Antenor was described by the chronicler
Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "tall, thin, white, blond, small-eyed, hook-nosed, crafty, cowardly, secure, a story-teller, eloquent".[1] Meanwhile, in the account of
Dares the Phrygian, he was illustrated as "...tall, graceful, swift, crafty, and cautious."[2]
Antenor was one of the wisest of the Trojan elders and counsellors.[29] In the
Homeric account of the
Trojan War, Antenor advised the Trojans to return
Helen to
her husband and otherwise proved sympathetic to a negotiated peace with the
Greeks.[30] In later developments of the myths, particularly per
Dares and
Dictys,[29] Antenor was made an open
traitor, unsealing the city gates to the enemy. As payment, his house—marked by a
panther skin over the door—was spared during the sack of the city.[30]
His subsequent fate varied across the authors. He was said to have rebuilt a city on the site of
Troy; to have settled at
Cyrene;[30] the shore of the
Tyrrhenian Sea;[31] or to have founded
Patavium (modern
Padua),[32][33]Korčula,[34] or other cities in eastern Italy.[30]
In literature
Antenor appears briefly in
Homer's Iliad. In Book 3 he is present when
Helen identifies for
Priam each of the Greek warriors from the wall of Troy; when she describes
Odysseus, Antenor confirmed her account, alluded to how he entertained
Odysseus and
Menelaus and got to know both.
On this Antenor said, "Madam, you have spoken truly.
Ulysses once came here as envoy about yourself, and
Menelaus with him. I received them in my own house, and therefore know both of them by sight and conversation. When they stood up in presence of the assembled Trojans,
Menelaus was the broader shouldered, but when both were seated
Ulysses had the more royal presence. After a time they delivered their message, and the speech of
Menelaus ran trippingly on the tongue; he did not say much, for he was a man of few words, but he spoke very clearly and to the point, though he was the younger man of the two;
Ulysses, on the other hand, when he rose to speak, was at first silent and kept his eyes fixed upon the ground. There was no play nor graceful movement of his sceptre; he kept it straight and stiff like a man unpractised in oratory- one might have taken him for a mere churl or simpleton; but when he raised his voice, and the words came driving from his deep chest like winter snow before the wind, then there was none to touch him, and no man thought further of what he looked like."
In the same book, he accompanied
Priam to the front line and bore witness of the King's speech before the duel between
Menelaus and his son,
Paris. In Book 7, as mentioned above, he advises the Trojans to give Helen back, but
Paris refuses to yield.
Antenor is mentioned in
Vergil's Aeneid in book 1, line 243, when Venus tells Jupiter that Antenor had escaped from the fall of
Troy and founded Patavium, modern Padua.
In
Dictys Cretensis' Ephemeris belli Troiani, Antenor and Aeneas betray the Trojans to help the Greeks, ruling over the remains of Troy once the Greeks have left.
In
Dares Phrygius' de excidio Trojae historia, Antenor betrays Troy to the Greeks.
In
Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Antenor appears as a minor, non-speaking, character who has been taken prisoner by the Greeks but is returned by them in exchange for
Criseyde.
The circle Antenora is named after him in the poem Inferno in
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It is located in
Hell's Circle of Treachery which is reserved for traitors of cities, countries, and political parties.
Antenor is ironically misidentified by Albert Bloch, a bumbling, pretentious character in
Marcel Proust's novel The Guermantes Way (Le Côté de Guermantes) as the son of the river god
Alpheus, probably confusing him with
Antinous, with whom Alpheus is associated.
In history
Mikhail Lomonosov in his "Ancient Russian History" deduced as a progenitor of the Slavs and Russians: "
Cato has the same in mind when the
Venetians, as
Pliny testifies, are descended from the
Trojans tribe. All this the great and authoritative historian
Titus Livy shows and carefully explains. "Antenor," he writes, "came after many wanderings to the inner extremity of the
Adriatic gulf with a multitude of the
Enenites, who had been driven out of
Paphlagonia and at Troy had lost their king
Pilimenes: to move to that place they sought a leader. After the expulsion of the
Euganeans, who lived between the sea and the Alpine mountains, the Henites and Trojans occupied these lands. That is why the name of the settlement was Troy, and the whole nation was called the Venetians".[35]
^Apollodorus,
Epitome3.34 ff see
Greek version: "Ἀρχέλοχος καὶ Ἀκάμας Ἀντήνορος καὶ Θεανοῦς, Δαρδανίων ἡγούμενοι" is translated as "Archelochus and Acamas, sons of Antenor and Theano, leaders of the Dardanians"
^Tzetzes, John (2015). Allegories of the Iliad. Translated by Goldwyn, Adam; Kokkini, Dimitra. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. pp. 61, Prologue 806–807, p. 219, 11.44–46.
ISBN978-0-674-96785-4.
^
abTzetzes, John (2015). Allegories of the Iliad. Translated by Goldwyn, Adam; Kokkini, Dimitra. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. pp. 219, 11.44–46.
ISBN978-0-674-96785-4.
^Tzetzes, John (2015). Allegories of the Iliad. Translated by Goldwyn, Adam; Kokkini, Dimitra. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. pp. 61, Prologue 806–807.
ISBN978-0-674-96785-4.
^Tzetzes, John (2015). Allegories of the Iliad. Translated by Goldwyn, Adam; Kokkini, Dimitra. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. pp. 283, 15.193.
ISBN978-0-674-96785-4.
^Tzetzes, John (2015). Allegories of the Iliad. Translated by Goldwyn, Adam; Kokkini, Dimitra. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. pp. 155, 5.38.
ISBN978-0-674-96785-4.
Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003), Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (5th ed.), New York: Springer Verlag, p.
293,
ISBN3-540-00238-3
Tzetzes, John, Allegories of the Iliad translated by Goldwyn, Adam J. and Kokkini, Dimitra. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Harvard University Press, 2015.