Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Hellen’s three sons divide the classical ethnic charter of Greece. Dorus gives his name to the Dorians; Apollodorus has him settle the country over against the Peloponnese (Dryopis / later Doris), from which the Dorian migrations and the Heraclid return take their mythical warrant. Xuthus, driven from Thessaly in a dispute over the inheritance, goes to Athens, marries Creusa daughter of Erechtheus, and fathers (or receives) Ion and Achaeus—whence Ionians and Achaeans. Aeolus remains in Thessaly, rules over Magnesia, and fathers a brood of sons famous in heroic myth: Sisyphus, Athamas, Cretheus, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and others depending on the list. The stemma is less a single adventure than a map: Aeolians in the north and islands, Ionians through Attic–Euboean–Asiatic lines, Dorians through Doris and the Peloponnese, Achaeans as a fourth name via Achaeus. Herodotus and tragedy use these eponyms as ready ethnic aetiology. Catalogue the brothers here as the Hellenic tribal frame; individual Aeolid crimes and quests (Sisyphus, Salmoneus, Athamas–Phrixus, Pelias–Jason) remain in their dedicated files.