One of the
suitors of Helen, Antilochus accompanied his father and his brother
Thrasymedes to the
Trojan War. When fighting there resumed after the aborted duel of Paris and Menelaus, Antilochus was first to kill a Trojan (namely Echepolus).[3] Antilochus was distinguished for his beauty, swiftness of foot, and skill as a charioteer. Though the youngest among the Greek princes, he commanded the Pylians in the war and performed many deeds of valour. He was a favorite of
the gods and a friend of
Achilles, to whom he was commissioned to announce the death of
Patroclus.[4]
When his father Nestor was attacked by
Memnon, Antilochus sacrificed himself to save him,[5] thus fulfilling an oracle which had warned to "beware of an Ethiopian." Antilochus' death was avenged by Achilles, who drove the Trojans back to the gates, where he is killed by Paris.[6] In later accounts, Antilochus was slain by Hector[7] or by
Paris in the temple of the Thymbraean
Apollo together with Achilles[8] His ashes, along with those of Achilles and Patroclus, were enshrined in a mound on the promontory of
Sigeion, where the inhabitants of
Ilium offered sacrifice to the dead heroes.[9][10] In the Odyssey,[11] the three friends are represented as united in the underworld and walking together in the
Asphodel Meadows. However, according to
Pausanias,[12] they dwell together on the island of
Leuke.[4]
Among the Trojans he killed were
Melanippus,
Ablerus, Atymnius, Phalces, Echepolos, and Thoon, although Hyginus records that he only killed two Trojans.[13] At the funeral games of Patroclus, Antilochus finished second in the chariot race and third in the foot race.
Antilochus left behind in
Messenia a son
Paeon, whose descendants were among the
Neleidae expelled from Messenia, by the descendants of
Heracles.[14]
Pausanias, Description of Greece. W. H. S. Jones (translator).
Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. (1918). Vol. 1. Books I–II:
ISBN0-674-99104-4.
Pindar, The Odes of Pindar including the Principal Fragments with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John Sandys, Litt.D., FBA. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1937.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.