Tereus was a king of Thrace, son of Ares and the Nymph Bistonis. When Pandion, king of Athens, asked for his aid in a war with Labdacus of Thebes, Tereus responded immediately. In gratitude for their victory, Pandion gave Tereus his daughter Procne for his bride. The couple returned to Thrace, where a son, Itys, was born to them. In one version of the myth, Tereus hid Procne and, pretending she had died, asked Pandion for her sister, Philomela’ according to Ovid (Metamorphoses 6.412-674), Procne missed her sister and asked Tereus to fetch her from Athens. However it happened, he fell in love with Philomela and upon reaching Thracian soil raped her, cut out her tongue so that she could not betray him, and hid her in a hut in the forest, telling Procne that she had died. Philomela embroidered the story on a piece of cloth and sent it in secret to her sister, who resolved to take vengeance. She freed Philomela and together they killed Itys, cooked him into a stew and served it to Tereus. When he realised what had happened he went in pursuit of the two women, but the gods turned Procne into a nightingale and Philomela into a swallow (or vice versa), while Tereus was transformed into a hoopoe.
