Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Hippocoon

HIPPO'COON（Ἱπποκόων), the eldest, but natural son of Oebalus and Bateia, and a stepbrother of Tyndareus, Icarius and Arene, at Sparta. After his father's death, Hippocoon expelled his brother Tyndareus, in order to secure the kingdom to himself; but Heracles led Tyndareus back, and slew Hippocoon and his sons. (Paus. iii. 1 § 4, 14. § 6, &c., 15.2, &c.; Apollod. ii. 7. § 3, iii. 10. § 4; Diod. iv. 33.) The number and names of Hippocoon's sons are different in the different writers: Apollodorus mentions twelve, Diodorus ten, and Pausanias only six. Ovid (Met. viii. 314) mentions the sons of Hippocoon among the Calydonian hunters.

There are four other mythical personages of the name of Hippocoon. (Hygin. Fab. 10, 173; Hom. Il. x. 518; Virg. Aen. v. 492, &c.)