Adme'te
2. A daughter of Eurystheus and Antimache or Admete. Heracles was obliged by her father to fetch for her the girdle of Ares, which was worn by Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons. (
Apollod. 2.5.9.)
According to Tzetzes (
ad Lycophr. 1327), she accompanied Heracles on this expedition.
There was a tradition (
Athen. 15.672), according to which Admete was originally a priestess of Hera at Argos, but fled with the image of the goddess to Samos. Pirates were engaged by the Argives to fetch the image back, but the enterprise did not succeed, for the ship when laden with the image could not be made to move.
The men then took the image back to the coast of Samos and sailed away. When the Samians found it, they tied it to a tree, but Admete purified it and restored it to the temple of Samos.
In commemoration of this event the Samians celebrated an annual festival called Tonca.
This story seems to be an invention of the Argives, by which they intended to prove that the worship of Hera in their place was older than in Samos.
[
L.S]
