Hero Biography 2 - Diomedes
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Diomedes
As a young boy, Diomedes grew up in the city of Argos in the Peloponnese. He was the son of Tydeus, an Aetolian hero, and an Argive mother named Deipyle. Tydeus forced to flee from his home city of Calydon in Aetolia to escape the persecution of his brother Agrius, and so he came to the court of King Adrastus of Argos as a suppliant. There Tydeus married Adrastus' daughter Deipyle, and Adrastus even offered to restore Tydeus to the throne of Calydon. However, in the meantime he had a job of his own for Tydeus. Adrastus' son-in-law Polynices, the son of Oedipus the disgraced former king of Thebes, had been driven from that city by Creon and his own brother Eteocles. And so Tydeus agreed to take part in what would become known as the 'War of the Seven Against Thebes', in which he and six other heroes (including Polynices) went to recapture Thebes. The war was a failure, and Tydeus perished in battle. With Tydeus dead, there was no longer any need for his son Diomedes to return to Calydon, and so he became a permanent resident in Argos.
Ten years after the Seven Against Thebes, their sons (including Diomedes) returned to fight a war of revenge against the city, which was now ruled by Eteocles' son Laodamas. They were known as the 'Epigoni' ('Descendants'), and they aimed to put Polynices' son Thersander on the throne of Thebes. Thersander gathered the force of Epigoni and they appointed Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle, and enrolled troops from Corinth, Arcadia, Messenia, Megara, and of course Argos. They first of all laid waste the lands of Southern Boeotia and then encountered the Theban army at Glisas, where Alcmaeon slew Laodamas in single combat. The Theban army broke and fled, and then, on the advice of the famous prophet Tiresias, surrendered the city to Thersander. The other heroes returned to their own cities, now enriched with plunder.
Now back in Argos, Diomedes turned his mind once more to Calydon in Aetolia. As Adrastus' son-in-law Diomedes came to reign over Argos, and so led an Argive army to Calydon. His aim was to remove his uncle Agrius (who had usurped the throne) and free his grandfather Oeneus, who had been imprisoned by Agrius. With the help of his fellow Epigonus Alcmaeon, Diomedes attacked and conquered Calydon. Agrius killed himself, though Diomedes was able to catch and slay most of Agrius' supporters, except for Onchestus and Thersites, who fled to the Peloponnese. Rather than putting Oeneus back on the throne of Calydon, however, Diomedes brought him back with him to Argos, giving the government of Calydon to Oeneus' son-in-law Andraemon. However, as they were passing through Arcadia on their return to Argos, Diomedes and Oeneus were ambushed by Onchestus and Thersites, who managed to kill the old man. Diomedes was unharmed, but all that he was able to do was to bring Oeneus' corpse to Argos. Oeneus was buried to the North-West of Argos, at a place that became known as Oenoe.
Though there is some dispute over the chronology of these early episodes in Diomedes' life, nonetheless it is well known that he became one of the suitors of Helen, the daughter of Tyndareus. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and suitors came from all over Achaea to ask for her hand. Since Tyndareus was afraid that the unsuccessful suitors would come back with armies to try to take Helen by force, he adopted Odysseus' plan that all the suitors should swear a divine oath to protect (with force) the marriage of whichever man was successful. Diomedes swore to this oath. Menelaus was successful, however, and so Diomedes became bound to defend his marriage, effectively making him subject to the leadership of the Atreidae, along with all the other great princes of Achaea. It is at this point in Diomedes' life that the events of Aristeia begin.
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Helen was of course stolen away to Troy by Paris, and so Diomedes was called upon to join the Achaean army that sailed under Agamemnon and Menelaus to retrieve her from the Trojans. He personally contributed eighty ships to the Achaean fleet. The Achaean leaders gathered at Aulis in Boeotia, and it was there that Diomedes became a close friend of Odysseus. When the fleet initially tried to sail out of the harbour, it kept being blown back in by the wind. Eventually Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his own daughter Iphigenia to appease the whims of the gods, and it is said that Diomedes and Odysseus were the only two Achaean leaders who knew about this at the time.
