Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Oeneus, king of Calydon in Aetolia, son of Porthaon, ruled a fertile land of vineyards and grain. Each year at the harvest he offered first-fruits to all the gods. One year—either through forgetfulness or through a slight that the tradition does not excuse—he omitted Artemis alone from the thanksgiving. The goddess of the wild took the insult as war on her honor. Artemis sent against Calydon a boar of monstrous size and ferocity: its hide was impenetrable to ordinary weapons, its tusks like those of an elephant in the poets’ comparisons, and it laid waste vines, crops, and herds across the Aetolian plain. Farmers fled their fields; the countryside emptied; famine threatened the city. Homeric Phoenix, recalling the story to Achilles, stresses that Oeneus’s failure to sacrifice first-fruits to Artemis brought this “heavenly” beast upon the people, and that the hunt which followed was the community’s only remedy. The setup is thus a classic pattern of neglected ritual and divine anger: a single omitted offering turns a prosperous kingdom into a hunting-ground for a god-sent animal. The next entry gathers the heroes who answered Oeneus’s summons.