Tenes
Demigod son of Apollo (with mortal cover-paternity of Cycnus king of Colonae) by Procleia daughter of Laomedon; eponymous founder of the Aegean island Tenedos (off the Trojan coast). After his stepmother Phylonome's false rape-accusation supported by the canonical-Greek false-flute-player witness, exposed in a chest with his sister Hemithea; the chest washed ashore at Leucophrys, where Tenes became king and renamed the island Tenedos. Cycnus later discovered the deception and sailed to reconcile, but Tenes cut the ship's mooring-cable with an axe — the canonical-Greek "to-cut-with-Tenedian-axe" (Τενεδίαν πέλεκυν) proverb of irreversible-rejection. Killed by Achilles when the Achaean fleet stopped at Tenedos during the Trojan-War advance — though Thetis had warned Achilles that killing Tenes would seal his own death-by-Apollo-arrow at Troy per Plut. Quaest. Graec. 28 and Apollod. Epit. 3.26. The canonical Achilles-Apollo death-prophecy structure: Tenes's killing is the action that ensures Apollo's eventual revenge through Paris's arrow at the Scaean Gate.
Parentage
- father: ApolloApollod. Epit. 3.24; Diod. 5.83 (primary)
- parent: Cycnus
Powers
- Drove off an approaching fleet by hurling stones
Relations
- sibling: IdmonFull sibling; shares the same complete attested parentage.
- sibling: LinusFull sibling; shares the same complete attested parentage.
- father: ApolloApollod. Epit. 3.24; Diod. 5.83 (primary)
- mother: Procleia (daughter of Laomedon king of Troy, per Apollod. Epit. 3.24) · GreekApollod. Epit. 3.24 (primary)
- social father: Cycnus (king of Colonae, mortal cover-paternity; killed by Achilles at Troy per Apollod. Epit. 3.31 and Ovid Met. 12.71-145; separately registered as greek_cycnus) · GreekApollod. Epit. 3.24 (primary)
- sibling: Hemithea (Tenes's sister, exposed in the same chest; sister-cult of Tenes-Hemithea at Tenedos per Diod. 5.62 and Paus. 10.14.4) · GreekApollod. Epit. 3.24; Diod. 5.62 (primary)
- killed by: Achilles (greatest of the Greek warriors at Troy, son of Peleus and the Nereid Thetis; not registered as cascade descendant under strict rule) · GreekApollod. Epit. 3.26; Plut. Quaest. Graec. 28 (primary)
Sources
- existence: Apollodorus, Epitome 3.23-26 (primary); Pausanias 10.14.1-4 (primary); Diodorus Siculus 5.83 (primary); Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae 28 (primary); Conon, Narrationes 28 (primary); Cicero, Verres 2.1.49 (the historical-period Tenedian Tenes-cult attestation) (primary)