IDOMENEUS (e-dom-en-us), in Greek legend, son of Deu calion, grandson of Minos and Pasiphae, and king of Crete. He courted Helen, and took a distinguished part in the Trojan War. According to Homer (Odyssey, iii. 191), he returned home safely with all his countrymen who had survived the war; in later tradi tion, having been overtaken by a violent storm, he vowed to sacri fice to Poseidon the first living thing that met him when he reached home. This proved to be his son, whom he slew in accordance with his vow; whereupon a plague broke out and Idomeneus was driven out. He fled to the district of Sallentum in Calabria, and subsequently to Colophon in Asia Minor, where he settled near the temple of the Clarian Apollo and was buried on Mt. Cercaphus (Virgil, Aeneid, iii. I2I, 400, 531, and Servius on those passages). But the Cretans showed his grave at Cnossus, where he was worshipped as a hero with Meriones (Diod. Sic. v. 79).
For this story (a well-known mdrchen, "Home-comer's Vow," cf. Jephtha's daughter) see H. J. Rose Handbook of Greek Mythology (1928), ch. x.