Ion (mythology)

Ion (Greek Ἴων ) in Greek mythology is called the progenitor of the people of the Ionians.

Ion was ( frg. 1 (28 ) ) mentioned as such for the first time of Hesiod as the grandson of Hellen, son of Xuthus and brother of Achaeus.

A different version is described by Euripides in his tragedy Ion: Ion With him is the son of Apollo and Creusa. After his birth, he is abandoned by his mother, but brought at the instigation of the father of Hermes to Delphi and raised there as a foundling to the temple servants of the Oracle. Years later come Creusa and Xuthus, whom she married in the meantime, to Delphi to consult the oracle for Creusa's childlessness. Xuthus receives the award, the first person he would meet on the way out would be his son. Xuthus hits the ion and accepts him as his son in the assumption that he was the result of a volatile affair in his youth. As Creusa learns of this, she is hurt and angry and afraid of being pushed out of her supposed stepson out of the house. She tries to poison Ion, but fails. Finally she recognizes him using the box in which they had once exposed him as their presumed dead son.