Early years In the earliest sources, Helenus and his sister Cassandra were given the power of prophecy by
Apollo after their ears were licked by snakes. In other sources, Helenus was taught the power by Cassandra, but others generally believed his predictions. After gaining foresight, he was renamed from Scamandrius to Helenus by a Thracian soothsayer. Helenus predicted that if
Alexander (
Paris) brought home a Greek wife (i.e.
Helen), the Achaeans would pursue, and overpower Troy and slay his parents and brothers.
Trojan War Helenus is described by Homer as being the greatest of
augurs. He advises Hector to challenge any Achaean to a duel, which
Telemonian Ajax accepts. Helenus led the third battalion of the Trojan forces along with his brother
Deiphobus. He was also part of the Trojan forces led by his brother
Hector that beat the
Greeks back from the plains west of Troy, and attacked their camp in the
Iliad. He is wounded in the hand by
Menelaus and forced to retreat. In the final year of the Trojan War, Helenus vied against his brother
Deiphobus for the hand of Helen after the death of their brother
Paris, but Helen was awarded to Deiphobus. Disgruntled over his loss, Helenus retreated to
Mount Ida, where
Odysseus later captured him. He tells Odysseus, perhaps after torture or coercion, how to capture Troy: they would win if they stole the Trojan
Palladium, brought the bones of
Pelops to Troy, and persuaded
Neoptolemus (
Achilles' son by the
Scyrian princess
Deidamia) and
Philoctetes (who possessed
Heracles' bow and arrows) to join the Greeks in the war. Neoptolemus was hiding from the war at
Scyrus, but the Greeks retrieved him.
Aftermath Neoptolemus had taken
Andromache, Helenus's sister-in-law and
Hector's widow, as a slave and concubine after the fall of Troy, and fathered
Molossus,
Pielus and
Pergamus with her. After the fall of Troy, Helenus went with Neoptolemus, according to Apollodorus' Epitome 6.13. He traveled with Neoptolemus, Andromache and their children to
Epirus, where Neoptolemus permitted him to found the city of
Buthrotum. After Neoptolemus left Epirus, he left Andromache and their sons in Helenus's care. Neoptolemus was killed by
Orestes, Agamemmon's son, in a dispute over
Hermione, the daughter of
Menelaus and
Helen, whom Orestes had been promised as wife, but whom Neoptolemus had taken. As the kingdom of Neoptolemus was partitioned, this led to Helenus acquiring the rule of Buthrotum, as king. "Helenus, a son of Priam, was king over these Greek cities of Epirus, having succeeded to the throne and bed of Neoptolemus." Andromache bore him a son,
Cestrinus, who is identified with Genger or Zenter, a legendary Trojan king and father of
Francus. Some mythographers alleged that Helenus was given the hand of both Deidamia and Andromache in marriage, which helped consolidate his claims to Neoptolemus' kingdom. Helenus prophesied
Aeneas' founding of
Rome when he and his followers stopped at Buthrotum, detailed by Virgil in
Aeneid Book III.
Other myths In one account, Helenus got his mother Hecuba after the
Trojan War and they crossed over to the
Chersonese where the queen was turned into a dog. Helenus then buried her at the place now called the Dog's Tomb. In one version of the myth,
Agamemnon summoned all of the traitors who helped betray Troy and honored their promises to them after the sack of the Troy. Two of which were Helenus and Cassandra who had always pled with Priam for peace, and how Helenus had successfully urged the return of Achilles' body for burial. Accordingly, Agamemnon, following the advice of the council, gave Helenus and Cassandra their freedom. Then Helenus, remembering how Hecuba and Andromache had always loved him, interceded with Agamemnon in their behalf. The latter by advice of the council gave these their freedom. It is said that these four migrated to the Thracian Chersonese where they settled with twelve hundred followers. In
Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Regum Britanniae () Helenus was captured by Neoptolemus along with many other Trojans, and taken in chains to Greece as revenge for the death of
Achilles in the Trojan War. Under Neoptolemus' orders, they and their descendants remained in slavery until the time of King
Pandrasus several generations later, when they were liberated by
Brutus of Troy. ==See also==