Iobates- Greek FigureMortal"King of Lycia"

The Sealed Letter

Iobates ruled Lycia and had two daughters: Anteia, who married Proetus of Tiryns, and Philonoe. When Bellerophon spurned Anteia's advances, she told Proetus the young man had tried to force himself on her. Proetus believed her — but unwilling to kill a guest under his own roof, he sent Bellerophon to Lycia bearing a folded tablet inscribed with "baneful signs": a sealed request to kill the bearer. Bellerophon carried his own death warrant without knowing it.

Iobates welcomed the young man, feasted him for nine days, and sacrificed nine oxen in his honor before reading the letter. By then the laws of xenia had bound his hands — having shared bread and wine with Bellerophon, he could not kill him outright. He would have to find another way.

The Impossible Tasks

He sent Bellerophon against the Chimera, the fire-breathing monster that had ravaged Lycia unchecked. Mounted on the winged horse Pegasus, Bellerophon killed it. Iobates sent him next against the Solymi, fierce mountain warriors in the passes above Lycia, and then against the Amazons. He broke both. As a last resort, Iobates chose Lycian warriors and posted them in ambush along a narrow road. Bellerophon rode through the trap and killed every one of them.

Recognition

When the last of his schemes had failed, Iobates recognized what the gods were telling him. No mortal alone could have survived such ordeals. He showed Bellerophon the tablet and confessed what Proetus had asked. Then he gave the young man his daughter Philonoe in marriage and ceded him half the royal estate of Lycia — its orchards and rich ploughland.

Bellerophon's grandson Glaucus later told the whole story to Diomedes on the battlefield at Troy, and the two warriors discovered their families had been guest-friends for generations.