Palamedes

Odysseus fakes insanity, early 17th century tapestry. Ptuj Ormož Regional Museum, Ptuj Slovenia

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.[6]

The ancient sources show differences in regards to the details of how Palamedes met his death.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. The letter was found and the Greeks accused him of being a traitor. Palamedes was stoned to death by the Greek army. According to other accounts, Odysseus and Diomedes warriors drowned him during a fishing expedition. Still another version relates that he was lured into a well in search of treasure, and then was crushed by stones.[citation needed]

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.

In one modern account, The Luck of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green, Palamedes was double-dealing with the Trojans. In Madeline Miller’s novel Circe, Odysseus tells Circe that while on night watch Palamedes fell into a pit with sharpened stakes at the bottom, implying that this was his revenge for Paramedes’ role in recruiting him for the Trojan War.