#korythus

Went down a rabbit hole of sources on Paris’ son Corythus and decided I would summarise what I’ve found :)

Lycophron’s Alexandra notes a son of Oenone who was sent to help the Achaeans after Oenone’s river-god father taunted her for losing Paris to Helen.

The first named mention I could find is quite late in the game, Parthenius’ Love Romances of the 1st century BC (though the author does mention he got his information from the earlier Hellanicus of Lesbos and Cephalon of Gergitha). Here we are told he is the son of Paris and his first wife (the nymph Oenone), who came to Troy and fell in love with Helen. She is said to have received him with the “greatest warmth,” then Paris ends up killing him… Parthenius does note at the end of his telling that there is an alternate version of a Corythus - recounted by the poet Nicander - where he is a son of Helen and Paris, though no further details are given. I suppose in that version Corythus wouldn’t have tried seducing Helen, since, yk, he was her son!

Conon’s Narrations (as recorded in the 9th c. CE Biblioteca of Photius) is also of the 1st century BC. Here, Oenone explicitly sends Corythus to make Paris jealous as well as to plot “something bad” against Helen. Paris is suspicious when he sees Corythus with his second wife, so he kills him.

Our next entry is the Trojan War Chronicle, supposedly written by Dictys Cretenis, of the 4th century CE. In this, Corythus is one of Helen and Paris’ three sons who all die when a roof collapses in Troy.

John Malalas’ 6th century Chronographia also says Corythus was one of the three sons of Helen and Paris. He and his brothers were the last faces Paris saw before he succumbed to his injuries.