Glaukos

Glaukos is the second of the two named Lycian leaders of the Iliad, a prince descended from Bellerophon through his son Hippolochos and thus part of the heroic genealogy the Lycian dynasts claimed as their own. His most celebrated moment is the encounter with the Achaean Diomedes on the battlefield: recognising a bond of guest-friendship between their forebears, the two decline to fight and exchange armour, Glaukos giving gold for bronze in a bargain the poet says cost him his wits. He is closely bound to Sarpedon, whose fallen body he strives to defend, and he is later killed in the fighting over the corpse of Achilles.

Domains

• warfare
• guest friendship

Powers

• to honour the inherited bonds of guest-friendship

Relations

• companion: SarpedonGlaukos is the kinsman and co-commander of Sarpedon, and after Sarpedon falls he rallies the Lycians and Trojans to fight over his body.Homer, Iliad (Book XII), trans. A. T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924) (primary)

Sources

• Glaukos, son of Hippolochos and grandson of Bellerophon, is the Lycian prince who co-commands the Lycian force at Troy with his kinsman Sarpedon and is famed for the armour-exchange with Diomedes.: G. S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume II: Books 5–8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) (secondary); Trevor R. Bryce, The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1986) (secondary)