Podalire

In the Greek Mythology, Podalire (in Greek old Ποδαλείριος / Podaleírios ) is a hero of the Trojan War.

Myth

He is the son of Asclépios, god of the medicine, and his wife Épione; he is thus the brother of Machaon. Like him, he is an applicant disappointed with the hand of Helene de Sparte. Faithful to the oath of Tyndare, it carries out with his brother thirty naves Thessalie of Trikké, Ithomé and Œchalie according to the Catalog of the vessels.

With Troy it becomes, always with his brother, doctor of the Achaean camp:

“and Podalire were of a great help to the Greeks in this war, treating with much success those of them which were wounded. Also were acquired ‑ils a very great reputation and the need that one had of their art was cause that they were exempted engagements and of all the other military functions. ”
(Diodore of Sicily, historical Library , IV, 71; transl. of the Abbot Small terrace)

It looks after thus Philoctète, holder of the arc and the arrows of Héraclès, and without which, according to the oracle of Hélénos, Troy cannot be taken. However, an allusion of Iliade (IX, 833) speaks about one about the two brothers wounded and the other “in the plain the hard combat against Troyens”; Quintus of Smyrna the account moreover among the warriors present in the Trojan horse.

At the end of the war, it chooses according to the Pseudo-Apollodore the overland route and fact part of those which bury the soothsayer Calchas, with Colophon (VI, 2). He questions then the Oracle de Delphes to know where to be established and receives the council “to settle in the city where, if the sky falls, he will not suffer any damage. ” It thus settles with Chersonèse in Carie, in a basin surrounded by mountains (VI, 18).

Pausanias reports for its part that he is mislaid at the time of his return at sea and settles with Syros, also in Decay.

Sources

(III, 10,8), (III, 14; V, 8; VI, 2; VI, 18).
(IV, 71).
(II, 729-733 and XI, 833-837).
(LXXXI; XCVII).
(III, 26,10).
(XII, 314 and suiv.).

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