Machaon
A son of Asclepius by Epione,1 or, according to others, by Coronis,2 while others again call him a son of Poseidon.3 He was married to Anticleia, the daughter of Diocles,4 by whom he became the father of Gorgasus, Nicomachus,5 Alexanor, Sphyrus, and Polemocrates.6
In the Trojan war Machaon appears as the surgeon of the Greeks, for with his brother Podalirius he had gone to Troy with thirty ships, commanding the men who came from Tricca, Ithome, and Oechalia.7 He was wounded by Paris, but was carried from the field of battle by Nestor.8 Later writers mention him as one of the Greek heroes that were concealed in the wooden horse,9 and he is said to have cured Philoctetes.10
Machaon was killed by Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, and his remains were carried to Messenia by Nestor. His tomb was believed to be at Gerenia, in Messenia, where a sanctuary was dedicated to him, in which sick persons sought relief of their sufferings. It was there that Glaucus, the son of Aepytus, was believed to have first paid him heroic honors.11
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References
Notes
- Homer. Iliad xii, 614; Scholiast on Pindar's Pythian Odes iii, 14.
- Hyginus. Fabulae, 97.
- Eustathius on Homer, p. 859.
- Pausanias. Description of Greece iv, 30.2.
- ibid. iv, 6.3.
- ibid. ii, 11.6; iv, 38.6; Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library iii, 10.8; Hyginus. Fabulae, 81.
- Homer. Iliad ii, 728 ff.; xii, 515.
- ibid xii, 505, 598, 833.
- Hyginus. Fabulae, 108; Virgil. Aeneid ii, 263.
- Tzetzes on Lycophron, 911; Sextus Propertius. Elegies ii, 1, 59.
- Pausanias. Description of Greece iv, 3.2, 6; iii, 26.7.
Source
- 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.