Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Androgeus
ANDRO′GEUS (Ἀνδρόγεως), a son of Minos and Pasiphaë, or Crete, who is said to have conquered all his opponents in the games of the Panathenaea at Athens. This extraordinary good luck, however, became the cause of his destruction, though the mode of his death is related differently. According to some accounts Aegeus sent the man he dreaded to fight against the Marathonian bull, who killed him; according to others, he was assassinated by his defeated rivals on his road to Thebes, whither he was going to take part in a solemn contest. (Apollod. iii. 1. §2, 15. §7 ; Paus. i. 27. §9.) According to Diodorus (iv. 60) it was Aegeus himself who had him murdered near Oenoe, on the road to Thebes, because he feared lest Androgeus should support the sons of Pallas against him. Hyginus (Fab. 41) makes him fall in a battle during the war of his father Minos against the Athenians. (See some different accounts in Plut. Thes. 15; Serv. ad Aen. vi. 14.) But the common tradition is, that Minos made war on the Athenians in consequence of the death of his son. Propertius (ii. 1. 64) relates that Androgeus was restored to life by Aesculapius. He was worshipped in Attica as a hero, an altar was erected to him in the port of Phalerus (Paus. i. 1. §4), and games, ἀνδρογεώνια, were celebrated in his honour every year in the Cerameicus. (Dict. of Ant. s. v. Ἀνδρογεώνια.) He was also worshipped under the name Εὐρυγύης, i. e. he who ploughs or possesses extensive fields, whence it has been inferred that originally Androgeus was worshipped as the introducer of agriculture into Attica.
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