Acamas- Greek HeroHero"Eponym of the Acamantis"

Son of Theseus

Acamas was born to the Athenian hero Theseus and his wife Phaedra, daughter of King Minos of Crete. Together with his brother Demophon, he grew up during his father's prolonged absence and eventual exile from Athens. When the Trojan War called the Greeks to arms, both brothers joined the expedition.

The Embassy and the Love of Laodice

Before the war began in earnest, the Greeks sent a diplomatic mission to Troy demanding Helen's return. According to Apollodorus, Acamas accompanied Diomedes on this embassy. While inside the city, he met Laodice, one of Priam's daughters, and the two entered a love affair. She bore him a son, Munitus, who was raised by Aethra, Acamas's own grandmother, already held in Troy as Helen's handmaid. Parthenius preserves further detail in the Love Romances: Laodice, struck with desire for the young Athenian, enlisted the help of Philobia, wife of a Trojan lord, to arrange a secret meeting. When the embassy departed, Acamas's son remained behind the walls.

The Fall of Troy and the Rescue of Aethra

Acamas was counted among the warriors inside the Wooden Horse in several post-Homeric accounts. When the city fell, his purpose alongside Demophon was the recovery of their grandmother Aethra. She had been carried to Troy years earlier as Helen's attendant after the Dioscuri sacked Athens to recover their sister. The Iliou Persis, as summarized by Proclus, records that the brothers freed her from captivity during the sack. Pausanias saw the scene depicted in Polygnotus's painting at Delphi: Aethra among the captive women, her grandsons coming to claim her.

Munitus did not survive the return voyage. Tzetzes records that the boy died from a snake bite in Thrace.