Antenor
Antenor (opponent) In Greek and Roman mythology, a Trojan, counselor to King Priam of Troy; son of Aesyetes and Cleomestra; husband of Athena’s priestess Theano, who was the sister of Hecuba; father of 14 sons—Coon, Demoleon, Iphidamas, Polydamas, Laodamas, Polybus, Acamas, Agenor, Archelous, Glaucus, Helicaon, Laocoön, Lycaon, Pedaeus (by a different mother), and one daughter, Crino. When Menelaus and Odysseus came to demand the surrender of Helen from the Trojans, Antenor received them hospitably, protected them from Paris, and then advised them to seek peace. Because of this, later Greek mythology said he betrayed the Trojans by opening the gates to the Greeks, and as a result, when the Greeks took the city, they spared his house and his friends. Some accounts say he told the Greeks to steal the Palladium, a sacred statue that protected Troy, and that he advised making the Trojan horse. One myth says his ship sailed with Menelaus but was driven off course to Cyrene. He settled there, and his descendants, the Antenoridae, were worshipped as heroes.
Another myth tells of his leading the Veneti, driven out of Paphlagonia, taking them by way of Thrace and Illyria to the Adriatic and then on to the mouth of the Paudus (Po), where he founded Patavium (Padua), the city of the Veneti. Antenor appears in Homer’s Iliad (book 3), Vergil’s Aeneid (book 1), and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (book 13).
SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow– Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante
