Scamander

The god of the Scamander river near ancient Troy. He is a son of Oceanus and Tethys.¹ He and his brother Simois favored the Trojans during the Trojan War and when he caught Achilles in his stream during a battle, he called upon his brother to join him drown the hero in a great flood, to prevent the deaths of more Trojans and the fall of the city.

Hera, fearing for Achilles, appealed to her son Hephaestus to kindle a great fire that soon dried the plain and stayed the flood. It set Scamander's waters boiling, and he released Achilles. He pleaded to Hera, saying he would never again do anything to help the Trojans, not even if all of Troy was burning. When Hera heard this, she asked her son to quench his fires, saying that they ought not to use such violence against a god for the sake of mortals.²

The naiad daughters of Simois and Scamander, Troy's two major rivers, are called the Trojan nymphs (Troiades). By Idaea he is the father of Teucer.

Scamander is also called Xanthus or "Gold-red river" because it colored with such a tinge the fleeces of sheep washed in its waters. According to others, the river was called so because a hero named Xanthus defeated a large number of Trojans on its bank, pushing half of them into its stream.

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