Palaemon

## Melicertes

* {Phrixus} (Brother)
* {Leucon} (Brother)
* {Macistus} (Brother)
* {Schoeneus} (Brother)
* {Helle} (Sister)

**Melicertes**, also known as **Palaemon** and **Portunus**, is the God of Ports and Safe Habors from Greco-Roman mythology. He is the son of Leucothea and is one of the minor gods protecting Camp Jupiter.

## Overview

In Greek mythology, **Melicertes** is the son of Ino, daughter of Cadmus. He appeared for the first time in Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris, where he is already the "guardian of ships". The paramount identification in the Latin poets of the Augustan age is with **Portunus**, the Roman god of safe harbours.

When his mother, pursued by her husband Athamas, who had been driven mad by Hera because she had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth, both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea, noted by Homer, Melicertes as Palaemon.

The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree. Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the nereids instituted the Isthmian Games and sacrifices in his honor.

## Appearance

Melicertes appears as an adorable prepubescent boy with auburn hair, sea-green eyes, and a dolphin-like tail growing out from his *pilonidal sinus*. Covering his entire body are burned scars of various sizes, as well as giant slash-like scars on his throat, chest, stomach, and smaller ones scattered across his body.

He wears a blue-and-white sailor uniform, akin to the one shown in kids' cartoons, as well as a small lop-sided sailor hat on top of his head.

## Personality

In contrast to his child-like appearance, Melicertes is a serious and straight-to-the-point sort of guy who expects seriousness from everyone and anyone he works with.

He dislikes pranks, childishness, and immaturity, and holds a hatred toward prankings and pranksters, though this doesn't seem to extend to his cousin Dionysus, who he often speaks of with a loving voice.

As the God of Ports and Harbors, and with it, the God of Commerce, he is an important god when it comes to trading within Ancient Greek and Roman culture. Because of this, he becomes the patron god of shippers and delivery services within the modern society, a duty he is very serious about, even if it means working with Hermes, who annoys him due to his nature as a Trickster God.

Unlike many minor gods, he doesn't hold much contempt for the Twelve Olympians because of their disrespect toward them as "it wasn't like [Melicertes] has much respects for [Twelve Olympians] either", with the exceptions of gods such as Poseidon, Dionysus, and Hermes (albeit the last is begrudgingly).

## History

### Early Years

Melicertes was born the second son of the Minyan king Athamas and the demigoddess Ino, and the third-in-line for the royal throne of Boeotia after his older half-brother Phrixus and trueborn brother Learchus.

According to him, his birth was a difficult one and his mother became unable to bear another child after him, and as a result, she became extremely overprotective of him.

### Fostering Dionysus

When Melicertes was a young kid, his mother took Dionysus back home with her to foster, as she was the closest kin to him other than her sisters Agave and Autonoë, whose children would undoubtedly see him as a potentially threat to the Theban throne and have him assassinated, son of Zeus or not.

As young children, the two were very close to each other and he was one of the few people to let know of Dionysus' true identity as a boy and as a son of Zeus, as he was then forced to act and dress as a female in order to throw off any suspicion from others. However, as a result, this led many to believe the two were engaged, much to their embarrassment.

One day, when Hera found out about their family's secret, she put a curse on his parents and drove them to insanity. His father Athamas became mad with bloodlust and killed his brother Learchus after mistaking him for a wild stag, only to nearly kill himself in regress soon after he wasn't stopped by his men who recognized it was a curse from the gods. His mother Ino, on the other hand, used a knife to cut him like a pig before boiling him alive in a cauldron.

When she snapped out of the curse and recognized what she had done, she carried his body and jumped down a nearby cliff down into the sea, intending to use her death as repentance for her crimes. Zeus, however, felt pity for her and her son and transformed them into gods, **Leucothea** and **Palaemon**, and placed them in his brother Poseidon's court.

### Melqart Incident

Sometime in the late 2nd-century AD, he and the local cult of the Phoenician cult of the god Melqart got into an argument which led to him drowning several of their ships. Because of this, they began to fear him and believed him to be Melqart *interpretatio graeca* and even started to sacrifice young children to him to earn his favor, which he quickly stopped after the 50th child was killed.

## Trivia

* The name, Palaemon, means "wrestler" and is often used as an epithet to Heracles.
* His main divine attributes are keys and his largest temple is the Temple of Portunus was to be found in the Forum Boarium.
* He is one of the first non-native members of Camp Fish-Blood.
* He is one of the few gods Dionysus keeps contact with during his temporary exile to Camp Half-Blood, and they mainly communicate through letters.
* He is the patron of the Isthmian Games, one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were believed to have originated from the funeral games held in his honor by King Sisyphus.
	+ The Isthmus of Corinth, where the games were named after, is believed to be where his corpse was founded by Sisyphus.
* In Ancient Rome, he originally protected the warehouses where grain was stored, but later became associated with ports, perhaps because of folk associations between *porta* "gate, door" and *portus* "harbor", the "gateway" to the sea, or because of an expansion in the meaning of *portus*.
* His Roman festival, the Portunalia, was celebrated on August 17, and on this day, keys were thrown into a fire for good luck in a very solemn and lugubrious manner.
* He is often associated with the Roman god Janus, with whom he shares many characters, functions and the symbol of the key.