In Greek mythology, Polydorus (Greek: Πολύδωρος, i.e. "many-gift[ed]") referred to several different people.
* An Argive, son of Hippomedon. Pausanias lists him as one of the Epigoni, who attacked Thebes in retaliation for the deaths of their fathers, the Seven Against Thebes, who died attempting the same thing.
* Polydorus (son of Cadmus), son of Cadmus and Harmonia, and father of Labdacus by his wife Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus.
* Polydorus (son of Priam), a Trojan, and King Priam's youngest son during the Trojan War. He was sent with gifts of jewelry and gold to the court of King Polymestor to be kept safe during the Trojan War. The fighting was getting vicious and Priam was frightened for the child's safety. After Troy fell, Polymestor threw Polydorus to his death to take the treasure for himself. Hecuba, Polydorus' mother, eventually avenged her son. This story is depicted in Hecuba by Euripides.
* Another Trojan, and another son of Priam. As recounted in Homer's Iliad, this Polydorus was a son of Priam and Laothoe, and fought during the Trojan War. He was slain by Achilles.
* Polydorus (son of Astyanax) or Polydore
* One of the three Rhodian sculptors who created the statue Laocoön and his Sons.
His death is also alluded to in Virgil's "Aeneid", when Aeneas encounters a tree that bleeds while on his quest to found a new home for the Trojan people.
Polydorus is also the name of an Agiad King of Sparta. He was preceded by Alcmenes and succeeded by Eurycrates, reigning in the 7th century BC. He fought in the latter part of the First Messenian War, alongside the Eurypontid king Theopompus.
According to Plutarch's [Life of Lycurgus] (Section 8), Polydorus may have had a role in reorganising the distribution of land in Laconia.
Read More
1.
Son of Cadmus and Harmonia, father of Labdacus, and great-grandfather of Oedipus.
2.
Youngest son of Priam and of Laothoe; his father's favourite son. He was killed while yet a boy by Achilles. The tragedians make him the son of Priam and Hecuba, who, before the fall of Troy, committed him with many treasures to the care of their guest-friend, the Thracian king Polymestor (or Polymnestor). After the capture of Troy, Polymestor put the boy to death, in order to get possession of the gold, and threw the body into the sea. The waves cast it up on the Trojan shore, and here Hecuba found it, just as Polyxena was on the point of being sacrificed. Out of revenge she, with the help of the captive Trojan woman, killed the two children of the murderer and blinded Polymestor himself. According to another version, Ilioné, Priam's daughter and Polymestor's wife, brought up the brother, who had been committed to her charge, as her own son, while she gave up her child Deïphilus (or Deïpilus) instead of Polydorus. The Greeks, who wished to exterminate the race of Priam, won over Polymestor by promising him the hand of Electra and a large present of money in return for the murder of Polydorus. Polymestor then murdered his own son, and was blinded and killed by Ilioné.
3.
A Greek sculptor of the school of Rhodes, author (in conjunction with Agesander and Athenodorus) of the celebrated group of Laocoön (q.v.).
Read More
