PALÆMON, or Melicertes, in fabulous history, a marine god, was the son of Athamas, king of Thebes and Ino. The latter, fearing the rage of the king her husband, took Melicertes in her arms, and leaped with him into the sea, when they were both changed into marine deities; the mother under the name Leucothea, supposed by some to be the same with Aurora; and her son under that of Palemon, or Portunus, a god who presided over sea-ports. Pausanias says, that Melicertes was saved on the back of a dolphin, and his dead body thrown on the isthmus of Corinth, where Sisyphus, his uncle, who reigned in that city, instituted to his honour the Isthmian games.