Diomedes, son of Tydeus and grandson of Oeneus, is the Argive king whose rage at Troy carries him past the bounds of mortal war: empowered by Athena, in a single day's aristeia he wounds both Aphrodite and Ares, the immortal blood of two gods flowing from his spear.1
Diomedes is the son of Tydeus and Deipyle, and so the grandson of Oeneus of Calydon. His father, comrade of Polynices among the Seven, had fallen at Thebes, and Diomedes belongs to the avenging second generation, the Epigoni, who took the city their fathers could not: Pausanias counts him among the statues at Argos of those who captured Thebes, and Hyginus names him in the Epigoni's roll.2
In the fifth book of the Iliad Pallas Athena gives the son of Tydeus 'might and courage, that he should prove himself pre-eminent amid all the Argives,' kindling unwearying flame from his helm and shield and lifting the mist from his eyes so that he may know god from man. In the storm of his aristeia he hurls a great stone at Aeneas and would have killed him, but Aphrodite catches up her son; discerning her for a weakling goddess, Diomedes drives his spear after her and wounds the surface of her delicate hand, so that the immortal blood flows forth, and she flees wailing to Olympus while Apollo snatches Aeneas wholly away. The day is not finished: with Athena herself mounting his car and guiding the bronze, he drives his single spear into the nethermost belly of Ares, who bellows as loud as nine or ten thousand men and rushes up to Zeus to show the blood streaming from his wound.3
His warcraft is matched by a memory of guest-right. Meeting Glaucus between the lines, Diomedes learns that Oeneus once hosted Bellerophon, the Lycian's forebear, for twenty days with an exchange of gifts; he plants his spear in the ground, declares 'thou art a friend of my father's house from of old,' and the two refuse to fight, swapping armour instead — Glaucus, his wits stolen by Zeus, giving golden for bronze. By night he is Odysseus' chosen partner, the two of them raiding the Thracian camp of Rhesus in the Doloneia.4
Apollodorus carries the partnership beyond the Iliad: Odysseus and Diomedes steal by night into Troy and carry off the Palladium, the talisman without which the city could not be taken.5
When the sons of Agrius drive Oeneus from Calydon, Diomedes comes from Argos to avenge him, and the sources tell the rescue differently. Apollodorus has him steal in secretly with Alcmaeon and put to death all the sons of Agrius save Onchestus and Thersites; because Oeneus is old, Diomedes gives the kingdom to Andraemon. Hyginus has him come to Aetolia with Sthenelus, kill Agrius' son Lycopeus, expel the now-needy Agrius (who takes his own life), and restore the throne to Oeneus himself. Pausanias says he aided the old man with an expedition into Calydonia, giving him all the attention right to give a father's father.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
