Ilione

A daughter of Priam and Hecabe, is not mentioned by the earlier poets and mythographers, but the later ones relate of her the following story.

At the beginning of the Trojan war her parents entrusted to her, Polydorus, her brother, for she was married to Polymestor, king of the Thracian Chersonesus. Iliona, with more than sisterly affection, brought up Polydorus as if he had been her own child, and represented her own son Deipylus as Polydorus. When Troy was taken and destroyed, the Greeks, desirous of destroying the whole race of Priam, promised Polymestor a large sum of money and the hand of Electra, if he would kill Polydorus.

Polymestor accepted the proposal, but killed his own son Deipylus, whom he mistook for Polydorus. The latter thus escaped; and after having subsequently learned Polymestor's crime, he and Iliona put out the eyes of Polymestor, and then slew him.

This legend was used by Pacuvius and Accius as subjects for tragedies.

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References

Sources

  • Cicero. Academica ii, 27; Tusculanae Disputationes i, 44.
  • Horace. Satires ii, 3, 64.
  • Hyginus. Fabulae, 109, 240.
  • Servius on Virgil's Aeneid i, 653.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.