Macareus (son of Aeolus) Macareus (son of Aeolus) Macar (; , "Makar") or Macareus (; , "Makareus" means "happy") was, in Greek mythology, the son of Aeolus, though sources disagree as to which bearer of this name was his father: it could either be Aeolus the lord of the winds, or Aeolus the king of Tyrrhenia. His mother was, at least in the latter case, Amphithea. Macareus and his sister Canace fell in love with each other and had a child together. Canace was ordered to kill herself and the baby exposed by Aeolus after he had discovered this, and Macareus took his own
Greek mythology libretti for many of Handel's and Mozart's operas. By the end of the 18th century, Romanticism initiated a surge of enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In Britain, new translations of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired contemporary poets (such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Keats, Byron and Shelley) and painters (such as Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema). Christoph Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many others set Greek mythological themes to music. American authors of the 19th century, such as Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne, held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of