Scamander- Greek GodDeity"Deep-Eddying"
Also known as: Σκάμανδρος, Ξάνθος, Xanthos, Xanthus, and Skamandros
Titles & Epithets
Domains
Description
The river surges over its banks as corpses of the slain choke its waters. Called Xanthos by the gods, Scamander rose against Achilles himself in defense of Troy, and only Hephaestus's fire could force the raging flood to relent.
Mythology & Lore
The River of Troy
Hesiod counts Scamander among the three thousand rivers born of Oceanus and Tethys. He flowed from the slopes of Mount Ida across the plain before Troy, and the gods called him by a different name than mortals did: Xanthos, the Tawny. Homer notes no other river in the Iliad receives this distinction.
His daughter Callirhoe married Tros, founder of Troy. The city that bore Tros's name sat on his banks.
The Wrath Against Achilles
In Book 21 of the Iliad, Achilles routs the Trojans and drives them into the river, slaughtering warriors in the current until corpses and blood choke the stream. Scamander rises in person, addresses Achilles by name, and demands he stop the killing that blocks the river's course to the sea. Achilles ignores him. The river surges in full flood, walls of water crashing over the hero, nearly drowning him. Scamander calls upon his brother Simoeis for aid.
Hera, watching Achilles falter, commands Hephaestus to intervene. The smith god unleashes fire across the plain, burning the elms and willows along the banks, then turns his flames on the water itself. The river boils. His eels and fish writhe in the scalding current. Scamander cries out and relents, swearing he will no longer shield the Trojans from destruction.
Relationships
- Enemy of
- Associated with