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

He was son of Zeus and Aegina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus.

He was born on the island of Oenone or Oenopia, to which Aegina had been carried by Zeus to secure her from the anger of her parents, and whence this island was afterwards called Aegina.

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 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.

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

During ancient times Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.

The province of Aegina () was one of the provinces of the Piraeus Prefecture.

Aegina, according to Herodotus, was a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally subject.

8th century BC ), which included, besides Aegina, Athens, the Minyan ( Boeotian ) Orchomenus, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization of city-states that were still Mycenaean, for the purpose of suppressing piracy in the Aegean that arose as a result of the decay of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes.

During the naval expansion of Aegina during the Archaic Period, Kydonia was an ideal maritime stop for Aegina's fleet on its way to other Mediterranean ports controlled by the emerging sea-power Aegina.

During the next century Aegina was one of the three principal states trading at the emporium of Naucratis, and it was the only state of European Greece that had a share in this factory.

In 491 BC Aegina was one of the states which gave the symbols of submission ( earth and water ) to Achaemenid Persia.

As the final victory of Athens over Aegina was in 458 B. C., the thirty years of the oracle would carry us back to the year 488 BC as the date of the dedication of the precinct and the outbreak of hostilities.

The refusal of Aegina was veiled under the diplomatic form of sending the Aeacidae.

It was to Aegina rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian ( Herod.

In Greek mythology, Aegina was a daughter of the river god Asopus and the nymph Metope.

* King Sisyphus was sent to Tartarus for killing guests and travelers to his castle in violation to his hospitality, seducing his niece, and reporting one of Zeus ' sexual conquests by telling the river god Asopus of the whereabouts of his daughter Aegina ( who had been taken away by Zeus ).

King Sisyphus also betrayed one of Zeus's secrets by telling the river god Asopus of the whereabouts of his daughter Aegina ( an Asopides who was taken away by Zeus ) in return for causing a spring to flow on the Corinthian Acropolis.

Pausanias ( 2. 5. 2 ) mentionins three supposed daughters of Phliasian Asopus named Corcyra, Aegina, and Thebe according to the Phliasians and further notes that the Thebans insist that this Thebe was daughter of the Boeotian Asopus.

Though the name Aegina betokens a goat-nymph, such as was Cretan Amalthea, she was given a mainland identity as the daughter of the river-god Asopus and the nymph Metope ; of their twelve or twenty daughters, many were ravished by Apollo or Zeus.

This Actor married Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus, and had several children, among them Menoetius.

These legends seem to be a mythical account of the colonization of Aegina, which seems to have been originally inhabited by Pelasgians, and afterwards received colonists from Phthiotis, the seat of the Myrmidons, and from Phlius on the Asopus.

We find first in Pindar's odes ( Nem 8. 6 – 12 ; Is 8. 17 – 23 ; Paian 6. 134 – 40 ) the sisters, Aegina and Thebe, here the youngest daughters of Boeotian Asopus by Metope who came from Stymphalia in Arcadia.

Corinna, Pindar's contemporary, in a damaged fragment, mentions nine daughters of Boeotian Asopus: Aegina, Thebe, and Plataea abducted by Zeus ; Corcyra, Salamis, and Euboea abducted by Poseidon ; Sinope and Thespia ( who has been dealt with above ) abducted by Apollo ; and Tanagra abducted by Hermes.

Euboea fits reasonably into the Boeotian sphere but Salamis and Aegina are regions that would perhaps fit better with the Phliasian Asopus.

He mentions no dispute about the others which suggests that in his day the assignment of Aegina to the Phliasian Asopus was generally admitted.

It included Nemea, Zeus seizing Aegina, Harpina, Corcyra, Thebe, and Asopus himself.

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

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.