The downfall of Laomedon came about as an indirect result of a rebellion on Mount Olympus by Apollo and Poseidon. After Zeus had suppressed their uprising, he forced them to offer their services to Laomedon for a
Below: This 19th-century engraving shows Heracles rescuing Hesione from the rock on which she had been offered for sacrifice to a sea monster.
Whole year during the construction of walls around Troy— working under the supervision of a mortal was one of the greatest possible humiliations for any god. Zeus was also aware of Laomedon’s reputation for dishonesty, and he saw this as an opportunity to test the Trojan’s good faith.
The Iliad gives two different accounts of which god did what: in Book 7, both gods worked on the walls; in Book 21, Poseidon is said to have worked on the walls while Apollo looked after Laomedon’s cattle on Mount Ida. In several other versions of the story, Apollo and Poseidon were helped by a mortal, Aeacus, the first king of Aegina. That was because, if they had carried out the work unaided, Troy would have been impregnable, and it was preordained that the city would fall to the Greeks. In one account, when the walls were completed, three snakes tried to surmount the ramparts: two fell dead, but the third succeeded in gaining entrance to the city through the part of the wall that Aeacus had built. This was taken as an omen that Troy would be taken by Aeacus’s descendants.
The wages of sin
When Apollo and Poseidon had finished their work, Laomedon refused to pay them the agreed sum. This was an affront to divine honor, so Apollo infested Troy with a plague, and Poseidon sent a sea monster that snatched people from the shore. In an effort to find a remedy for these afflictions, Laomedon consulted various oracles. They foretold that relief would come only if he gave Hesione to be devoured by the sea monster, so he chained his daughter to the rocks near the sea. Just then, however, the hero Heracles arrived and offered to kill the monster on the condition that he would be rewarded with the divine horses that Zeus had given to Laomedon’s grandfather,
Tros, in exchange for Ganymede. Laomedon accepted the terms, but after Heracles had killed the monster and reunited father and daughter, he went back on the agreement. Heracles left Troy empty-handed, but vowed to return and take his revenge.
Heracles was as good as his word. He came back with an army, which besieged and then captured Troy. He killed Laomedon and all his sons except Tithonus, who had previously been carried off by Eos, and Priam, who was spared because he alone had counseled Laomedon to honor his agreement. Finally, Heracles gave Hesione as a concubine to his companion Telamon, the son of Aeacus.
Laomedon was buried at the Scaean Gate, one of the main entrances to Troy, and it was said that the city would remain unconquered for as long as his body remained undisturbed. His tomb was eventually destroyed during the Greek siege of Troy; the city fell soon afterward.
In the modern remains of the temple of Aphaea on the Greek island of Aegina, carvings on one of the pediments depict Heracles’ sack of Troy. The bearded warrior shown collapsing in the corner is thought to be Laomedon.
Jim Marks
Bibliography
Gardner, Jane F. Roman Myths. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1993.
Homer, and Robert Fagles, trans. The Iliad. New York: Penguin, 2009.
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