King of the Thracians, son of Eïoneus in Homer, who reached Troy that very evening with horses whiter than snow and chariot cunningly wrought with gold and silver — and was slain in his sleep by Diomedes before he ever fought, while Odysseus drove off the team.1
The Thracians had come that day, the outermost of all the allies, and their king Rhesus son of Eïoneus brought the fairest horses Dolon had ever seen — whiter than snow, swift as the winds — and armour of gold, huge of size, that blazed like a fire through the night. He slept in the midst of his men, his swift horses tethered by the reins to the topmost rim of his chariot.2
Odysseus was first to espy him and pointed him out to Diomedes. The son of Tydeus went through the camp like a lion, slaying twelve sleeping Thracians and at the thirteenth, Rhesus, gasping in an evil dream. Odysseus loosed the horses and lashed them toward the hollow ships, while Athene sent a portent — a dream of Nestor's kinsman Hippocoon, who woke to find the horses gone and the men dead in blood.3
Later legend said Troy would never fall if Rhesus' horses tasted Trojan grass and water before he died — the ally killed on his first night. Apollodorus places him in the Muse-catalogue: Euterpe bore him to Strymon, though some named Calliope instead; Homer knows only Eïoneus and never names a Muse.4⚖
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story