Auge

H. Van Looy in ed. Budé VIII.1.309–28.

Wilamowitz, Analecta 186–93; T. Zielinski, Eos 30 (1927), 33–53, 416; Webster 238–41; L. Koenen, ZPE 4 (1969), 7–18; W. S. Anderson, GRBS 23 (1982), 165–77; LIMC III.i.45–51 ‘Auge’; M. Huys, Sacris Erudiri 31 (1989–90), 169–85, and The Tale, relevant sections; Gantz 429–32; P. Brulé in C. Jourdain-Annequin and C. Bonnet (eds.), Héraclès, les femmes et le féminin (Brussels, 1996), 35–49.

Auge, daughter of Aleus and virgin priestess of Athena Alea at Tegea in Arcadia, was raped by her father’s guest Heracles and gave birth to Telephus (his later story was the subject of Euripides’ Telephus: see our Introduction there). In some accounts of Telephus’ birth Aleus discovers Auge’s pregnancy and commissions Nauplius to drown her (as Catreus seems to have ordered Aerope drowned in Cretan Women), and she gives birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenion between Tegea and Nauplion; in others Auge bears Telephus secretly in the temple at Tegea, and Aleus discovering this tries to kill them both. Aleus’ hostility is sometimes attributed to his fear that a son of Auge will kill him (cf. Danae), sometimes simply to his daughter’s disgrace and the pollution caused by the birth in the temple. Accounts of Telephus’ and Auge’s survival also vary: in