Galaxy/The codex of Eurypylus

Son of Telephus, king of Mysia; Pausanias says he cut down Peneleos when the Boeotian captain led Thebes to Troy in place of the young Tisamenus, and Homer names him among the comeliest warriors Neoptolemus slew beside the Ceteians.1

I

When Agamemnon's second expedition against Troy was mustered, Pausanias records, Thebes sent Peneleos to command the Boeotian contingent because Thersander's son Tisamenus was still too young. At Troy Eurypylus, son of Telephus, killed Peneleos — opening the throne to Tisamenus and closing the line of substitute captains.2

II

In the underworld Odysseus tells Achilles' shade how Neoptolemus bore himself at Troy: among the many he killed was the prince Eurypylus, son of Telephus, and many of his Ceteian comrades — slain, Odysseus adds, because of gifts a woman craved. Achilles had asked whether his son followed to the war; Odysseus answers that Neoptolemus was ever first in counsel and ran far to the front in battle, and that Eurypylus was the comeliest man he saw after Memnon.3

III

Telephus' own story already bound father and son across the Aegean: the Mysian king who routed the Greeks at their first landfall and healed his wound from Achilles' spear was father to the warrior Neoptolemus would cut down before the horse — a royal line of the Caicus plain carried into the Trojan War.4

the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story

BEYOND THE POETS

How the centuries since have seen Eurypylus — art, artifacts and echoes.

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