PALAMEDES
A son of Nauplius, king of Euboea, Palamedes was clever and honest, but when he and other envoys from Agamemnon came to Ithaca to enlist Odysseus for the Trojan expedition, he won Odysseus’s hatred. As a former suitor of Helen, Odysseus was bound by oath to go, but he had been warned by an oracle that he would not return for twenty years. Clothed as a madman, he began to plow a field with a horse and an ox yoked together. To test this ruse, Palamedes placed Odysseus’s infant son Telemachus in front of the plow, causing Odysseus to swerve aside and give himself away.

      Odysseus vowed vengeance and at Troy devised an elaborate ruse in which to trap Palamedes. Inventing a prophetic dream that persuaded Agamemnon to move camp for a day, Odysseus buried a cache of gold where Palamedes had his tent. He then forged a letter that promised Palamedes gold in exchange for betraying the Greeks and had the letter planted on the body of a slain Phrygian soldier. When the letter and subsequendy the gold were discovered, Agamemnon had the innocent Palamedes stoned to death. According to another version, Agamemnon and Diomedes also hated Palamedes and were involved in Odysseus’s plot. Palamedes’ father later avenged his murder by using false beacons to lure the Greek ships onto rocks.

      Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote tragedies about Palamedes, none of which has survived.

     

      Classical Sources. Stasinius, Cypria 1.19. Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.34-62,308—12. Apollodorus, Biblioteca 2.1.5., E3.7-8, E6.8-9. Hyginus, Pahulae 95,105,116, 277. Philostratus, Heroicus 11.2.

     

      See also Odysseus, General List; Trojan War, General List.