Present...
HEROES OF THE TROJAN ALLIANCE
Priamos
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
"Of all the cities that men live under the sun and the starry sky, the nearest to my heart was Troy, with Priam and the people of Priam."
Zeus to Hera; Homer, Iliad 4.45
Priam is the son of Laomedon and Strymo, and is the third king of the city of Troy (also called 'Ilium', after its founder Ilus). His father Laomedon became well known for his arrogance and hubris, and this spelled doom for him. For he was punished by Poseidon and Apollo, who sent a plague on the Trojan people and a sea monster to ravage the coasts. It was prophesied that the monster would only be satisfied once Laomedon had given up his daughter as a sacrifice to it. As she was tied up on the sea shore, the legendary hero Heracles saw her, killed the monster, and freed the girl. However, Laomedon tried to trick Heracles out of his reward, and so Heracles launched the first Achaean war on Troy. He easily took the city, killed Laomedon, and gave the royal sceptre to Laomedon's son Priam, advising him to be a better ruler than his father. He slew the rest of Laomedon's sons, however.
Indeed, Priam did become a much better ruler than his father, and under his guidance Troy became wealthy and powerful once more. As a young man Priam fought in a war against the Amazons, and was joined by Mygdon, king of the Bebrycians, and Otreus, king of the Phrygians. Thus he joined the ranks of great Amazonomachoi (people who fought the Amazons) such as Heracles and Theseus. In fact, many say that it was Priam's war that caused the Amazons' decline. At any rate, Priam won the Amazons over to become his 'allies' - even if they were a little reluctant.
Priam's first wife was called Arisbe, but he gave her over to the Phrygian ruler Hyrtacus, and took Hecabe as his second wife. She gave Priam his first son, Hector, followed soon after by Paris. This son was to prove to be the ruin of Troy, when he sailed back from Sparta with Menelaus' wife Helen. When the sons of Atreus declared war on Troy, Priam had to instruct Hector, the commander of his armies, to prepare the city's defences. While many people blamed Helen for bringing war and destruction on the city, Priam was nonetheless extremely tolerant and sympathetic to her. In Book 3 of the Iliad, the poet Homer records that many Trojan elders saw Helen walk past and, while they noted her great beauty, even so they said that it would be much better if she was driven out of Troy to leave them in peace. Priam, on the other hand, invited her to sit down next to him, and told her that he bore her no ill will, but rather blamed the gods for his misfortune. One time, in counsel, the Trojan Antenor demanded that Paris restore Helen to the Achaeans, but Priam actually came in on Paris' side and said that he should be allowed to keep her.
Towards the end of the tenth year of the Trojan War, Hector resolved to go out to face Achilles in open battle. For the first time, Priam tried to seriously influence his son's decisions, and he tried to stop him going to fight the great Achaean hero. However, Hector went out to face him anyway, and was slain in battle. Priam saw Hector's death, and then watched as Achilles tied him to the back of his chariot and dragged him around the city walls. Priam attempted to leave Troy to beg Achilles for the body, but was stopped by his people. He fell down in the dung, pleading to be allowed to leave, but they stopped him.
Priam had lost many sons in the war, but Hector was by far his favourite, his first-born. He decided to leave Troy late at night under cover of darkness to try to ransom back Hector's body from Achilles. As he left, he rebuked his other children, who fell short of his love for Hector. While he travelled to the Achaean camp, the god Hermes made him invisible until he reached Achilles' hut. Achilles had been horribly abusing Hector's body (though the gods kept it from being damaged), but eventually his mother Thetis persuaded him to relent. He felt pity for Priam and admired his boldness in coming to ask so directly, and so let him have his son's body so that he could give it the funeral rites.
Eventually, of course, Troy fell to the Achaeans. Priam was waiting in the inner chambers of his palace with his wife Hecabe. Finally Achilles' son Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus) found him and cruelly hacked him down even as he was grasping at the altar of his family gods.
Hektor
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Hector is the eldest son of King Priam of Troy and his wife Hecabe. Strangely enough, the poets say extremely little about his early life; nothing at all is known of his childhood, and all that is said about his deeds before the Trojan War is that he once sacked the city of Troezen in Achaea, carrying away Aethra (the mother of Theseus of Athens) as his captive. At any rate, he soon became famous throughout the world as a warrior and a bastion of the Trojan people, renowned for his leadership capability and his martial valour. As a result, although still a prince and not yet king, Hector was given overall command of the Trojan armies and their allies at the outbreak of the war with the Achaeans.
