Sarpedon is the pre-eminent Lycian hero of Greek epic, a son of Zeus who ruled the Lycians and brought them to Troy as allies of Priam. In the Iliad his death at the hands of Patroclus is one of the poem's great set-pieces: Zeus weeps tears of blood over his son but permits his fall, and Sleep and Death carry the corpse back to Lycia for burial. He was remembered by the Lycians themselves as a founding ancestor — Herodotus links the migration of the Termilae from Crete to his leadership — and a sanctuary and games in his honour, the Sarpedoneia, are reported at Xanthos.