According to the
Iliad, Amyntor, the son of Ormenus, was a king in
Hellas, and the father of
Phoenix, who became a tutor of
Achilles, whom he accompanied to the
Trojan War. In a speech, addressed to Achilles, Phoenix tells of the conflict between himself and his father. When Amyntor forsook his wife, Phoenix's mother, for a concubine, at the urging of his jealous mother, Phoenix had sex with Amyntor's concubine. To punish this crime Amyntor called upon the
Erinyes to curse Phoenix with childlessness. Outraged Phoenix intended to kill Amyntor, but was finally dissuaded. Instead he fleeing through Hellas, Phoenix went to
Peleus in
Phthia, where he became king of the
Dolopians. Also according to the
Iliad, the thief
Autolycus broke into Amyntor's house in Eleon and stole a helmet, which
Meriones gave to
Odysseus during the
Trojan War. The mythographer
Apollodorus gives a different version of Phoenix's story, probably drawn from a lost play by the tragedian
Euripides. In this account Phoenix was falsely accused of having sex with Amyntor's concubine
Phthia, and was blinded by Amyntor. Peleus brought Phoenix to the
centaur Chiron who restored his sight, after which Peleus made him king of the Dolopians. According to Apollodorus, Amyntor was a king of
Ormenium, and one day when Heracles wished to pass through his land, Amyntor took up arms and opposed him, and was killed by Heracles, who then fathered a son
Ctesippus, by Amyntor's daughter Astydamia. Brief references to Amyntor are found in the poems of the third-century BC poets
Callimachus and
Lycophron.
Callimachus, mentions the sons of Ormenus inviting
Erysichthon to games associated with the cult of Athena at
Itone in
Thessaly, while Lycophron refers to Amyntor blinding Phoenix. According to
Ovid, in his
Metamorphoses, Amyntor had a son Crantor, whom he gave to Peleus when he sued for peace, and who died fighting alongside Peleus in the
Centauromachy, the battle between the
Lapiths and the
Centaurs at the wedding feast of
Pirithous.
Strabo reports that, according to the Greek grammarian
Demetrius of Scepsis, Amyntor's father Ormenus was the eponymous founder of the city of Ormenium (which Strabo identifies with a village called
Orminium which he located at the foot of
Mount Pelion, near the
Pegasitic Gulf). According to this account Ormenus was the son of
Cercaphus, the son of
Aeolus, and Ormenus had two sons Amyntor and
Euaemon, and that Amyntor had a son Phoenix, and Eumaemon had a son
Eurypylus who succeeded to the throne, because Phoenix had fled to Peleus in Phthia. Scholia name Phoenix's mother either
Cleobule or
Hippodameia, and the concubine as either
Clytia or Phthia. ==Notes==