Philoctetes- Greek HeroHero"Bearer of the Bow of Heracles"

Heir to the Bow of Heracles

Philoctetes was the son of Poeas, king of Meliboea in Thessaly. When Heracles lay dying on Mount Oeta, consumed by the poisoned robe of Nessus, no Greek would light the funeral pyre. Philoctetes alone did so. In gratitude, the dying hero gave him his bow and the arrows dipped in the Lernaean Hydra's blood — weapons that never missed and inflicted wounds that never healed.

The Wound on Chryse

When the Greek fleet sailed for Troy, Philoctetes was among the heroes bound by the Oath of Tyndareus. During a stop at the island of Chryse to sacrifice at a sacred shrine, a venomous serpent bit him on the foot — some say the guardian snake of the shrine, others a creature sent by Hera. The wound festered. Its stench and his cries of agony disrupted the army's sacrifices. On the advice of Odysseus, the Greeks abandoned Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos with nothing but his bow.

Ten Years and Retrieval

Philoctetes spent ten years alone on Lemnos, surviving by shooting birds and wild game with Heracles's bow. His wound never healed, and his hatred of the Greeks who abandoned him grew with each passing year.

In the tenth year of the war, the captured Trojan seer Helenus revealed that Troy could never fall without the bow of Heracles wielded by Philoctetes. Odysseus and the young Neoptolemus were sent to Lemnos. Odysseus schemed to steal the bow through deception, but Neoptolemus's honesty won Philoctetes's trust. The deified Heracles himself appeared and commanded Philoctetes to sail to Troy, promising that his wound would be healed.

The Fall of Paris

At Troy, the healer Machaon treated Philoctetes's wound. He took up Heracles's bow and shot Paris dead with the poisoned arrows. After Troy fell, Philoctetes did not return to Greece but sailed to southern Italy, where he founded the city of Petelia.