Zeus lay with the Pleiad Electra on Samothrace and fathered Iasion and Dardanus. After Iasion's death, Dardanus sailed to the Troad and founded the dynasty that ruled Troy.
Dardanus married Bateia, daughter of King Teucer, and they produced Erichthonius of Troy, who continued the royal line that led to Priam and the kings of the Trojan War.
Athena granted the Palladium to Dardanus, who enshrined the sacred image in his new city. The statue protected Troy for generations, until the Greeks stole it during the war to break the city's divine protection.
⚠ Apollodorus (3.12.3) says the Palladium fell from heaven; Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.68-69) attributes its gift to Athena directly. The tradition of its heavenly origin vs. divine bestowal varies by source.
Iasion and Dardanus were brothers, both sons of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra. After Zeus killed Iasion, Dardanus left Samothrace in grief and founded Dardania in the Troad, beginning the Trojan royal line.
Dardanus possessed the Palladium, a sacred image of Athena that had fallen from heaven, and installed it in Dardania. The Palladium later protected Troy until the Greeks stole it during the Trojan War.
Dardanus, founder of the Trojan royal line, was the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra. Through Dardanus, the Pleiades are ancestresses of the Trojan kings including Priam and ultimately the Romans through Aeneas.
Dardanus founded the dynasty from which Priam descended. Through Erichthonius, Tros, and Ilus, the Trojan royal line traced its ancestry back to Dardanus and ultimately to Zeus.
King Teucer of the Troad welcomed Dardanus upon his arrival from Samothrace, granting him land on the slopes of Mount Ida and his daughter Bateia in marriage.
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