( 2. 5. 64 – 66 ).

While the " Easington Explosion " laments the deaths of eighty one miners in one accident, " Hally's Piebald Gallowa " laments the loss of the Lumley pit banner, eaten by a Galloway pony.

Scottish folk music includes many kinds of songs, including ballads and laments, sung by a single singer with accompaniment by bagpipes, fiddles or harps.

Sister Alenushka Weeping about Brother Ivanushka by Viktor Vasnetsov, Russian variant of Brother and Sister: Alenushka laments her brother's transformation into a goat.

An indication of the renown in which Ockeghem was held is the number of laments written on his death in 1497 ; among the most famous of the musical settings of these many poems is Nymphes des bois by Josquin des Prez.