Aeacus Acheron to be tormented by the hounds of Cocytus, the Echidna, the Tartesian eel, and Tithrasian Gorgons. Alexander the Great traced his ancestry through his mother to Aeacus. Aeacus Aeacus (; also spelled Eacus; Ancient Greek: Αἰακός) was a mythological king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. Aeacus was the son of Zeus by Aegina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus or by Europa in some accounts. Compare Plato, "Gorgias", 524a. He was the father of Peleus, Telamon and Phocus and was the grandfather of the Trojan war warriors Achilles and Telemonian Ajax. Aeacus was born on
Greek hero cult Greek hero cult Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" (, ) refers to a man who fought (on either side) during the Trojan War. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a "dead" man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine, because his fame during life or his unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A hero was more than human but less than a god, and various kinds of supernatural figures came to be