Tlepolemus, a son of Heracles, killed his great-uncle Licymnius and fled overseas to settle Rhodes, whence he later led the Rhodian ships to Troy and fell to Sarpedon.1
Homer names Tlepolemus a son of Heracles, born to him by Astyocheia, whom the hero led out of Ephyre by the river Selleis after sacking many cities of warriors in their prime. Apollodorus tells the same begetting more fully: when Heracles took Ephyra, of which Phylas was king, he lay with the king's daughter Astyoche and became the father of Tlepolemus. So the boy stood half in the line of Zeus, kin to the wide brood of the Heraclids.2
The killing of Licymnius—Heracles' aged uncle, the scion of Ares—drove Tlepolemus into exile, and the two accounts of how it happened do not agree. In Homer Tlepolemus, grown to manhood, slew his father's dear uncle outright, and the other sons and grandsons of Heracles at once threatened him; Pausanias, who points out the grave of Licymnius at Argos, follows Homer and adds that for this homicide Tlepolemus was banished from Argos.3
Apollodorus softens the deed into an accident, set in the years before the Heraclids came out of the Peloponnese: while Tlepolemus was beating a servant with his staff, Licymnius ran in between the blows and was struck down. Either way the outcome was the same flight. He gathered no few followers and fled across the sea, coming at last to Rhodes, where he dwelt.4
On Rhodes his people settled in three divisions, in Lindos and Ialysus and Cameirus white with chalk—the three cities that later tradition counted as his founding.5
In the muster against Troy, Tlepolemus led nine ships of the lordly Rhodians; the catalogues of Homer and of Apollodorus alike set his contingent at that number.6
At Troy fate roused Tlepolemus against godlike Sarpedon, son and grandson of Zeus advancing one upon the other. Tlepolemus cast first and drove his spear through Sarpedon's left thigh, grazing the bone; but Sarpedon's answering spear struck him full through the neck, and dark death enfolded his eyes. So the son of Heracles fell, slain by the Lycian, and the Achaeans bore his body out of the press.7
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