Antenor (Trojan)

Did You Know?

• Antenor was described by the chronicler Malalas as tall, thin, white, blond, small-eyed, hook-nosed, crafty, cowardly, secure, a story-teller, and eloquent.
• In Dares the Phrygian's account, Antenor was illustrated as tall, graceful, swift, crafty, and cautious.

Family

Antenor was the son of the Dardanian noble Aesyetes by Cleomestra, or of Hicetaon. He married Theano, daughter of Cisseus of Thrace, who bore him at least one daughter, Crino, and fifty sons, among them Acamas, Agenor, Antheus, Archelochus, Coön, Demoleon, Eurymachus, Glaucus, Helicaon, Hippolochus, Iphidamas, Laodamas, Laodocus, Medon, Polybus, and Thersilochus; most perished in the Trojan War. He also fathered a bastard son, Pedaeus, by an unknown woman. Some writers include Polydamas and Laocoön among his children. The Suda mentions an unnamed daughter who was a lover of Apollo and turned into a puppy, bearing a son named Telmessos. Another unnamed son was sent to Delphi but was captivated by Panthous and carried him to Troy. Antenor was considered by many scholars to be related to Priam.

Mythology

Antenor was counted among the wisest Trojan elders and counsellors. In Homer's account, he advised the Trojans to return Helen to her husband and supported a negotiated peace with the Greeks. Later mythographers, especially Dares and Dictys, portrayed him as an open traitor who unsealed the city gates to the enemy; his house, marked by a panther skin over the door, was spared during the sack. His subsequent fate varies: he was said to have rebuilt a city on the site of Troy, settled at Cyrene, on the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea, or founded Patavium, Korčula, or other cities in eastern Italy. According to the origin legend of the Franks, he led a group of Trojans north to settle near the Maeotian Swamp and the Sea of Azov. Some sources equate these Trojans with the Cimmerians.

In literature

Antenor appears briefly in Homer's Iliad. In Book 3, when Helen identifies Greek warriors from the wall of Troy, Antenor confirms her account of Odysseus and recalls entertaining Odysseus and Menelaus. He accompanies Priam to the front line and witnesses the king's speech before the duel between Menelaus and Paris. In Book 7, he advises returning Helen, but Paris refuses. A dithyramb by Bacchylides, The Sons of Antenor, covers the embassy mentioned above but survives only in fragments. Sophocles wrote a lost play also called The Sons of Antenor, possibly dealing with the family after the war. Roman playwright Lucius Accius wrote a lost tragedy of the same name; Otto Ribbeck suggested it covered the arrival of Pylaemenes to Troy and his death, leading his Eneti to follow Antenor as they flee. In Vergil's Aeneid (Book 1, line 243), Venus tells Jupiter that Antenor escaped the fall of Troy and founded Patavium. In Dictys Cretensis' Ephemeris belli Troiani, Antenor and Aeneas betray Troy and rule over its remains. In Dares Phrygius' de excidio Trojae historia, Antenor betrays Troy. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae has Antenor and his followers banished from Troy and settling on the Tyrrhenian shore; Brutus later finds their descendants led by Corineus. In Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Antenor is a minor prisoner exchanged for Criseyde. Dante's Inferno names the circle Antenora after him, reserved for traitors of cities and countries. He appears in Jan Kochanowski's The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys and in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Pedro Montegon's 1788 epic romance El Antenor concerns his adventures after Troy's fall.

In history

Mikhail Lomonosov, in his Ancient Russian History, deduced Antenor as a progenitor of the Slavs and Russians. He cited Cato, Pliny, and Titus Livy, who wrote that Antenor came with many Enenites (driven from Paphlagonia and having lost their king Pilimenes at Troy) to the inner extremity of the Adriatic gulf. After expelling the Euganeans, the Henites and Trojans occupied the land, naming the settlement Troy and the nation the Venetians.