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Paeon (son of Antilochus)

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In Greek mythology, Paeon or Paion (Ancient Greek: Παίων, gen.: Παίονος) was the son of Antilochus, and a lord of Messenia. His father was one of the suitors of Helen, who together with his father Nestor, the king of Pylos, and brother Thrasymedes, fought in the Trojan War. Paeon's sons were among the descendants of Neleus (the Neleidae) expelled from Messenia, by the descendants of Heracles, as part of the legendary "Return of the Heracleidae", later associated with the supposed "Dorian invasion". The sons of Paeon, along with other of the expelled Neleidae, Alcmaeon and Melanthus fled to Athens. It was from this Paeon that the Attic clan and deme of Paeonidae or Paionidai is supposed to have derived its name.

References

• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, London (1854). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library

To Do

• Add mention to Paeonidae

Sources

Ancient

Herodotus

5.62.2

Hippias, their tyrant, was growing ever more bitter in enmity against the Athenians because of Hipparchus' death, and the Alcmeonidae, a family of Athenian stock banished by the sons of Pisistratus, attempted with the rest of the exiled Athenians to make their way back by force and free Athens. They were not successful in their return and suffered instead a great reverse. After fortifying Lipsydrium north of Paeonia, they, in their desire to use all devices against the sons of Pisistratus, hired themselves to the Amphictyons for the building of the temple at Delphi which exists now but was not there yet then.

Pausanias

1.2.5

Here there are images of Athena Paeonia （Healer）

2.18.7

It was in the reign of this Tisamenus that the Heracleidae returned to the Peloponnesus; they were Temenus and Cresphontes, the sons of Aristomachus, together with the sons of the third brother, Aristodemus, who had died. Their claim to Argos and to the throne of Argos was, in my opinion, most just, because Tisamenus was descended from Pelops, but the Heracleidae were descendants of Perseus. Tyndareus himself, they made out, had been expelled by Hippocoon, and they said that Heracles, having killed Hippocoon and his sons, had given the land in trust to Tyndareus. They gave the same kind of account about Messenia also, that it had been given in trust to Nestor by Heracles after he had taken Pylus.

2.18.8

So they expelled Tisamenus from Lacedaemon and Argos, and the descendants of Nestor from Messenia, namely Alcmaeon, son of Sillus, son of Thrasymedes, Peisistratus, son of Peisistratus, and the sons of Paeon, son of Antilochus, and with them Melanthus, son of Andropompus, son of Borus, son of Penthilus, son of Periclymenus. So Tisamenus and his sons went with his army to the land that is now Achaia.

2.18.9

To what people Peisistratus retreated I do not know, but the rest of the Neleidae went to Athens, and the clans of the Paeonidae and of the Alcmaeonidae were named after them. Melanthus even came to the throne, having deposed Thymoetes the son of Oxyntes; for Thymoetes was the last Athenian king descended from Theseus.

Modern

Grimal

s.v. Paeon, p. 335

Paeon (Παίων)

2. Another Paeon is a son of Antilochus and therefore a grandson of Nestor. His children were driven out pf Messinia, together with the other descendants of Neleus, at the time of the return of the Heraclids. With his cousins he settled in Athens and from him was descended the Athenian clan of Paeonids.

Larcher

p. 141 note to Herodotus 5.62

112 Παιονίης. Paeonia. ... They have forgotten, that in Attica there were certain Paeonidae of the Leontine³ tribe. These Paeonidae were no doubt inhabitants of a town Paeonia. They may have taken their name from Paeon, son of Antilochus. "Under the reign of Tisamenes," says Pausanias⁴, ...

Upon this authority I am led to conclude, that the Paeonidae of Attica, and Paeonia their town, derived their name from this Paeon.

Smith

Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography

s.v. Attica

25. PAEONIDAE (Παιονίδαι,）

PAEONIDAE (Παιονίδαι, Paus. 2.18.9), apparently the same as the Paeonia (Παιονίη) of Herodotus (5.62), who describes Leipsydrium as situated above Paeonia. It was perhaps on the site of the modern Menídhi, since we know that the modern Greeks frequently change π into μ; thus Πεντέλη is also pronounced Μεντέλη.