In Book 1 of the Argonautica, Apollonios Rhodios counts out the names of 55 heroes who set off to win the Golden Fleece. All the heroes are given genealogical details that often contribute to their characterisation. Only Admetus’ γενεή is passed over in silence by the catalogue. This was noted already by H. Fränkel, who suspected a lacuna in the text. However, there is another solution to the problem. The distinctive relationship of Admetus to his parents is detailed nowhere more clearly and drastically than in Euripides’ Alcestis. In what is perhaps the most bitter agon in Greek tragedy, the father and son quarrel so severely that Admetus throws his parents out of the house and from then on wishes not to be regarded as their son. Apollonios assumes a knowledge of this famous quarrel among his readers or hearers, and he shows the sad consequences of this unreconciled generational conflict by breaking the convention of filiation and silently calling to mind the unresolved problems of the Alcestis.