Hector would become best known for his appearance in the Iliad of the poet Homer, in which he serves as the great nemesis of the Achaean armies, and especially Achilles. After Achilles withdrew from the fighting in a sulk during the tenth year of the war, Hector led the Trojan fightback in which his armies came within an ace of storming and capturing the Achaeans' own encampment on the Trojan shore. However, when he killed Patroclus, mistaking him for Achilles, he would rouse Achilles' anger and draw him out to battle once more. When the two men eventually met, Hector would prove the inferior warrior; Achilles slew him and dragged his body around the walls of Troy three times. However, Zeus loved Hector so much that he miraculously preserved the hero's body, so that even with Achilles' constant abuse and maiming, the condition of Hector's body never deteriorated, but it remained young and beautiful.
Aside from his bravery, charisma and command abilities, Hector is known for his piety and devotion to the gods, his family and his homeland. He is married to Andromache, an especially pious woman herself, and will prove to be an extremely difficult opponent for all who stand in his way.
Aineias
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Aeneas is the son of the mortal Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. It is said that Zeus, wanting to prevent Aphrodite from boasting that she had made all the other gods fall in love with mortals, decided to make her desire a mortal man herself, and so joined her to the Trojan Anchises. She appeared to Anchises in the form of a beautiful maiden, claiming that she was the daughter of a nobleman named Otreus. Yet, when they had lain together, Aphrodite revealed her true identity to him, and reassured him that he was dear to the gods and that he had nothing to fear. But there was one thing - he would have to tell everyone that the son who resulted from the relationship was the son of a nymph.
Very little is known about Aeneas before the beginning of the Trojan War, though it is said by the poets that he became the leader of the Dardanians, a people who live nearby in Mysia and are closely allied to the Trojan people. Aeneas represents a separate line of the royal house of Dardanus to that of Priam, and it has been prophesied by Poseidon that Aeneas would be preserved through the Trojan War to become King over the Trojan people and replace the royal line of Priam, which has fallen out of favour with Zeus...
Aeneas is a brave character and great leader of men, though so far young and yet to mature fully. No doubt, with experience, he will become a famous hero.
Sarpedon
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Sarpedon is the grandson of Bellerophon, the famous Achaean exile from Ephyra who rode the winged horse Pegasus and slew the Chimera. Bellerophon had been in the service of King Iobates, who saw him as a threat and tried in various ways to get rid of him. When he saw that Bellerophon excelled in every challenge that was put his way, Iobates decided that he must have the protection of the gods and so bequeathed his kingdom to him and his descendants - if you can't beat them, you might as well join them. Bellerophon had two sons, Isander and Hippolochus, as well as two daughters, Laodamia and Deidamia. Laodamia was extremely beautiful, and Zeus himself fell in love with her and lay with her. Laodamia thus gave birth to a son, whom she named Sarpedon, and who was especially beloved of Zeus. Zeus decided to grant him life for three generations - should he not be unnaturally slain in the meantime.
The grandson of Bellerophon and son of Zeus, Sarpedon ascended to the throne of the Lycians, whom he rules together with his cousin Glaucus. He married a Theban woman and had two sons by her, Antiphates and Evander. Sarpedon's became close allies of the Trojans, and Sarpedon is extremely upright and faithful in honouring this alliance. When the war with the Achaeans broke out, Sarpedon had no desire to fight the Achaeans, considering that his ancestry was Achaean and that he was married to an Achaean woman, but through his sense of duty promised to fight as bravely and as resolutely as he could in support of the Trojan cause.
The poet Homer relates that he would slain during the Trojan War by Patroclus, the companion of Achilles, but the Roman poet Virgil adds that his son Antiphates would escape the sack of Troy with Aeneas and fight alongside him in Italy, until his death at the hands of Turnus.
Paris
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Paris, sometimes also called Alexander, is the second son of Priam and Hecabe, the king and queen of Troy. As such, he is second in rank among their many children to Hector and, despite their rather different characters, they are often to be seen together. When he was born, Hecabe had a dream that she was giving birth to a firebrand that destroyed the city of Troy; when she told this to the seer Aesacus, who had learnt his prophetic art from Merops, he advised that the young child should be exposed and left to die for the good of the city. At length Priam and Hecabe agreed to this, and handed the boy over to the servant Agelaus, who left him on the slopes of Mt Ida. After five days Agelaus returned to fetch the body, but discovered that the child was still alive; a bear had found him and had been nursing him. And so Agelaus decided to carry him away and raise him as his own son, calling him 'Paris'. Paris grew up to be a strong and handsome young man, and a fine shepherd, defending the flocks of sheep on Mt Ida. It is for this reason that he gained the name 'Alexandros' (which means 'defending man') and is sometimes referred to as the 'Shepherd of Ida', even today.
