Nestor- Greek HeroHero"Gerenian Horseman"

Son of Neleus

Nestor was the son of Neleus and Chloris, king and queen of Pylos in Messenia. Neleus, a son of Poseidon and the nymph Tyro, had been driven from Iolcus by his twin brother Pelias and settled at Pylos. Homer names Chloris among the heroines Odysseus meets in the underworld.

In his youth, Nestor's entire family was destroyed. Heracles sacked Pylos because Neleus had refused to purify him of the murder of Iphitus. The attack killed Neleus and all eleven of Nestor's brothers, including Periclymenus, who could shift his shape by Poseidon's gift but was killed nonetheless. Nestor alone survived. He had been sent to Gerenia as a boy, and the Homeric poems remember him for it, calling him "Gerenian horseman" throughout the Iliad. As sole surviving son, he inherited the kingdom. Homer says he ruled over three generations of mortals. Apollo had granted him a long life to make up for the years his brothers lost.

Youthful Exploits

In his early years Nestor made his name as a warrior, not a counselor. He led a cattle raid against the Epeians of Elis, killed the warrior Itymoneus, and drove off herds of cattle and flocks of sheep that he divided among the Pylians. He would have killed the Molione twins if Poseidon had not shrouded them in mist and carried them from the field.

He fought alongside the Lapiths against the centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous and joined the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Even then, he said, warriors mightier than those at Troy listened to his counsel.

Counsellor at Troy

Nestor sailed to Troy with ninety ships from Pylos. Despite his age, he remained at the center of every council. In Book 1 of the Iliad, he tried to mediate the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. He reminded both that mightier men had once heeded his words. Neither listened. The army fractured.

In Book 11, Nestor sat with the wounded Patroclus over a cup of wine and told him what to do: persuade Achilles to return, or if that failed, borrow Achilles's armor and fight in his place. Patroclus listened. He wore the armor. Hector killed him. Achilles came back to avenge him and killed Hector. Troy fell.

The Cup and the Embassy

Homer lingers over Nestor's golden cup in Book 11: a massive vessel studded with golden nails, four handles each adorned with two golden doves, a double base. Another man could barely lift it full. Nestor raised it without effort.

An eighth-century BCE clay cup found on Ischia bears a scratched verse: whoever drinks from this cup will be seized by desire for Aphrodite. The cup is small and plain, nothing like Homer's golden vessel.

Nestor organized the embassy to Achilles in Book 9. He sent Phoenix, who had raised Achilles as a boy, along with Odysseus and Ajax. They offered treasures and Agamemnon's daughter in marriage. Achilles refused.

Combat from the Chariot

Despite his age, Nestor rode into battle. In Book 8, Paris's arrow struck one of his trace horses. The fallen animal tangled the team, and Nestor was stranded in the path of Hector's advance. Diomedes wheeled his own chariot to the rescue, took Nestor aboard, and the pair charged Hector until Zeus hurled thunderbolts in front of their horses. Nestor urged retreat. He recognized a divine warning when he saw one. Hector taunted them as they turned back.

Before the chariot race at Patroclus's funeral games, Nestor coached his son Antilochus: how to take the turn close to the post and when to give the horses their head. Antilochus followed the advice and finished second.

The Loss of Antilochus

Nestor's son Antilochus fell at Troy. The Ethiopian king Memnon, son of Eos, entered the war on the Trojan side. When Memnon advanced on Nestor, Antilochus threw himself between them. He died. Nestor lived. Pindar celebrates the sacrifice in Pythian 6.

Antilochus was buried alongside Achilles and Patroclus on the headland overlooking the Hellespont. In the Odyssey, when Odysseus meets Achilles's shade in the underworld, Antilochus stands beside him among the honored dead.

Nestor bore the grief and sailed home to Pylos. He was one of the few Greek commanders to reach his kingdom safely. He had committed no sacrilege at Troy's fall, and the gods let him pass.

Host to Telemachus

In the Odyssey, Telemachus sails to Pylos in search of his father. He finds Nestor on the shore, eighty-one black bulls being sacrificed to Poseidon, nine companies of five hundred men arrayed on the beach. Nestor received the boy at the feast before asking his name.

Nestor told him what he knew of Troy's aftermath: how the Greek fleet had split between Agamemnon and Menelaus, and the quarrel that sent them different ways. He had no news of Odysseus. He sent Telemachus on to Menelaus in Sparta with his own son Peisistratus as companion. Before they left, he sacrificed a heifer with gilded horns to Athena and gave them a chariot for the road.