In the fighting around Troy, Diomedes was counted as one of the bravest of the Achaeans. He slew about thirty enemy heroes during the war, including Rhesus (king of the Thracians), Chromius and Echemmon (two sons of Priam) and Alcibie and Derimachea (two Amazon warriors). The poet Homer recounts much of his fighting in Books 5 and 6 of the Iliad, the so-called 'Diomedous Aristeia'. Having killed many Trojan fighters, Diomedes came across Aeneas in the thick of battle (the same Aeneas who would later go to Italy and establish the Roman nation) and would have killed him too, had not Aeneas' mother the goddess Aphrodite hidden him in a cloud and helped him escape. Nonetheless, Diomedes even attacked Aphrodite and wounded her in the hand, whereupon she fled back to Mount Olympus in tears. She handed Aeneas over to Apollo, and Diomedes would even have continued his attack, had the great god Apollo not rebuked him loudly and reminded him of his divine powers, saying:
"Think, Diomedes, and give way! Do not aspire to be the equal of the gods. The immortals are not made of the same stuff as men that walk on the ground!"
Later on in the same battle, the god Ares came to fight on the Trojan side. He had previously promised to Athena and Hera that he would help the Achaeans, but he either forgot or changed his mind. Therefore Athena came down and stood next to Diomedes in his chariot. She took the reins and drove the chariot towards Ares, encouraging Diomedes to attack the god. He did so, and with Athena's help the spear wounded Ares in his lower abdomen, and he too fled to Mount Olympus in pain. It is true that Diomedes defied the gods in battle, though only with the help of more powerful gods, it must be remembered. Nonetheless, he made himself widely renowned for his fighting prowess.
Diomedes and Odysseus went on various adventures together during the war. During one night (the so-called 'Dolonea' of the Iliad, though it was probably not composed by Homer) he and Odysseus went out to raid the Trojan camp. There they found the Thracian Rhesus, a wealthy and famous warrior who had just joined the Trojan army that very same day. He was asleep, and the two Achaean heroes slew him where he lay and plundered his armour. On their way back to the Achaean camp they ran across the Trojan spy Dolon and killed him too. On another occasion Odysseus and Diomedes infiltrated Troy to steal the Palladium (a famous statue of Pallas Athena), having learned from the Trojan prophet Antenor that the city would not fall unless the Achaeans managed to obtain it.
However, Diomedes was not only famous for being a great fighter and adventurer. He was also very well known for his honour and mercy. Once he encountered the Lycian hero Glaucus on the battlefield, and prepared to fight with him. Yet when they both announced their parentage to each other (as was the custom before heroes duelled), he realised that Glaucus' grandfather Bellerophon had been a guest-friend of his own grandfather Oeneus, and so the two men decided not to do battle after all, but to make a public assertion of their friendship. They exchanged armour, though Homer notes that it was not an equal exchange - Glaucus gave up a suit of golden armour worth a hundred oxen, whereas Diomedes' merely gave up a suit of bronze armour worth nine oxen.
Eventually Odysseus conceived of the Wooden Horse, with which the Achaeans managed to capture Troy. The Achaean army retreated and the fleet anchored on the opposite side of the island of Tenedos, just off the Trojan coast. Meanwhile a large horse statue was left outside the city of Troy. After a debate, the Trojans decided to bring it inside the city and dedicate it to Poseidon, unaware that the belly of the horse contained a large force of Achaean heroes. Diomedes was one of the heroes inside the horse. At night time, when the Trojans were asleep after a day's revelling in their supposed victory, the Achaean heroes stole out of the horse and opened the gates of the city. The Achaean army had returned from Tenedos, and seized Troy in an orgy of violence and blood-letting.
When the war was over and Diomedes tried to return home, he was frustrated by Palamedes. Palamedes had apparently been the only man ever to outwit Odysseus - when Odysseus had been trying to get out of his obligations to support Agamemnon's expedition against Troy, Palamedes had tricked him into fulfilling his oath. Therefore, when the army had reached Troy, Odysseus murdered Palamedes in revenge, and it is claimed by some that Diomedes had helped him in this. Whatever the truth was, Palamedes' brother Oeax went to Argos and spoke to Diomedes' wife Aegialia. He told her that Diomedes was bringing another woman back from Troy to be his wife, and so, with the help of Aphrodite (who was still angry at the wound she had received from Diomedes at Troy) helped Aegialia to take on a series of lovers. When Diomedes returned to Argos, he found the city gates closed to him, and was forced to leave once and for all.
Diomedes and his companions left Achaea for the last time and migrated to the court of King Daunus in South-Eastern Italy, where he married the king's daughter and became an Italian prince. When Aeneas arrived in Latium and fought against the Italians led by Turnus, some of his enemies came to Diomedes to persuade him to join the fight against Aeneas. However, Diomedes, having had enough of war, refused, and lived out the rest of his life in peace in Apulia. Some people say that Athena later made him a god.
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Originally Posted by Claudius the God
