Source Verification: Priam
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
In the Iliad, how did Priam die?
He does not die in the Iliad. The poem ends with Hector's funeral while Priam is still king. It gives him a foreboding instead: in Book 22 he pictures himself struck down at his door and torn by the dogs he reared at his table. The death itself comes from later works. Apollodorus's Epitome, Euripides and Virgil all make Achilles's son Neoptolemus the killer, at an altar inside Troy.
Source: Homer, Iliad 22.25-78
How many children did Priam have besides Hector?
In the Iliad, Priam tells Achilles he had fifty sons when the Greeks came, nineteen born to one mother and the rest to women of the palace. Hector was one of the fifty. Apollodorus names them instead: Aesacus by his first wife Arisbe, ten sons and four daughters by Hecuba, and thirty-six more sons and four more daughters by other women. Hecuba's daughters include Cassandra and Polyxena. Apollodorus adds that Troilus was said to be a son of Apollo, not of Priam.
Source: Homer, Iliad 24.493-497
In Homer's Iliad, why did Priam choose to go to Achilles instead of Agamemnon to ask for his son's body back?
Because Achilles held the body and Zeus sent Priam to him. Achilles had killed Hector and kept the corpse by his ships. Zeus tells Thetis to have her son accept a ransom, then sends Iris to order Priam to go to Achilles alone, with only an old herald. Agamemnon was a danger, not a help. Before dawn Hermes warns Priam that if Agamemnon learned he was in the camp, his surviving sons would have to pay three times the ransom to free him.
Source: Homer, Iliad 24.143-158
Why didn't Priam just send Helen back the moment she arrived to Troy?
The Iliad puts the refusal on Paris. In Book 7, the Trojan elder Antenor proposes giving Helen and her treasure back to the sons of Atreus. Paris refuses to give up his wife but offers the treasure, with more from his own store. Priam does not overrule him. He sends the herald Idaeus to the Greeks with Paris's offer and a request for a truce to burn the dead. Idaeus adds that the Trojans themselves were urging Paris to give her up.
Source: Homer, Iliad 7.345-397
Who does Priam blame for the Trojan War?
The gods. Sitting on the wall of Troy in Iliad Book 3, Priam calls Helen dear child and tells her she is nowise to blame in his eyes. It is the gods, he says, who roused the tearful war of the Achaeans against him. He says it just after the city's elders murmur that she should be sent away on the ships. In Book 24 he tells the Trojans crowding his portico that Zeus has brought this sorrow on him.
Source: Homer, Iliad 3.161-165
What was the fate of Priam's family after the fall of Troy?
Most of it was destroyed. Apollodorus's Epitome says Neoptolemus killed Priam at the altar, Menelaus killed his son Deiphobus, and the Locrian Ajax violated his daughter Cassandra at the image of Athena. In Euripides's Trojan Women, Hecuba says she saw her sons slain and Priam butchered on his own hearth, and that she will be taken to Greece as a slave. In Euripides's Hecuba, their youngest son Polydorus, sent to Thrace for safety, is murdered by his host for the gold.
Source: Euripides, Trojan Women 470-500
Where Accounts Differ
- where Neoptolemus killed Priam
- how many sons Priam had
- who was the mother of Polydorus
- who was Hecuba's father
- Priam's death absent from the Iliad
- Where Priam died differs by source. Apollodorus (Epitome 5.21) and Euripides (Trojan Women 15-17, Hecuba 22-24) place his death at the household altar of Zeus Herkeios, and Pausanias (4.17.4) repeats that tradition. Virgil (Aeneid 2.506-558) has Pyrrhus drag him to the altar in the palace court and kill him there. Pausanias (10.27.2) reports that the poet Lescheos had him dragged away from the altar and killed at his palace gate.
- The Iliad (24.493-497) gives Priam fifty sons, nineteen by one mother. Apollodorus (Library 3.12.5) names forty-seven sons in all and says Troilus was said to be Hecuba's son by Apollo.
- Polydorus has two mothers. In the Iliad (22.46-48) he is Laothoe's son, while Euripides (Hecuba 1-30) and Apollodorus (Library 3.12.5) make him Hecuba's. In Iliad Book 22 Priam cannot find him among the Trojans in the city; in Euripides he is murdered in Thrace by Polymestor.
- Hecuba's father is named differently. Euripides (Hecuba 1-30) calls her daughter of Cisseus, and Apollodorus (Library 3.12.5) offers Dymas, Cisseus, or the river Sangarius.
- The Iliad does not narrate Priam's death. His own speech in Book 22 foresees it, and the accounts of the killing all come from later works.
Sources
- Homer, Iliad 3.146-244
- Homer, Iliad 3.161-165
- Homer, Iliad 7.345-397
- Homer, Iliad 13.459-461
- Homer, Iliad 22.25-78
- Homer, Iliad 22.59-76
- Homer, Iliad 24.143-158
- Homer, Iliad 24.159-227
- Homer, Iliad 24.228-262
- Homer, Iliad 24.334-467
- Homer, Iliad 24.477-551
- Homer, Iliad 24.493-497
- Homer, Iliad 24.552-676
- Homer, Iliad 24.677-706
- Apollodorus, Library 2.6.4
- Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5
- Apollodorus, Epitome 5.21
- Apollodorus, Epitome 5.22
- Virgil, Aeneid 2.506-558
- Virgil, Aeneid 2.145-150
- Euripides, Hecuba 1-30
- Euripides, Trojan Women 15-17
- Euripides, Trojan Women 470-500
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.27.2
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 4.17.4