Agamemnon, Talthybius and Epeius, Relief from Samothrace


There were two characters named Epeius in Greek mythology.

  • One was a Greek soldier during the Trojan War. He was the son of Panopeus and had the reputation for being a coward. In the Iliad he participated in the boxing match at the funeral games for Patroclus against Euryalus and won. Later during the funeral games for Achilleus he fought Acamas the son of Theseus to a stalemate. He built the Trojan Horse, commisoned by Odysseus because Athena had told him in a dream she would be with him to help build it. He was the last one to enter the horse because he knew where the hidden latch was. He also founded Pisa and Metapontum. (Virgil II, 264)
  • Son of King Endymion of Elis. He challenged his brothers to a race and beat them, winning his father's kingdom.

Pausanias:

Epeius married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, and begat a daughter Hyrmina, but no male issue. In the reign of Epeius the following events also occurred. Oenomaus was the son of Alxion (though poets proclaimed his father to be Ares, and the common report agrees with them), but while lord of the land of Pisa he was put down by Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia. On the death of Oenomaus, Pelops took possession of the land of Pisa and its bordering country Olympia, separating it from the land of Epeius. The Eleans said that Pelops was the first to found a temple of' Hermes in Peloponnesus and to sacrifice to the god, his purpose being to avert the wrath of the god for the death of Myrtilus.

Aetolus, who came to the throne after Epeius, was made to flee from Peloponnesus, because the children of Apis tried and convicted him of unintentional homicide

Alternative: Epeus

Athena visiting the workshop of a sculptor working on a marble horse (Epeius on model of the Trojan horse?). c. 480 BC.


Mythology Images

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