In Greek mythology, Machaon was a son of Asclepius and older brother of Podalirius — one of the two healer-princes who led thirty ships from Tricca to Troy. Homer values him as surgeon and patient alike: he treats Menelaus' arrow wound and is himself wounded by Paris. Later epic has Eurypylus kill him; cult remembered him at Gerenia in Messenia.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Machaon (mythology)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Machaon and Podalirius are sons of Asclepius; they inherit herbs Chiron gave their father. By Anticleia daughter of Diocles of Pharae Machaon fathers Nicomachus and Gorgasus; other sons named include Alexanor, Sphyrus, and Polemocrates. A biographical tradition traced Aristotle's line through Nicomachus back to Machaon.
Homer's Catalogue of Ships pairs the brothers as leaders from Tricca, Ithome, and Oechalia.
II.At Troy
Both brothers are prized surgeons. Machaon (or his brother, in variant notices) tends Philoctetes' festering foot, Telephus, and Menelaus after Pandarus' arrow. In Iliad 11 Paris wounds Machaon; Nestor carries him from the field because "a leech is worth many other men." Dares sketches him as large, brave, prudent, and merciful.
Quintus Smyrnaeus places his death at Eurypylus' hand in the war's tenth year.
III.Cult and legacy
He was buried at Gerenia in Messenia and worshipped there. Modern binomials and a Jovian asteroid keep the healer's name in scientific vocabulary.
This entry is the Asclepiad at Troy only.