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Updated: June 12, 2025
The bow and arrows of Hercules were preserved at Thurii, near Sybaris; the tomb of Philoctetes, who inherited these weapons of the hero, was at Macalla, in Bruttium, not far from Crotona, where Pythagoras had lived; the head of the Calydonian Boar was at Beneventum, east of Capua, and the Erymanthian Boar's tusks were at Cumæ, celebrated for its Sibyl; the armor of Diomede, one of the Trojan heroes, was at Luceria, in the vicinity of Cannæ; the cup of Ulysses and the tomb of Elpenor were at Circei, on the coast; the ships of Æneas and his Penates were at Lavinium, fifteen miles south of Rome; and the tomb of the hero himself was at a spot between Ardea and Lavinium, on the banks of the brook Numicius.
Neither shrink thou at the gnawn tables that await thee; the fates will find a way, and Apollo aid thy call. Here the Locrians of Narycos have set their city, and here Lyctian Idomeneus beset the Sallentine plains with soldiery; here is the town of the Meliboean captain, Philoctetes' little Petelia fenced by her wall.
"Now thou speakest well; be ever as wise; so shalt thou keep thy foot out of trouble." Then the Prince called to Philoctetes, who, being loosed by the sailors, had hidden himself in the cave, and asked of him again whether he were willing to sail with him, or were resolved to abide in the island.
Whatever a man can do with his hands I can do: I can send an arrow sure and strong, and strike down my foe, and herein can no archer surpass me, save one only, Philoctetes, who bare the bow of Hercules; and I can fling a javelin farther than another man can shoot an arrow.
And Ulysses and Diomed, when the fleet proceeded, left him, while asleep, on the wild and rocky solitudes of Lemnos. There, till the tenth year of the Trojan siege, he dragged out an agonizing life. The soothsayer, Helenus, then declared that Troy could not fall till Philoctetes appeared in the Grecian camp with the arrows and bow of Hercules. Here the play opens.
Where now Chone is there was formerly a district called Oenotria, in which Philoctetes settled after the sack of Troy as Dionysius and Dio Cocceianus and all those who write the story of Rome relate.
Philoctetes had joined the Grecian expedition against Troy, but had accidentally wounded his foot with one of the poisoned arrows, and the smell from his wound proved so offensive that his companions carried him to the Isle of Lemnos and left him there. Diomedes was now sent to induce him to rejoin the army. He succeeded.
Having lost these great champions, the Greeks resolved to fetch Achilles’ young son Pyrrhus to the camp, and also to get again those arrows of Hercules which Philoctetes had with him. Ulysses and Pyrrhus were accordingly sent to fetch him from his lonely island. They found him howling with pain, but he would not hear of coming away with them.
For that Heracles bestowed upon him his great bow and his unerring arrows. And it was this bow and these arrows, brought from Philoctetes, that afterward helped to take Priam's city. The pile that Heracles stood upon was fired. High up, above the sea, the pile burned. All who were near that burning fled all except Iole, that childlike maiden. She stayed and watched the flames mount up and up.
I know well how to handle the polished bow, and ever the first would I be to shoot and smite my man in the press of foes, even though many of my company stood by, and were aiming at the enemy. Alone Philoctetes in the Trojan land surpassed me with the bow in our Achaean archery. But I avow myself far more excellent than all besides, of the mortals that are now upon the earth and live by bread.
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