Myrmidons. The trusty followers of Achilles. They are said to have inhabited originally the island of Aegina, and to have emigrated with Peleus into Thessaly; but more recent critics, on the contrary, suppose that a colony of them emigrated from Thessaly into Aegina. The Myrmidons disappear from history at a later period. The ancients derived their name either from a mythical ancestor, Myrmidon, son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Eurymedusa, and father of Actor; or from the ants in Aegina, which were supposed to have been metamorphosed into men in the time of Aeacus.
