Philoctetes (Ancient Greek: Φιλοκτήτης) was a renowned Greek hero and skilled archer of classical mythology, son of Poeas, king of Meliboea in Thessaly, by Demonassa or Methone. He came into possession of the bow and Hydra-poisoned arrows of Heracles after assisting the hero at his death on Mount Oeta. A suitor of Helen, he sailed for the Trojan War but was marooned on the island of Lemnos with a festering wound; recalled in the war's tenth year because an oracle declared Troy could not fall without Heracles' weapons, he was healed and killed Paris. He is the subject of several ancient dramas, most famously Sophocles' surviving play Philoctetes.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Philoctetes" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Description
The Byzantine chronicler John Malalas described Philoctetes as "a good height, well set, dark skinned, eyebrows meeting, brave, good eyes, good nose, black hair, hairy, sensible, accurate archer, magnanimous" — one of the few ancient physical portraits of the hero.
II.Stories
Philoctetes obtained the bow and arrows of Heracles after assisting the hero in ending the agony brought on by the shirt of Nessus. Either Philoctetes himself or his father Poeas lit Heracles' funeral pyre on Mount Oeta, releasing the hero into immortality; in gratitude Heracles bestowed his bow and poisoned arrows.
As one of the eligible suitors of Helen, Philoctetes was bound by the suitors' oath to join the campaign to recover her for Menelaus, which became the Trojan War.
En route to Troy he was abandoned on the island of Lemnos with a festering foot wound. Several accounts explain its origin: Hera sent a serpent to punish him for aiding Heracles; a snake emerged from Apollo's altar after Achilles slew King Tenes; the Greeks forced him to reveal Heracles' burial place and his foot, touching the sacred ground, was wounded; or, as in Sophocles' play, he unknowingly trespassed on the shrine of a nymph on the island of Chryse. In some versions the wound came from one of his own poisoned arrows. The injury would not heal and gave off so foul a stench that the army could not bear it.
Philoctetes remained isolated on Lemnos for ten years while the war continued, his contingent passing to the command of Medon.
When Helenus, the prophetic son of Priam, was compelled to reveal that Troy could not be taken without the weapons of Heracles, Odysseus and companions (usually including Diomedes, and in Sophocles' version Neoptolemus, son of Achilles) returned to Lemnos. Odysseus sought to obtain the bow by deceit, but his comrade refused to take the weapons without Philoctetes himself; the deified Heracles then appeared and commanded Philoctetes to rejoin the Greeks, promising healing and glory.
At Troy he was healed by Machaon or Podalirius, sons of Asclepius (one tradition has Pylius, son of Hephaestus, heal him on Lemnos instead). Philoctetes then challenged Paris to single combat and, in one account, killed him with four arrows that struck his bow hand, his right eye, and his heel. He backed Neoptolemus' resolve to keep assaulting the city, was chosen among the warriors in the Trojan Horse, and slew many Trojans in the sack of the city. A scholiast also names Philoctetes among the male lovers of Heracles.
III.Cult and cities
Ancient sources credit Philoctetes with founding or settling several cities, chiefly in southern Italy. At Macalla he was said to have dedicated Heracles' bow and arrows in the temple of Apollo Halius, whence the people of Croton later transferred them to Crotone. According to Justin he founded Thurii, where his monument and Heracles' arrows could still be seen; other authors (Solinus, Strabo, Virgil) attach him to Petelia, Krimisa, Chone and Aegesta.
On an island near Lemnos a memorial to his suffering was maintained, featuring an altar with a bronze serpent, bows, and a breastplate.
IV.Modern depictions
In drama, André Gide adapted the legend in his play Philoctète, the East German playwright Heiner Müller produced a postmodern reworking of Sophocles (premiered 1968 in Munich), and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney rendered the story as The Cure at Troy (1991).
William Wordsworth's sonnet "When Philoctetes in the Lemnian Isle" dwells on the hero's abandonment and the consolation of nature rather than on his bow or wound.
In the visual arts his island isolation and wounded state were painted by James Barry (1770), Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard (1775), and Jean Germain Drouais (1788), while Herman Wilhelm Bissen's sculpture Wounded Philoctetes stands in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.