Priam

Also known as: King Priam · Family: Trojan · Role: king · First appears: BOOK II

🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Priam) · The Aeneid (as Priam) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Priam) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Priam)

In Book II, Priam’s son Hector broke up the Trojan assembly, and the Trojans armed for battle. In Book III, Priam joined the Trojans and Achaeans as they swore a covenant over the duel between Paris and Menelaus and Helen’s fate. He was the son of Laomedon and brother of Tithonus, Lampus, Clytius, and Hiketaon; among his children were Polites, Laodice, Democoon, Echemmon, Chromius, Helenus, Isus, Antiphus, Doryclus, Deiphobus, Cassandra, Medesicaste, Cebriones, Polydorus, Lycaon, Agathon, Pammon, Antiphonus, Hippothous, Dius, and Troilus. Helen called him “father of my husband, dear and reverend in my eyes.” He had given his consent to Othryoneus’s marriage proposal, and was married to Laothoe and Hecuba.

In Book VII, Priam proposed a halt in the fighting so the dead could receive funeral rites, and his proposal was accepted. In Book XXI, Achilles drove the Trojans into Ilius. The next book, Priam and Hecuba pleaded with Hector not to face Achilles, but Hector remained outside the city; after his death, they lamented as his body was dragged away. Priam called Achilles “the bane of us Trojans, and of myself more than of all others.”

In Book XXIV, after nine days, Jove ordered Achilles to accept a ransom and return Hector’s body. Priam prepared the ransom and departed with Idaeus, then, escorted by Mercury, passed safely through the Achaean camp to Achilles’s dwelling. He asked to ransom his son’s body, and Achilles returned it, washed and wrapped, and agreed to suspend fighting while Troy mourned and buried Hector. On the morning of the eleventh day, the Trojans placed Hector’s bones in a golden urn and buried them beneath a barrow.