Helenos (son of Priam)

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Sacrifice Aeneas and Helenos
(Limoges enamel plaque, ca.1530)

Helenos ( Greek  Ἕλενος ), originally called Skamandrios , is a Trojan prince, son of Priam and Hecabe and twin brother of Kassandra in Greek mythology .

Like Kassandra, he is said to have had visionary abilities. Before Paris ' departure for Greece, he warned in vain that Paris would kidnap a Greek woman and thereby cause the fall of Troy.

Helenos often gave advice to Hector and Aineias during the Trojan War , but also took an active part in the fighting. Together with Deiphobos and Asios he led one of the five Trojan armies in the attack on the Greek camp. After killing Deipyros, Menelaus attacked him. Helenos shot him with the bow, but the arrow ricocheted off. Menelaus hit him in the hand with the spear, whereupon Helenos fled. Later he even managed to wound Achilles in the hand with an arrow.

After the death of Paris, Helenus and Deiphobos quarreled over Helena . When Deiphobos received her hand, Helenos left Troy and retired to the Ida Mountains . Since the Greek seer Kalchas prophesied that Helenus knew how the Greeks could conquer Troy, Odysseus looked for Helenus and took him prisoner. Helenus was forced to tell the Greeks that they could only win if they took the bones of Pelops , Neoptolemus , son of Achilles, would fight for them and they stole the palladion from the city. He also revealed that they needed Philoctetes' help .

According to another version, Helenos left the city after an argument with Paris. Chryses , the priest , revealed his whereabouts to the Greeks, and Odysseus and Diomedes took him prisoner. In the Greek camp, Chryses then coaxed Helenos out of how Troy could be conquered and communicated it to the Greeks. Thereafter Helenos voluntarily stayed with the Greeks. According to this version, he was also the actual originator of the idea of conquering Troy with a wooden horse .

After the war he emigrated with Neoptolemus to the Molossians in Epirus . Neoptolemus became their king and begat Molossus with Andromache , the captive widow of Hector. Helenos founded a city and according to one version received Neoptolemus' mother Deidameia as his wife. Helenos later married Andromache and had a son from Kestrino. After the death of Neoptolemus he left the rule to Molossus and contented himself with a part of the empire that he called Chaonia . There he was visited by Aeneas, to whom he prophesied the future and gave him rich presents.

According to another version, Helenos was released by Agamemnon after the end of the war , obtained freedom for his mother Hekabe, Kassandra and Andromache and emigrated with them to the Chersonesos .

The Argives claimed in antiquity that Helenos was buried in their city.

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literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dares Phrygius, Acta diurna belli Troiani 7
  2. Homer, Iliad 6.76 ff .; 7.44 ff.
  3. Homer, Iliad 12.94 ff.
  4. Homer, Iliad 13,577 ff.
  5. ^ Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Troiani 3.6
  6. ^ Libraries of Apollodorus 5.9 f.
  7. ^ Sophocles , Philoctetes 343 ff.
  8. ^ Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Troiani 4, 18-21
  9. Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Troiani 5.9
  10. Libraries of Apollodorus 6.12 f.
  11. Pausanias, Helládos Periēgēsis 1,11
  12. Virgil, Aeneid 3,294 ff.
  13. Dares Phrygius, Acta diurna belli Troiani 42 f.
  14. Pausanias, Helládos Periēgēsis 2.23, rejects this.