Sidero Slain by Pelias at Hera’s Altar

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/245-sidero-slain-pelias-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Aeolid / Tyro cycle / Pelias’s impiety

Version line: Apollodorean — cruel stepmother; twins’ vengeance; slaughter at Hera’s altar

Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 1.9.8; cf. Sophocles, *Tyro* (fragments)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/245-sidero-slain-pelias-apollodorus.md

Characters

Artemis — goddess whose altar is violated
Neleus — twin; partner in vengeance
Pelias — twin avenger; altar-killer
Sidero — stepmother of Tyro’s twins; slain at Hera’s altar
Tyro — mistreated mother; cause of the revenge

Places

Altar of Hera — scene of Sidero’s death
Iolcus region — aftermath of Pelias’s kingship

Themes

Narrative

After Tyro’s twins Pelias and Neleus grew and were recognized, they turned on Sidero, the stepmother who had mistreated Tyro with harshness (her name means “the Iron One”). Sidero fled to a precinct of Hera; Pelias cut her down at the goddess’s altar. The blood-guilt on sacred ground marks Pelias’s character—the same king who later wrongs Aeson and Jason. Neleus shares the vengeance but not, in Apollodorus, the altar-slaying’s full stigma. Catalogue Sidero’s death apart from Tyro’s seduction by Poseidon-disguised-as-Enipeus and apart from the later Golden Fleece quarrel.