Eunostus | Greek Hero

In Greek mythology, Eunosto was a hero from Tangra, Boeotia. His parents were Elieus, son of Cephisus, and Scias. He would have received his name from the nymph Eunosta who raised him.

The story of Eunosto's death is related by Plutarch, with a reference to a poem written by the poet Mirtis, the poem tells the following narrative.

Ochna, daughter of Colono and cousin of Eunosto, fell in love with him, but he rejected her advances, and was going to talk to Ochna's brothers named Echemo, Leon and Bucolo about what had happened.

Enraged at being rejected, she warned her brothers by telling them that Eunosto had raped her; Ochna's brothers, outraged at the supposed crime, ambushed Eunosto and killed him. Elieus captured his son's murderers. Afterwards, Ochna, in remorse, seeing the harm his lie had caused confessed to Elieus that his accusations were false. Colono, who judged the matter, sent his sons into exile.

Plutarch further relates that there was a shrine dedicated to Eunosto in Tanagra, and that women were not allowed to enter the enclosure, not even in cases of emergency, such as earthquakes, because of the harm caused by Ochna to Eunosto.