Palamedes

In Greek mythology, Palamedes ( (Παλαμήδης) was the son of Nauplius and Clymene.

He is said to have invented counting, currency, weights, measures, jokes, dice and a forerunner of chess called pessoi, as well military ranks. Sometimes he is credited with discoveries in the field of wine-making and the supplementary letters of the Greek alphabet.

Palamedes tests the Madness of Odysseus

Agamemnon sent Palamedes to Ithaca to retrieve Odysseus, who had promised to defend the marriage of Helen and Menelaus. Paris had kidnapped Helen, but Odysseus did not want to honor his oath. He pretended to be insane and plowed his fields with salt. Palamedes guessed what was happening and put Odysseus' son, Telemachus, in front of the plow. Odysseus stopped working and revealed his sanity. Odysseus never forgave Palamedes for sending him to the Trojan War. When Palamedes advised the Greeks to return home, Odysseus accused him of being a traitor and forged false evidence and found a fake witness to testify against him. Palamedes was stoned to death.

Behind figures of heroic legend often stand real men.... As for Palamedes, the Greeks especially knew one thing about him: he was so clever that he devised a way to write down Greek speech..... B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)

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