Paris has become most famous for his loves - he is the romantic par excellence. Indeed, when he heard about Hecabe's dream that she was giving birth to a firebrand, he understood this not to be the war that would destroy Troy, but rather a symbol of the love that he would have for his wife. Paris' first love came to him when he was a shepherd on Mt Ida, the nymph Oenone, a daughter of the river god Cebren. Oenone was possessed by Apollo and so had the gift of prophecy. Paris took her to his home on Mt Ida and promised that he would never leave her, but the prophetess nymph knew that, while Paris was indeed momentarily in love with her, his fancy would eventually be taken by some other woman. Some have said that she didn't even need to have been a prophetess to realise this, since Paris' amorous temperament was quite notorious. Oenone also prophesied that Paris would fall in love with a European woman and bring her back with him to Troy, causing a war in which he would receive a wound that only Oenone could heal. Oenone knew that Paris would someday forget about her, but she herself was in love, and never gave up her feelings for him.
The Fates, however, had something momentous in store for Paris. Far away, in Phthia, the Olympian gods decided to attend the wedding feast of the mortal Peleus and the goddess Thetis. Unfortunately, though she had not been invited, the goddess Eris (Discord) also decided to drop in, as she so often does on such occasions. She brought with her one of the apples of the Hesperides, which had "For the fairest" inscribed on it. She tossed it in through the door of the reception room, and it was discovered by the three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They didn't care much for the apple, though it did raise a burning and important question that the goddesses just had to settle - which one of them was the more beautiful? Zeus, wanting to put an end to their incessant quarrelling, sent the messenger god Hermes to Mt Ida in order to fetch the one man who had the best judgment in matters of the heart - Paris.
When he was presented to the three goddesses, they decided that, rather than just letting their own beauty convince him, they should each attempt to make doubly sure of his support by offering him a bribe. Athena offered to make him the bravest of all mortals and skilled in every craft; Hera offered to give him dominion over all of Asia and Europe; Aphrodite, however, offered him the hand in marriage of the most beautiful woman in the world. What else was Paris going to choose? He decided that the prize should go to Aphrodite, who probably deserved it anyway, and take the most beautiful woman in the world. Just one problem stood in the way, however - she was already married.
Back on Mt Ida, Paris was still a shepherd. One day, some of King Priam's servants came to the mountain to find a bull to be a prize in some funeral games, and as they led it away Paris followed them, for it was his favourite bull. He took part in the funeral games and defeated all the other contenders, including some of his own biological brothers. It was then that the prophetess Cassandra (daughter of Priam) announced that he was her brother, and King Priam decided to accept Paris back into his household. Now a prince, Paris had a ship built for him, and despite Oenone's pleas not to sail, he set out for Sparta to claim the prize that Aphrodite had offered him. He even painted an image of Aphrodite on the ship's sail. When he arrived in the Peloponnese he was greeted by Helen's brothers the Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces), and escorted to Sparta where King Menelaus received him as a guest for nine days. However, on the ninth day Menelaus heard that his grandfather Catreus had been killed on Crete, accidentally slain by his own son Althaemenes, and had to set sail at once. As he left, he said to Helen:
"Look to my affairs, and to the household, and to our guest from Troy."
With Menelaus away from home and the support of the goddess Aphrodite, it was not long before Paris had completely seduced Helen. She was worried about her reputation and did not really want to leave her home in Sparta, but was powerless against the might of the goddess. Despite Hera's attempts to frustrate their journey back to Troy by sending their ship off-course to Cyprus and Phoenicia, the couple soon arrived back in Mysia. Cassandra could see that this was to be the source of the city's doom, but Priam had little choice now but to welcome Helen as his son's bride. The messenger goddess Iris, sent by the jealous goddesses Hera and Aphrodite, quickly brought the news to Menelaus on Crete, who immediately set out for Agamemnon's court at Mycenae. By the Oath of Tyndareus, the princes of Achaea were bound to preserve Menelaus' marriage to Helen, and so Agamemnon ordered their armies to begin gathering at the harbour of Aulis in Boeotia. The Trojan War was at last set in motion...
Penthesileia
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: