Tenes

Or Tennes, son of Cycnus, the king of Colone in Troas, and Proclea, or, according to others, a son of Apollo, and brother of Hemithea. After the death of Proclea, Cycnus married Philonome, a daughter of Craugasus or Tragnasus. She fell in love with her stepson; and as she was unable to win the love of Tenes, she accused him before his father of improper conduct towards her. Cycnus accordingly threw both his son and daughter into a chest, and exposed them on the waves of the sea. But the chest was driven on the coast of the island of Leucophrys, which Tenes, after his own name, called Tenedos, after its inhabitants had chosen him for their king.

Cycnus at length heard of the innocence of his son, killed Philonome, and went to his children in Tenedos, where both he and Tenes were slain by Achilles, who, on his voyage to Troy, made a landing on Tenedos. But Tenes was afterwards worshiped as a hero in Tenedos.

According to Pausanias, Tenes did not allow his father to land in Tenedos, but cut off the rope with which Cycnus had fastened his ship to the coast.1 The death of Tenes by Achilles also is related differently, for once, it is said, when Achilles was pursuing the sister of Tenes in Tenedos, Tenes, endeavoring to stop him, was slain by Achilles, who did not know that Tenes was a son of Apollo.2

In the temple of Tenes in Tenedos, it was not allowed to mention the name of Achilles, nor was any fluteplayer permitted to enter it, because the flute-player Molpus had borne false witness against Tenes to please his stepmother Philonome.

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References

Notes

  1. Comp. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Τένεδος.
  2. Plutarch. Greek Questions, 28; Tzetzes, l.c.
  3. Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus, l.c.

Sources

  • Diodorus Siculus. Historical Library v, 83.
  • Pausanias. Description of Greece x, 14.2.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Strabo. Geography xiv, p. 640.
  • Tzetzes on Lycophron, 232.

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