Philoctetes

Q: Who was Philoctetes?

Not to be confused with Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes. Philoctetes was a Greek archer and a leader in the Trojan War, the son of Poeas of Malis.

Not to be confused with Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes.

Philoctetes was a Greek archer and a leader in the Trojan War, the son of Poeas of Malis. He owned the bow and arrows of Heracles. On the way to Troy he was wounded in the foot by a snake, and the Greeks left him on the island of Lemnos for ten years. After a prophecy declared that Troy would not fall without him or his bow, he was brought back to the army, healed, and killed Paris. Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes, a separate work, dramatises his recovery.

Family and Home

Philoctetes is the son of Poeas, whom Apollodorus lists as the son of Thaumacus and as one of the Argonauts (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16). Sophocles calls Philoctetes “the Malian, son of Poeas” (Sophocles, Philoctetes 4–5). In the Iliad he leads the men of Methone, Thaumacia, Meliboea and rugged Olizon in seven ships, each with fifty oarsmen who were all skilled archers (Homer, Iliad 2.716–720).

The Bow of Heracles

When Heracles, poisoned by the tunic of Nessus, built a pyre on Mount Oeta, no one would light it. In Apollodorus, Poeas, who was passing by looking for his flocks, set the pyre alight, and Heracles gave him his bow (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.7). Ovid has the son of Poeas light the pyre, after Heracles orders him to take the bow, the quiver and the arrows, “which are to see the realm of Troy again” (Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.229–233), and in Diodorus Philoctetes alone agrees to light it and receives the bow and arrows in return (Diodorus 4.38.4). In Sophocles, Philoctetes himself says that he did this service for the son of Zeus and received the bow in return (Sophocles, Philoctetes 801–803). The sources thus differ on whether father or son was the one who lit the fire, but they agree that the bow came from Heracles through the family of Poeas.

Suitor of Helen

Philoctetes, the son of Poeas, is listed among the suitors of Helen, and so was bound by the oath that Tyndareus had them swear to defend her chosen husband (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.8). A papyrus fragment of the Catalogue of Women also names him as a suitor, “most famous of all men at shooting from afar” (Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fragment 68). Homer says that only Philoctetes could shoot better than Odysseus before Troy (Homer, Odyssey 8.219–220).

Abandoned on Lemnos

According to the Epitome of Apollodorus, as the Greeks were sacrificing to Apollo on the way to Troy, a water-snake came from the altar and bit Philoctetes. The wound did not heal and smelled so badly that the army could not bear it, so Odysseus, on Agamemnon’s orders, put him ashore on Lemnos with the bow of Heracles, where he lived by shooting birds (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.27). The Cypria, as summarised by Proclus, also has Philoctetes bitten by a snake at Tenedos and left behind on Lemnos because of the stench of his sore. In the Iliad he lies on Lemnos in great pain from the wound of a deadly water-snake, and the Achaeans remember him later (Homer, Iliad 2.721–725). In Sophocles, the wound came at the island of Chryse, from the snake that guarded the shrine, and Philoctetes was now in his tenth year on Lemnos (Sophocles, Philoctetes 263–270, 312, 1326–1328).

The Return to Troy

After ten years of war the Greeks learned that Troy could not be taken without the bow of Heracles. In Apollodorus the seer Calchas gave this prophecy, and Odysseus went to Lemnos with Diomedes, got the bow and arrows by craft, and persuaded Philoctetes to sail to Troy (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.8). In Sophocles it was Helenus, the Trojan seer captured by Odysseus, who said that Troy would not fall unless Philoctetes were brought from his island; Odysseus then took Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, to Lemnos to win the bow by deceit, but Neoptolemus changed his mind and returned it (Sophocles, Philoctetes 603–619, 1286–1292). Philoctetes still refuses to go until Heracles appears from heaven, tells him that he will be healed at Troy, that he will kill Paris with the bow and take part in the sack of the city, and that Asclepius will cure his sickness (Sophocles, Philoctetes 1409–1444).

Quintus of Smyrna also has Calchas call for Philoctetes and sends Diomedes and Odysseus to Lemnos, where they find him in a cave, wasted by the wound and wrapped in bird feathers (Quintus, Fall of Troy 9).

At Troy

Philoctetes was healed at Troy. In the Little Iliad, according to Proclus, Diomedes brought him from Lemnos, and he was healed by Machaon; in Apollodorus the healer is Podalirius (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.8). Both are sons of Asclepius. He then killed Paris. In Apollodorus he shot Paris with the bow of Heracles, and Paris went to his first wife Oenone on Ida, who had told him to come to her if he were ever wounded, but she refused to heal him; he died, and she later hanged herself (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.6). In Quintus of Smyrna Philoctetes shoots twice: the first arrow only grazes Paris’ wrist, and the second hits him between flank and groin (Quintus, Fall of Troy 10). The Little Iliad has Philoctetes fighting Alexander in single combat and killing him. Quintus of Smyrna names Philoctetes among the chiefs who went inside the wooden horse (Quintus, Fall of Troy 12).

After the War

In the Odyssey, Nestor says he has heard that Philoctetes, the glorious son of Poeas, got home safely from Troy (Homer, Odyssey 3.188–190). A later tradition, however, brings him to Italy. Strabo says that Petelia, the chief city of the Chones in southern Italy, was founded by Philoctetes after he fled from Meliboea in a political quarrel, and so was nearby Crimissa (Strabo 6.1.3), and that Egesta in Sicily was founded by people who crossed over with him (Strabo 6.2.5). Virgil mentions the small city of Petelia, resting on the wall of Philoctetes (Virgil, Aeneid 3.401–402).