Priam

Priam was the king of Troy in Greek mythology, at the time the Greeks launched an attack against the city, known as the Trojan War. His father was the Trojan king Laomedon, and Priam’s name was said to mean “the ransomed one”.

Who Was King Priam of Troy?

Priam was the last king of Troy, the ruler of the city through the ten years of the Trojan War, who was killed on the night it fell. He is an old man throughout Homer’s Iliad, the father of Hector and Paris, and he is remembered above all for one scene: crossing the battlefield by night to beg Achilles for the body of his son (Iliad 24.477–479).

• Father: Laomedon, the previous king of Troy (Iliad 20.236–240). Apollodorus names Laomedon’s wife as Strymo, daughter of Scamander, or, according to others, Placia or Leucippe (Library 3.12.3).
• Wives: first Arisbe, daughter of Merops, who bore him Aesacus and whom he later handed on to Hyrtacus, and then Hecuba, who bore him Hector, Paris, Helenus, Deiphobus, Cassandra and many more (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5)
• Death: killed at an altar by Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, during the sack of the city (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.21; Virgil, Aeneid 2.550–553)

Who Was the King of Troy?

Two kings of Troy matter in the myth, father and son. Laomedon ruled first; Priam ruled after him and was king during the Trojan War, which is who people usually mean by “the king of Troy” (Iliad 20.236–240).

• Laomedon refused Apollo and Poseidon their wages for building the walls, and later refused Heracles the mares he had promised for saving his daughter Hesione from a sea monster (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.9). Heracles then took the city and shot down Laomedon and his sons, except Podarces (Library 2.6.4).
• Podarces, who was called Priam, then came to the throne (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5)
• Priam was not succeeded by a son: Hector died before him, and the city fell before any other son could rule
• Aeneas was not Priam’s son but a Trojan of the same royal house, descended from Assaracus, the brother of Ilus (Iliad 20.215–240)

Why Was Priam Called Podarces?

Podarces was his name as a boy. In Apollodorus, when Heracles took Troy he gave Laomedon’s daughter Hesione to Telamon as a prize and allowed her to take with her one of the captives. She chose her brother Podarces; Heracles said that he must first be a slave and then be ransomed by her. When he was put up for sale, she took the veil from her head and gave it as his ransom, and so Podarces was called Priam (Library 2.6.4). The ancient explanation connects the name with the verb priasthai, “to buy”.

Priam’s Family

Priam was famous for the size of his household. His palace had fifty bedchambers of polished stone for his sons and their wives and, across the courtyard, twelve more for his sons-in-law and his daughters (Iliad 6.242–250). Priam himself says that he had fifty sons when the Achaeans came, nineteen of them born from one womb, and that the rest were borne to him by women of his house (Iliad 24.495–497).

• Hector, the eldest son of Hecuba, was Troy’s greatest warrior (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5)
• Paris, whom Hecuba bore after dreaming that she gave birth to a firebrand, was exposed on Ida and later became the cause of the war by carrying off Helen (Library 3.12.5)
• Cassandra and Helenus were both prophets; the other children of Hecuba named by Apollodorus include Deiphobus, Polites, Polydorus, Troilus, Creusa, Laodice and Polyxena (Library 3.12.5)
• Many of them died in the war or the sack: Polites, for instance, is killed in front of his father (Aeneid 2.526–532). Helenus survived and left Troy with Neoptolemus (Epitome 6.12).

Priam in the Trojan War

Priam was too old to fight and took no part in the battles. His role in the Iliad is that of a ruler watching a war he cannot control, and Homer treats him with unusual sympathy. He says that in his youth he had marched to Phrygia to help the Phrygians when the Amazons came against them (Iliad 3.184–189).

• On the walls he called Helen to sit beside him and name the Greek commanders below, telling her that she was not to blame in his eyes, but the gods, who had stirred up the tearful war (Iliad 3.161–165)
• He went out to the oath-sacrifice between the armies for the single combat of Paris and Menelaus (Iliad 3.250–313)
• When the Trojan assembly met, Antenor proposed to give Helen and her goods back to the sons of Atreus; Paris refused to give up Helen but offered to give back the goods he had brought from Argos and to add some of his own (Iliad 7.345–364)
• He watched from the walls as Achilles came against Hector, and begged his son not to face the man alone (Iliad 22.25–76)

Priam and Achilles

After Achilles killed Hector and dragged the body behind his chariot, Priam, guided by the god Hermes, drove to the Greek camp by night with one herald and a wagon of ransom. He came into Achilles’ hut unseen, clasped the hero’s knees and kissed his hands, the terrible man-slaying hands that had killed so many of his sons (Iliad 24.477–479). He asked Achilles to remember his own father Peleus and to pity him, and the two men wept together, Priam for Hector and Achilles for his father and for Patroclus. Achilles accepted the ransom, returned the body, and agreed to hold back the war for as long as Priam asked: nine days of mourning in Troy, burial on the tenth, the mound on the eleventh and fighting again on the twelfth (Iliad 24.664–670).

The scene closes the Iliad and is the reason Priam is remembered as he is.

The Death of Priam

When Troy fell, Priam was killed by Achilles’ son Neoptolemus, who in the epic tradition was also called Pyrrhus. Apollodorus says in his Epitome that Neoptolemus killed Priam after he had taken refuge at the altar of Zeus of the Courtyard (Zeus Herkeios; Epitome 5.21). Virgil tells it at length: the old man put on his long-unused armour, but Hecuba drew him to the great altar in the courtyard, where she and her daughters sat like doves in a storm. Pyrrhus chased Priam’s son Polites into the palace and killed him before his parents’ eyes. Priam answered with a curse and a feeble spear-throw, and Pyrrhus dragged him, slipping in his son’s blood, to the altar and drove his sword into his side (Aeneid 2.506–558).

• Hecuba was taken captive, and Odysseus received her as a prize (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.23)
• Priam’s grandson Astyanax, the son of Hector, was thrown from the battlements (Epitome 5.23)
• In another version, the poet Lesches said that Neoptolemus dragged Priam from the altar and killed him at the door of his own house (Pausanias 10.27.2)

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Priam Did Not Start the War, and Did Not Want It

The war was caused by Paris’ abduction of Helen, not by Priam. Homer shows the old king treating Helen kindly and placing the blame on the gods (Iliad 3.161–165), and the proposal to give Helen back comes from Antenor in the assembly, where Paris refuses (Iliad 7.345–364).

His Name Is an Ancient Pun

The story of the ransom by Hesione is how Greek writers explained the name Priam. It was an explanation made by Greek authors, derived from the verb priasthai (Apollodorus, Library 2.6.4).

Priam Sources

Homer, Iliad 3.161–165, 3.184–189, 3.250–313, 6.242–250, 7.345–364, 20.215–240, 22.25–76, 24.477–479, 24.495–497, 24.664–670. Apollodorus, Library 2.5.9, 2.6.4, 3.12.3, 3.12.5; Epitome 5.21, 5.23, 6.12. Virgil, Aeneid 2.506–558. Pausanias 10.27.2.

See Also: Trojan War, Laomedon, Hesione, Achilles, Hector, Zeus, Hecuba, Paris, Cassandra, Neoptolemus, Helen