Sarpedon
A son of Zeus by Laodameia, or according to others of Evander by Deidamea, and a brother of Clarus and Themon.1 He was a Lycian prince, and a grandson of Sarpedon I.
In the Trojan war he was an ally of the Trojans, and distinguished himself by his valor.2 He was slain at Troy by Patroclus.3 Apollo, by the command of Zeus, cleaned Sarpedon's body from blood and dust, anointed it with ambrosia, and wrapped it up in an ambrosian garment. Hypnos and Thanatos then carried it into Lycia, to be honorably buried.4
Eustathius5 gives the following tradition to account for Sarpedon being king of the Lycians, since Glaucus, being the son of Hippolochus, and grandson of Bellerophon, ought to have been king: when the two brothers Isander and Hippolochus were disputing about the government, it was proposed that they should shoot through a ring placed on the breast of a child, and Laodameia, the sister of the two rivals, gave up her own son Sarpedon for this purpose, who was thereupon honored by his uncles with the kingdom, to show their gratitude to their sister for her generosity. This Sarpedon is sometimes confounded with Sarpedon I.6
There was a sanctuary of Sarpedon (probably the one we are here speaking of) at Xanthus in Lycia.7
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References
Notes
- Homer. Iliad vi, 199; Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library iii, 1.1; Diodorus Siculus. Historical Library v, 79; Virgil. Aeneid x, 125.
- Homer. Iliad ii, 876; v, 479 ff., 629 ff.; xii, 292 ff., 397; xvi, 550 ff.; xvii, 152 ff.; comp. Philostratus. Heroicus, 14; Ovid. Metamorphoses xiii, 255.
- Iliad xvi, 480 ff.
- Iliad xvi, 667 ff.; comp. Virgil. Aeneid i, 100.
- on Homer, p. 894.
- As in Euripides' Rhesus, 29; comp. Eustathius on Homer, pp. 369, 636 ff.
- Appian. Civil Wars iv, 78.
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.