Canace and Macareus

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/244-canace-macareus-aeolus-ovid-euripides

Cycle: Heroes — Aeolid house / tragic incest

Version line: Euripidean *Aeolus* (fragments / hypothesis) + Ovid-labeled Roman narrative — sibling union; Aeolus’s wrath; deaths

Sources: Euripides, *Aeolus* (fragments; hypothesis in papyri / scholia); Ovid, *Heroides* 11; *Metamorphoses* 9 brief notices (**Roman**—labeled); cf. Apollodorus, *Library* 1.7.3–4 (Aeolus’s children named without the incest tale)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/244-canace-macareus-aeolus-ovid-euripides.md

Characters

Aeolus — Thessalian king; father; orders Canace’s death
Canace — daughter of Aeolus; lover of Macareus; mother; suicide
Enarete — mother (genealogical)
Macareus — brother-lover
The child — exposed or killed (variant notices)

Places

Thessalian Aeolia — scene of the discovery and deaths

Themes

Narrative

Aeolus son of Hellen (the Thessalian king, not the Odyssey’s wind-warden) had many children by Enarete, among them Canace and Macareus (Macareus). In Euripides’ lost *Aeolus* and in Ovid’s Roman *Heroides* 11, brother and sister become lovers; Canace bears a child. Aeolus discovers the birth, sends Canace a sword with the command to kill herself, and in some strands Macareus also dies or is punished. Apollodorus lists Canace among Aeolus’s daughters without narrating the incest. Catalogue the tragic sibling plot as a distinct Euripidean/Ovidian version, labeled Roman where Ovid is primary for the letter and death sequence.