Priam
Family: Troy · Role: king · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 13
In Book 1, Priam is identified as the father of Alexander, who, with Apollo, slew Achilles. Book 2 names Helenus as his son and Laomedon as his father, and says Zeus was Priam’s tutelary god. When Ilium fell to the Greeks, Priam fled to Zeus’s altar for refuge. In Book 2, Menestheus aided Agamemnon with Athenian forces to put down Priam’s dominion; later, at Ægium, Agamemnon gathered Greek leaders to deliberate an attack on Priam’s realm.
The accounts also name Cassandra, Paris, Hector, Medesicaste, Aristomache, Medusa, and Axion as Priam’s children. In Book 4, Pyrrhus (son of Achilles)—also called Neoptolemus—is said to have killed Priam. One account places the killing at Zeus’s altar; another says Priam was torn from the altar and killed at the palace doors.
Relationship record
Life events
- Priam fled to Zeus’s altar for refuge after Ilium fell.(Book 2 · Chapter 24 · 📍 Ilium)
- “and when Ilium was taken by the Greeks, it was to his altar that Priam fled for refuge.”
- Menestheus aided Agamemnon with Athenian forces to overthrow Priam's dominion.(Book 2 · Chapter 25 · 📍 Athens)
- With: Menestheus Agamemnon
- “and he had a son Menestheus, who aided Agamemnon with a force from Athens to put down the dominion of Priam.”
- Neoptolemus killed Priam at the altar of Household Zeus.(Book 4 · Chapter 17 · 📍 [[the altar of Household Zeus]])
- With: Pyrrhus (son of Achilles)
- “For Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, having slain Priam at the altar of Household Zeus,”
- Agamemnon gathered Greek leaders to deliberate attacking Priam’s realm.(Book 7 · Chapter 24 · 📍 Ægium)
- With: Agamemnon
- “Agamemnon gathered together at this place the most famous men in Greece, to deliberate together in common how to attack the realm of Priam.”
- Priam was torn from the altar and killed by Neoptolemus at the palace doors.(Book 10 · Chapter 27)
- With: Neoptolemus
- “Lescheos says that Priam was not slain at the altar of Household Zeus, but was torn away from the altar and killed by Neoptolemus with no great difficulty at the doors of the palace.”
Book 1 · Chapter 13
- child: Alexander (son of Priam) “Homer says Achilles was slain by Alexander the son of Priam and by Apollo”
Book 2 · Chapter 23
- child: Helenus (Priam is Helenus's father.) “And as to Helenus the son of Priam, I have already shown that he went with Pyrrhus the son of Achilles to Epirus, and married Andromache”