Thoas son of Andraemon and Gorge is king of Pleuron and Calydon and captain of the forty-ship Aetolian contingent at Troy. Homer praises him as best of the Aetolians in javelin, close fight, and debate; later sources place him among Helen's suitors and inside the Wooden Horse. He returned safely — to Aetolia or, in some accounts, to the land of the Brutti — and is kept distinct from the Lemnian, Taurian, Dulichian, and Gigantomachy figures who share the name.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Thoas (king of Aetolia)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Thoas's father Andraemon married Gorge, daughter of Oeneus of Calydon; Diomedes later restored the house and installed Andraemon as king. By the Trojan War Thoas himself ruled Calydon and Pleuron, "honoured even as a god." He had a son Haemon (father of Oxylus, who guided the Heracleidae and received Elis) and an unnamed daughter whom some make wife of the exiled Odysseus and mother of Leontophonus.
II.At Troy and after
The Hesiodic Catalogue lists him among Helen's suitors, bound by the oath to sail for Troy. In the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships he leads forty Aetolian ships because Oeneus, his sons, and Meleager are dead. Homer calls him far the best of the Aetolians — skilled with the javelin, strong in close fight, and few Achaeans could surpass him in debate. He volunteers against Hector, speaks when Hector reappears unwounded, and joins the escort that fetches Agamemnon's gifts for Achilles. Posthomeric epic puts him in the chariot games for Achilles, among the men in the Horse, and (in the Little Iliad tradition) as the man who wounds Odysseus for a spy mission inside Troy.
He was among the few leaders to return unharmed — either to Aetolia or to settle among the Brutti in Italy. Pausanias saw at Amphissa a tomb said to be of Andraemon and Gorge, and a bronze Athena said to be Thoas's Trojan spoil. Homonym care: not thoas-lemnos, thoas-tauris, thoas-dulichium, or thoas-giant.