Palamedes (mythology)

Palamedes (Παλαμήδης) was a Euboean prince, son of King Nauplius in Greek mythology. He joined the rest of the Greeks in the expedition against Troy. He was associated with the invention of dice, numbers, and letters.

Family
Palamedes's mother was either Clymene (daughter of King Catreus of Crete), Hesione, or Philyra. He was the brother of Oeax and Nausimedon.

Mythology
Although he is a major character in some accounts of the Trojan War, Palamedes is not mentioned in Homer's Iliad.

After Paris took Helen to Troy, Agamemnon sent Palamedes to Ithaca to retrieve Odysseus, who had promised to defend the marriage of Helen and Menelaus. Odysseus did not want to honor his oath, so he plowed his fields with a donkey and an ox both hitched to the same plow, so the beasts of different sizes caused the plow to pull chaotically. Palamedes guessed what was happening and put Odysseus' son, Telemachus, in front of the plow. Odysseus stopped working and revealed his sanity.

The ancient sources give different accounts of how Palamedes met his death. By Hyginus's account, Odysseus never forgave Palamedes for ruining his attempt to stay out of the Trojan War. When Palamedes advised the Greeks to return home, Odysseus hid gold in his tent and wrote a fake letter purportedly from Priam. Thus Palamedes was accused of treason and stoned to death by the Greeks. In Pausanias's version, Palamedes was drowned by Odysseus and Diomedes during a fishing expedition. Still another version by Dictys Cretensis relates that he was lured into a well in search of treasure, and then was crushed by stones.

In ancient literature
Ovid discusses Palamedes' role in the Trojan War in the Metamorphoses. Palamedes' fate is described in Virgil's Aeneid. In the Apology, Plato describes Socrates as looking forward to speaking with Palamedes after death, and intimates in the Phaedrus that Palamedes authored a work on rhetoric. Euripides and many other dramatists have written dramas about his fate. The orator Gorgias also wrote a Defense of Palamedes, describing the defense speech that Palamedes gave when charged with treason.

Dares the Phrygian, Palamedes was illustrated as ". . .tall and slender, wise, magnanimous, and charming."

Pausanias in his Description of Greece (2.20.3) says that in Argos there is a Temple of Fortune to which Palamedes dedicated the dice that he had invented; Plato in The Republic (Book 7) remarks (through the character of Socrates) that Palamedes claimed to have invented numbers. Hyginus claims Palamedes created eleven letters of the Greek alphabet:

"The Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropo, created seven Greek letters: Α Β Η Τ Ι Υ. Others say that Mercury did it from the flight of cranes which make the shape of letters when they fly. However, Palamedes the son of Nauplius invented 11 letters."

Vondel play
The major Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel wrote in 1625 the play Palamedes, based on the Greek myth. The play had a clear topical political connotation: the unjust killing of Palamedes stands for the execution of the statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt six years earlier, which Vondel, like others in the Dutch Republic, considered a judicial murder. In Vondel's version, responsibility for Palamedes' killing is attributed mainly to Agamemnon. The play's harsh and tyrannical Agamemnon was clearly intended to portray Prince Maurits of Nassau. Authorities in Amsterdam found no difficulty in deciphering the political meanings behind Vondel's classical allusions and imposed a heavy fine on Vondel.