Son of Damastor and the most forward voice among Penelope's suitors in the last hours — once urging restraint when Telemachus rebuked their abuse of the stranger, later plotting escape by the postern door with Melanthius' help, mocking Athena in Mentor's likeness, and leading the last spear-fight with Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus, Peisander and wise Polybus until he fell in the hall; his sword lay on the floor for Odysseus to seize when the soothsayer Leiodes begged for mercy.1
When Telemachus warned the wooers not to mistreat the beggar or the slaves of Odysseus' house, the hall fell silent until Agelaus son of Damastor answered with seeming fairness: no one should reply with wrangling words to what had been fairly spoken, nor abuse the stranger any more — though he still pressed Telemachus and Penelope toward the marriage.2
In the crisis of the bow, he urged a man to mount by the postern door and raise the people against Odysseus, that the stranger might shoot his last. Melanthius the goatherd, who hated Odysseus, climbed to the store-room, brought down armour for the wooers, and opened the postern for them — but the swineherd Eumaeus and the neatherd Philoetius, warned by Odysseus, blocked the way.3
When Athena appeared in the hall as Mentor, Agelaus was first to shout that Mentor must not be beguiled to fight for father and son — for when the wooers had killed them, they would divide the possessions and give the house to Penelope and her husband.4
He stood among the best of the suitors still alive when the arrows had already laid the rest low — with Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus, Peisander son of Polyctor, and wise Polybus, in valiance far the best of all who still fought for their lives. Agelaus urged them on; spears flew from both sides until Odysseus, Telemachus, and the loyal herdsmen prevailed.5
When he fell among the last fighters, his sword lay on the hall floor — the weapon Odysseus seized to cut down Leiodes the soothsayer, who had clasped his knees and begged for mercy though he had prayed among the company against the king's return.6
Apollodorus opens the island catalogue of Same with Agelaus among the twenty-three wooers who came from Cephallenia — whether the same son of Damastor whom Homer knows at Ithaca, the Epitome does not say.7
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story