=Athămas=, king of Thebes in Bœotia, was son of Æolus. He married Themisto, whom some call Nephele, and Pindar, Demotice, and by her he had Phryxus and Helle. Some time after, on pretence that Nephele was subject to fits of madness, he married Ino the daughter of Cadmus, by whom he had two sons, Learchus and Melicerta. Ino became jealous of the children of Nephele. Because they were to ascend their father’s throne in preference to her own, therefore she resolved to destroy them; but they escaped from her fury to Colchis, on a golden ram. _See:_ Phryxus and Argonautæ. According to the Greek scholiast of Lycophron, li. 22, Ino attempted to destroy the corn of the country; and as if it were the consequence of divine vengeance, the soothsayers, at her instigation, told Athamas, that before the earth would yield her usual increase, he must sacrifice one of the children of Nephele to the gods. The credulous father led Phryxus to the altar, where he was saved by Nephele. The prosperity of Ino was displeasing to Juno, and more particularly because she was descended from Venus. The goddess therefore sent Tisiphone, one of the furies, to the house of Athamas, who became inflamed with such sudden fury that he took Ino to be a lioness, and her two sons to be whelps. In this fit of madness he snatched Learchus from her, and killed him against a wall; upon which Ino fled with Melicerta, and, with him in her arms, she threw herself into the sea from a high rock, and was changed into a sea deity. After this, Athamas recovered the use of his senses; and as he was without children, he adopted Coronus and Aliartus, the sons of Thersander his nephew. _Hyginus_, fables 1, 2, 5, 239.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 1, chs. 7 & 9. ――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 4, li. 467, &c.; _Fasti_, bk. 6, li. 419.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 34.――――A servant of Atticus. _Cicero_, _Letters to Atticus_, bk. 12, ltr. 10.――――A stage dancer. _Cicero_, _Piso_, ch. 36.――――A tragic poet. _Cicero_, _Piso_, ch. 20.――――One of the Greeks, concealed in the wooden horse at the siege of Troy. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 2, li. 263. =Athamantiădes=, a patronymic of Melicerta, Phryxus, or Helle, children of Athamas. _Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 13, li. 319; _Fasti_, bk. 4, li. 903. =Athanasius=, a bishop of Alexandria, celebrated for his sufferings, and the determined opposition he maintained against Arius and his doctrines. His writings, which were numerous, and some of which have perished, contain a defence of the mystery of the Trinity, the divinity of the Word and of the Holy Ghost, and an apology to Constantine. The creed which bears his name, is supposed by some not to be his composition. Athanasius died 2nd May, 373 A.D., after filling the archiepiscopal chair 47 years, and leading alternately a life of exile and of triumph. The latest edition of his works is that of the Benedictines, 3 vols., folio, Paris, 1698.