Aeolus (Greek: Αἴολος [aí.jo.los], Ailos Modern Greek: ['e.o.los]), Latinized as Æolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which. Diodorus Siculus made an attempt to define each of these three (although it is clear he also became muddled), and his opinion is followed here. Briefly, the first Aeolus was a son of Hellen and eponymous founder of the Aeolian race; the second was a son of Poseidon, who led a colony to islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea; and the third Aeolus was a son of Hippotes who is mentioned in Odyssey book 10 as Keeper of the Winds who gives Odysseus a rightly closed bag full of the captured winds so he could sail easily home to Ithaca on the gentle West Wind. All three men named Aeolus appear to be connected genealogically, although the precise relationship, especially regarding the second and third Aeolus, is often ambiguous.
This Æolus was son of Hellen and the nymph Orseis, and a brother of Dorus, Xuthus and Amphictyon. He was described as the ruler of Aeolia (later called Thessaly) and held to be the founder of the Aeolic branch of the Greek nation. Æolus married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus (otherwise unknown). Æolus and Enarete had many children, although the precise number and identities of these children vary from author to author in the ancient sources. The great extent of country which this race occupied, and the desire of each part of it to trace its origin to some descendant of Aeolus, probably gave rise to the varying accounts about the number of his children. Some scholars contend that the most ancient and genuine story knew only of four sons of Aeolus: Sisyphus, Athamas, Cretheus, and Salmoneus, as the representatives of the four main branches of the Aeolic race. Other sons included Deioneus, Perieres, Cercaphas and perhaps Magnes (usually regarded as a brother of Macedon) and Aethlius. Another son is named Mimas, who provides a link to the third Æolus in a genealogy that seems very contrived. Calyce, Peisidice, Perimele and Alcyone were counted among the daughters of Æolus and Enarete. This Æolus also had an illegitimate daughter named Arne, begotten on Melanippe, daughter of the Centaur Cheiron. This Arne became the mother of the second Æolus, by the god Poseidon.
