Troilus
Young Trojan prince killed by Achilles at the temple of Apollo, whose death was prophesied to seal Troy's doom.
The Legend of Troilus
He had to reach twenty years old for Troy to survive — Achilles killed him at the altar of Apollo, and he was maybe fifteen. A prophecy stated that if Troilus reached the age of twenty, Troy would never fall. Achilles hunted the boy down and killed him at the altar of Apollo Thymbraios, committing sacrilege. Some later sources say Achilles was attracted to the youth and killed him when rejected. Apollo's rage over the desecration of his temple became one of the reasons the god guided Paris's arrow into Achilles's heel. The murder of Troilus was one of the most depicted scenes on Greek pottery. Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida reimagines him as a lover rather than a victim.
Parents
Priam, Hecuba
Symbols
Fun Fact
Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida transformed a child-murder victim into a romantic hero.
Explore Further
Iphis of Argos
🗡 heroUnrequited Love, Class, Suicide
Poor Argive youth who died of unrequited love for Anaxarete, who was then turned to stone.
Tithonus
🗡 herotragedy
Trojan prince beloved by Eos who was granted immortality but not eternal youth, aging endlessly into a withered husk.
Priam
🗡 heroKing of Troy
Priam was the aged king of Troy, father of fifty sons including Hector and Paris, whose night journey to beg Achilles for Hector's body is the Iliad's most moving scene.
Menoeceus
🗡 herosacrifice
Young Theban prince who killed himself to save Thebes after Tiresias prophesied the city needed royal blood.
Oedipus
🗡 heroKing who fulfilled the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother
The tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, fulfilling a prophecy he had spent his life trying to avoid.
Aegyptus
🗡 heroNone recorded
A mythological king with fifty sons who demanded marriage to the fifty daughters of his brother Danaus, precipitating one of the most infamous mass killings in Greek mythology
Laius
🗡 heroNone recorded
King of Thebes whose attempt to cheat fate led directly to the Oedipus tragedy
Sarpédon
🗡 heroSon of Zeus who died at Troy
Sarpedon was a son of Zeus and the greatest Lycian warrior at Troy — his death forced Zeus to confront the limits of even divine power.
Althaemenes
🗡 heroFate, exile
Cretan prince who fled to Rhodes to avoid a prophecy that he would kill his father, only to fulfil it
Chrysippus
🗡 heroNone recorded
A son of Pelops whose abduction by Laius of Thebes brought a curse upon the house of Laius and introduced the theme of transgression that haunted the Oedipus cycle
Aleus
🗡 heroKingship, Arcadia
King of Tegea in Arcadia and founder of the great temple of Athena Alea
Menoeceus
🗡 herosacrifice, prophecy
A young Theban nobleman who sacrificed himself by leaping from the city walls to fulfil Tiresias's prophecy that only royal blood could save Thebes from the Seven.