HELENUS

Form: Helenus.

The son of Priam and Hecuba, who, like his sister Cassandra, was endowed with the gift of prophecy. When Deiphobus, after the death of Paris, took Helena to wife, Helenus went over to the Greeks; or (as another story has it) was caught by Odysseus in an ambush. He revealed to the enemy the fact that Troy could not be taken without the aid of Neoptolemus and Philoctetes; and he is also said to have suggested the plan of out-witting the Trojans by means of the wooden horse. After the fall of Troy he was carried away by Neoptolemus, and advised him to settle in Epirus. After his death Helenus took Andromache to wife, and became king of the Chaonians.