A strange 'eromenos': King Admetus

Speranza

Son of Pheres, Admeto reigned over Pherae, a city in central Thessaly (today Velestino) to the northwest of Iolcus (present-day Volcos).

Apollo's servitude -- his kiling of the serpents that Admetus finds in his marriage chamber, for having forgotten to sacrifice to the gods -- implies that Apollo fell in love with the young king.

Callimacus has this to say in his Hymn to Apollo:

"We call upon Phoebus as shepherd also,
ever since the day on the banks of the
Amphrysus, when,
BURNING WITH LOVE for the young Admeto,
he made himself guardian of the mares."

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Apollo's servitude and love PRECEDE Admeto's marriage to Alceste.

The sequence of events in the testing phase of Admeto's life was as follows:

member of Giasone's agele.
member of Meleager's agele
same-sex liasions
hunting exploit
--- and marriage.

The Admeto legend bestows upon Apollo the role that falls to Poseidon in the Pelops myth.

After an initiatory phase that includes same-sex liaisions, Apollo, who is also the teacher, magically provides his eromenos, now an adult, with the means to succeed in the superhuman trial that will win him a spouse.

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ONE PROBLEM: Admeto is already king.

Apollo comes to the household of a man who is already king and helps him siml to conclude a marraige -- a first flaw.

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The exile with Admeto makes APOLLO and not Admeto the young man (eromenos) undergoing initiation. This was clearly understood by Vian, when he writes:

"The temporary exile of the hero or murderous (or criminal) god is more than just expiation of a crime. It is part of a complex structure having to do with initiation. The 'passion' of the god or hero precedes and prepares the way for his promotion in accordance with a process well known from rites of adolescence. There, too the novice must live for a time cut off from society. Whether he is shut up in a hut, obliged to serve a god, or forced to lead an animal existence in the wilderness, it is as if he were dead until the day when is is granted (or wins) the right to return to society in a new status."

This turns the interpretation of the Admeto myth upside down.

Whether Apollo is banished to the bush (at Tempe) or forced to serve a king (Admeto), as the eromenoi of Crete were forced to serve their erastai, it is APOLLO who is the novic undergoing initiation.

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Apollo, model of the kouroi, a kouros himself, and the educator par excellence, must have undergone the full cycle of education in order to become what he is, for eample, in the Giacinto myth, the erastes and the teacher.

The submission of a god to a king must have struck Greek minds as unspeakably shocking.

BUT THEN, Admeto is not JUST ANYHONE.

Apollo's exile to Thessaly signifies his temporary death, which is expressed directly in the myth that shows the serpent killing the god and burying him beneath the temple at Delphi.

ADMETO, literally, the 'untameable', is none other than Hades.

Herychius says that Admeto was the father of Hecate, who was surely infernal.