The Ajaxes and Boiotians vs the Trojans

From Iliad Book XIV

There is a story and family behind every fight.

Zeus is distracted by Hera, so the Trojans lose their advantage. Ajax has gotten Hector off the field. The tide turns.

Cup_birds_Boeotia_Louvre_A572

Ajax Oiliades kills Satnios, the son of a herdsman named Enops and a naiad (river nymph) mother, born on the banks of the Satnioeis river in the region around Troy.

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Satnios
By the banks of the Satnioeis river
A flawless naiad bore a son to Enops,
To Enops the herdsman, the river nymph
Bore Satnios, who fought for Troy.
--- maryh10000

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Compare this with Simoeisios, son of Anthemion, who I imagine as a wheelwright, and a shepherdess, was named after the Simoeis, another river in the region around Troy. He was killed by the other Ajax, son of Telamon in Book IV, after Troy broke the truce following the interrupted duel between Meneleus and Paris.

Iliad Battle Scene (some gore)

The Boiotians in these fights are all first cousins or brothers.

Poulydamas, son of the Trojan elder Panthoos, guards the body of Satnios by killing the Boiotian captain Prothoenor.

In vengeance for the death of Boiotian Prothoenor, Ajax Telemonios aims for Poulydamas, but kills Arkhelokhos, the son of a different Trojan elder, Antenor.

Antenor’s other son, Akamas, stands over the body of his brother, and swiftly avenges him, by killing Boiotian Promakhos, who is trying to drag the body off.

Angered by the death of his cousin, Boiotian captain Peneleos, tries to kill Akamas, but misses and kills Ilioneus instead, a son of Phorbas (a rich sheepherder favored by Hermes), and the only son Phorbas had by Ilioneus’ mother.

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Ilioneus
Phorbas still has sons,
But not from she who brought forth
Ilioneus:
The warrior’s mother.
--- maryh10000

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We started with the killing of the son of a Trojan herdsman, from the banks of the river Satnioeis on Mount Ida in the Troad. Now we end with the death of the son of Trojan sheepherder. In between, the Trojan elder Antenor, married to the Thracian sister of Priam’s queen Hecuba, has lost two of his sons, Arkhelokhos and Akamas.

On the Greek side, Boiotian captain Prothoenor and his cousin Promakhos have been killed.

In Book 13, where Teucros Telemonios killed Imbrios, son of the horseherder, he cut off his head, and threw it at Hector’s feet.

Here, Boiotian captain Peneleos cuts off the head of Ilioneus and lifts it up by the spear that still pierces the eyesocket:

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Go tell Ilioneus’ father and his mother
for me, Trojans, to mourn him in their hall.
The wife of Promakhos, Alegenor’s son,
will not be gladdened by her husband’s step,
that day when we Akhaians make home port
in the ships from Troy.
   --- Translation by Robert Fitzgerald