Tithōnus
(
Τιθωνός). The son of Laomedon and Strymo, and brother of
Priam. By the prayers of Eos, who loved him, he obtained from the gods immortality, but not
eternal youth, in consequence of which he completely shrank together in his old age; whence a
decrepit old man was proverbially called Tithonus. Eos changed him into a cicada, or katydid
(
Theog. 984;
Apollod. iii.12.4; Ovid,
Fast. i. 461). The story suggested Lord Tennyson's fine poem
Tithonus. See
Eos.