Characters
- Cassandra — promised bride (not present in the combat)
- Dardanus — bargainer of Cassandra’s hand
- Othryoneus — ally from Cabesus; suitor of Cassandra; slain
- Polydeuces — Cretan killer and taunter
Places
- Cabesus — Othryoneus’s home
- Field before Troy — combat
- Priam’s hall — place of the betrothal bargain (background)
Themes
Narrative
Othryoneus of Cabesus came to Troy as a late ally, asking Priam for Cassandra’s hand without bride-price if he would drive the Achaeans from Troy. Priam consented to the bargain. Idomeneus met him in battle, mocked the wedding hope, and speared him through the midriff, then taunted that he would build Othryoneus a worse “bride-gift” of death and that the Achaeans would give him their own daughters if he ever helped sack Argos.
The episode is a Homeric miniature of war’s irony: a marriage contract sealed by a spear. Catalogue it apart from Cassandra’s later allotment to Agamemnon.