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In Greek mythology, Helenus was the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy.
During the Trojan War, the Greeks captured Helenus, a prophet, and tortured him until he told them under what circumstances they could take Troy. Helenus said they would win if they retrieved Heracles' arrows (which were in Philoctetes's possession); steal the Trojan Palladium (they accomplished this with the Trojan Horse) and persuade Achilles' son Neoptolemus to join the war. Neoptolemus was hiding from the war at Scyros but the Greeks retrieved him. Alternatively, he told them that they could win if Troilius, Helenus' half-brother, son of Apollo and Hecuba, was killed before he turned twenty. Achilles ambushed Troilius and his sister, Polyxena.
After his parents were killed by the Greeks in Trojan War, Helenus was enslaved by Neoptolemus and taken to Epirus. After Neoptolemus was killed by Orestes, Helenus inherited part of his kingdom and married Andromache, widow of his brother Hector who was also a slave of Neoptolemus, by whom he became the father of Cestrinus.
The remaining part of Epirus was given to Molossus, the son of Pyrrhus. (Paus i. 11. § 1, &c., ii. 23. § 6; Virg. Aen. iii. 295, 333.) When Aeneas in his wanderings arrived in Epirus, he was hospitably received by Helenus, who also foretold him the future events of his life. (Virg. Aen. iii. 245, 374; Ov. Met. xv. 438.) According to an Argive tradition, Helenus was buried at Argos. (Paus. ii. 23. § 5.) A different person of the same name occurs in the Iliad (v. 707).
Virgil III, 295, 334, 374.
See also : Greek Mythology. Paintings, Drawings
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