Clytius

Clytius (Greek Klytios) is the name of several figures in Greek mythology, most of them minor. The best known are a son of Laomedon and brother of Priam, one of the Giants killed by Hecate in the Gigantomachy, and the Argonaut Clytius, son of Eurytus of Oechalia. Which one is meant depends on the story.

Clytius, Son of Laomedon

Homer lists Clytius among the sons of Laomedon, with Priam, Lampus, Hicetaon and Tithonus, and so a brother of Priam and an uncle of Hector (Homer, Iliad 20.236–238). He is one of the old men of Troy who, too old to fight, sit on the wall by the Scaean gates and watch Helen pass (Iliad 3.146–153). Apollodorus gives Laomedon five sons, Tithonus, Lampus, Clytius, Hicetaon and Podarces, and names his wife as Strymo, daughter of the Scamander, or in other versions Placia or Leucippe (Library 3.12.3).

Clytius had a son Caletor, whom Ajax killed with a spear as he was carrying fire to the ships; Hector, seeing him fall, calls him his cousin (Iliad 15.419–422). Pausanias adds a daughter Procleia, sister of Caletor, who married Cycnus and became the mother of Tenes and Hemithea (Pausanias 10.14.2).

Clytius the Giant

The Giants were born from Earth (Gaea), and in the battle of the gods and Giants Clytius was killed by Hecate with her torches (Apollodorus, Library 1.6.1–2). In the same passage Apollodorus has Dionysus kill Eurytus with a thyrsus and Hephaestus kill Mimas with red-hot metal.

Clytius the Argonaut

Clytius, son of Eurytus, joined the Argonauts together with his brother Iphitus; the two were the “wardens of Oechalia” (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.86–89). In the fighting at Cyzicus he killed the Dolionian warrior Hyacinthus (Argonautica 1.1044); in the fight with the Bebrycians, Apollonius says that Aretus, who struck his brother Iphitus with a club, was soon to fall by the sword of Clytius (Argonautica 2.114–117); and on the island of Ares he drew his bow and brought down one of the birds that attacked the ship (Argonautica 2.1043–1045). A fragment of Hesiod names the sons of Eurytus as Didaeon, Clytius, Toxeus and Iphitus, and a daughter Iole.

Clytius did not die by the hand of Aeetes. After Eurytus refused Heracles the hand of Iole, Heracles took Oechalia and killed Eurytus and his sons (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.7; Diodorus Siculus 4.37, who names the sons killed as Toxeus, Molion and Clytius).

Other Men Named Clytius

• Clytius, son of Alcmaeon by the daughter of Phegeus, who moved to Elis because he would not live with his mother’s brothers, knowing that they had plotted the murder of Alcmaeon; the Elean family of seers called the Clytidae traced their descent from him (Pausanias 6.17.6).
• An Athenian Clytius, whose daughter Pheno married Lamedon, king of Sicyon; a descendant of this Clytius, Ianiscus, later became king there (Pausanias 2.6.5–6).
• A man of Ithaca named Clytius, father of Peiraeus, the companion of Telemachus, in whose house Telemachus’s gifts were laid (Homer, Odyssey 15.540, 16.327).
• A Clytius father of Dolops, a Greek warrior killed by Hector (Homer, Iliad 11.302).
• One of the men killed in the fight at the wedding of Perseus, who is struck through both thighs by Perseus and dies together with his brother Clanis (Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.140–143).
• In Virgil, a Trojan Clytius, son of Aeolus, killed by Turnus inside the Trojan camp (Aeneid 9.774).

Clytius Sources

Homer, Iliad 3.146–153, 11.302, 15.419–422, 20.236–238; Homer, Odyssey 15.540, 16.327; Hesiod, Catalogue of Women (fragment on the sons of Eurytus); Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.86–89, 1.1044, 2.114–117, 2.1043–1045; Apollodorus, Library 1.6.1–2, 2.7.7, 3.12.3; Diodorus Siculus 4.37; Pausanias 2.6.5–6, 6.17.6, 10.14.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.140–143; Virgil, Aeneid 9.774.

See Also: Priam, Laomedon, Hecate, Gigantes, Argonauts, Heracles, Eurytus, Telemachus