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Calydonian boar hunt

Fresco depicting Atalanta and Meleager resting after successfully hunting the Calydonian boar
The Calydonian boar hunt shown on a Roman frieze (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)[1]

The Calydonian boar hunt is one of the great heroic adventures in Greek legend.[2] It occurred in the generation prior to that of the Trojan War, and stands alongside the other great heroic adventure of that generation, the voyage of the Argonauts, which preceded it.[3] The purpose of the hunt was to kill the Calydonian boar (also called the Aetolian boar),[4] which had been sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in Aetolia, because its king Oeneus had failed to honour her in his rites to the gods. The hunters, led by the hero Meleager, included many of the foremost heroes of Greece. In most accounts it is also concluded that a great heroine, Atalanta, won its hide by first wounding it with an arrow. This outraged many of the men, leading to a tragic dispute.

  1. ^ Ex-collection the textiles merchant Sir Francis Cook, assembled in Victorian times at Doughty House, in Richmond, south-west London.
  2. ^ Hard, p. 415, calls it "the greatest adventure in Aetolian legend".
  3. ^ Hard, p. 416, describes the boar-hunt as being "almost as famous" as the voyage of the Argonauts.
  4. ^ Rose, p. 66.

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