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.

He was supposed to judge the souls of easterners, Aeacus those of westerners, while Minos had the casting vote ( Plato, Gorgias 524A ).

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

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.

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

Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born on and ruled the 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.

Here, Aegina gave birth to Aeacus, who would later become king of Oenone ; thenceforth, the island's name was Aegina.

* Aeacus, the first king of Aegina according to mythology

Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly ; he was the father of Achilles.

Though the tomb of Aeacus remained in a shrine enclosure in the most conspicuous part of the port city, a quadrangular enclosure of white marble sculpted with bas-reliefs, in the form in which Pausanias saw it, with the tumulus of Phocus nearby, there was no temenos of Peleus at Aegina.

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.

For this Aeacus exiled them both from Aegina.

In Greek mythology, Telamon ( in Ancient Greek, Τελαμών ), son of the king Aeacus of Aegina, and Endeis and brother of Peleus, accompanied Jason as one of his Argonauts, and was present at the hunt for the Calydonian Boar.

Phocus of Aegina was the son of Aeacus and Psamathe.

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

The tomb of Phocus was shown at Aegina beside the shrine of Aeacus.

Aegina was a daughter of Asopus and mother of Aeacus by Zeus.

Sciron disputed this, but agreed to accept arbitration by Aeacus, king of Aegina, who decided that Nisus should be king and Sciron the military leader.

Aegina bore at least two children: Menoetius by Actor, and Aeacus by Zeus, both of whom became kings.

The son made immortal, Aeacus, was the king of Aegina, and was known to have contributed help to Poseidon and Apollo in building the walls of Troy.

Through him Aegina was the great-grandmother of Achilles, who was son of Peleus, son of 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

In the battle Oeagrus, Aeacus, and Erectheus all distinguish themselves.

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.

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.

When the city of Aegina was depopulated by a plague sent by Hera in jealous reprisal for Zeus's love of Aegina, the king Aeacus prayed to Zeus for the ants that were currently infesting an oak tree to morph into humans to repopulate his kingdom.

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.

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

Aeacus and Telamon by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune.

Aeacus prayed, and it ceased in consequence.

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

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.

Aeacus laments Heracles's theft of Cerberus and sentences Dionysus to Acheron and torment by hounds of Cocytus, Echidna, the Tartesian eel, and Tithrasian Gorgons.