Meleāger (Meleagros). 1. In Greek myth, son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and his wife Althaia. He married Cleopatra, daughter of Idas and Marpessa. The Fates appeared at his birth and declared that he should live as long as a brand that was on the fire was not consumed. Althaia snatched the brand from the fire and carefully preserved it. Later, when Meleager was a young man, Oeneus omitted to sacrifice to Artemis and the goddess in anger sent a great boar to ravage Calydon. Oeneus collected a band of heroes to attack the beast, offering the boar's skin to whoever should kill it. Atalanta, the virgin huntress, was the first to wound it, and when Meleager finally killed it he gave her the spoils, being in love with her. His mother's brothers tried to take them from her and Meleager killed them. When Althaia heard of her brothers' deaths she took out the brand and burned it, and Meleager died. In the version of the myth told by Homer, he is cited as an example of a valiant but misguided warrior of a past generation who refused to aid his people when they were attacked (by the Curetēs) because he was angry (having been cursed by his mother for killing one of her brothers). Although he was finally persuaded and drove off the enemy, he received no reward because he changed his mind too late. He was sometimes said to have been one of the Argonauts. Later writers add that after his death the women who mourned him were turned into guinea-fowl (meleagrides). The hunt of the Calydonian boar, Meleager leading, was a favourite subject in art.
2. Of Gadara in Syria, Greek poet who lived c.100 BC. He wrote short elegiac poems on love and death, about a hundred of which survive in the Greek Anthology. They are technically very accomplished and often moving. He was also the compiler of an early anthology of poetic epigrams (which has not survived intact), calling it his ‘Garland’ (stephanos) and likening each poet to a flower.
