Eurytus- Greek FigureMortal"King of Oechalia"

The Archer King

Apollo taught Eurytus's line to shoot. The skill passed from father to son, and Eurytus surpassed them all. No mortal could match him. In Homer's telling, his pride swelled until he challenged Apollo himself to a contest of archery. The god killed him for it. When Odysseus was later challenged to prove his own skill with the bow, he declined. He knew how Eurytus had died.

Other traditions give Eurytus a different death, one that begins with a promise about his daughter.

Heracles and Iole

Eurytus proclaimed that whoever could defeat him and his sons in archery would win his daughter Iole. Heracles entered and won. Eurytus refused to honor the bargain. He had seen what Heracles did to his first family in a fit of madness, and he would not risk the same fate for Iole. Only his son Iphitus argued that the contest should stand.

Years later, Heracles returned with an army. He sacked Oechalia and killed Eurytus and his sons. Iole he took as his concubine. When Deianira learned of her, she sent Heracles the robe of Nessus, soaked in what she believed was a love charm. The centaur's poison ate through his skin, and Heracles climbed his own funeral pyre on Mount Oeta.

The Bow of Eurytus

Before Oechalia fell, Iphitus had given his father's great bow to Odysseus as a guest-gift when the two met in Messene. Odysseus treasured the weapon but never carried it to Troy. He kept it at home in Ithaca. When the suitors filled his palace, it was this bow that Penelope set as the test: only the man who could string it and shoot through twelve axe-heads would prove himself her husband. No suitor could bend it. Odysseus strung it without effort, and the arrows found every man in the hall.