Teukros (Salamis)
Teukros ( Greek Τεῦκρος , Latin Teucer) is in Greek mythology the half-brother of the great Ajax and like him a son of Telamon , king of Salamis .
Teukros fought side by side with his brother in the Trojan War . He was an excellent archer, but also fought well with the spear. After the tragic death of his brother, he became the tutor of his son Eurysakes . When he returned to Salamis with this, Telamon refused to take him in because Teukros had not avenged his brother's death. Teukros embarked on a prophecy of Apollo back to Cyprus , landed on the beach of the Achaeans in Northern Cyprus, and finally founded by the Phoenician father of Dido a new Salamis . Thereafter the Cypriot kings are called Teukrids . The participation of the Phoenicians is likely to represent the memory of Salamis' Phoenician past before the Hellenization .
According to an isolated version, he tried to return to his homeland after the death of his father, but was prevented from doing so by Eurysakes and sailed to Spain, where he settled in Gallaecia .
In Canto 15 (458–465) of the Iliad , Teukros receives an aristia in which only the intervention of Zeus prevents him from killing Hector :
- Teukros, taking another missile at the shimmering Hector,
- Aims'; and he would have stopped the fight by the ships of Achaia,
- Had he killed the bravest hero with a striking arrow.
- But the ruling Zeus did not forget him; he shielded
- Hector, and robbed the Telamonian Teukros of the fame.
- Behold, the beautifully braided cord of the blameless bow
- It broke quickly in dressing; and sideways it flew astray
- Its heavy bullet, and the bow sank from the left.
- (Translation: Johann Heinrich Voss )
literature
- Johannes Schmidt : Teukros 2 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 5, Leipzig 1924, Col. 407-414 ( digitized version ).