Nauplius was one of the Argonauts who volunteered to steer the Argo after Tiphys' the original helmsman died. death. He was credited with discovery of the constellation Ursa Major. The Cretan king Catreus, fearful of the possibility of being killed by one of his own children, gave his two daughters, Aerope and Clymene, to Nauplius to sell them away. Instead, Nauplius married Clymene and gave Aerope in marriage to Atreus (or Pleisthenes); Clymene later bore to Nauplius three sons, named Palamedes, Oeax and Nausimedon. Some authors held that Nauplius' wife was named Philyra or Hesione. In a local Tegean version, Auge was also given to Nauplius by her father to be drowned in the sea as she had been raped by Heracles and was about to give birth to Telephus.