Laodameia

A daughter of Acastus, and wife of Protesilaus. As the latter, shortly after his marriage, joined the Greeks in their expedition against Troy, and was the first that was killed there, Laodameia sued for the favor of the gods to be allowed to converse with him only for three hours. The request was granted: Hermes led Protesilaus back to the upper world, and when Protesilaus died a second time, Laodameia died with him.

A later tradition states, that after the second death of Protesilaus, Laodameia made an image of her husband, to which she payed divine honors; but as her father Acastus interfered, and commanded her to burn the image, she herself leaped into the fire.1

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References

Notes

  1. Hyginus. Fabulae, 103, 104.

Sources

  • Catullus, 64. 74 ff.
  • Lucian. Dialogues of the Dead xxiii, 1.
  • Ovid. Heroides xiii; Epistulae ex Ponto iii, 1, 110.
  • Servius on Virgil's Aeneid vi, 447.
  • 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.