#mestor

A couple of new NPC requests from reddit from yesterday

“ -and Mestor had Hippothoe by Lysidice, daughter of Pelops. This Hippothoe was carried off by Poseidon, who brought her to the Echinadian Islands, and there had intercourse with her, and begat Taphius, who colonized Taphos and called the people Teleboans, because he had gone far from his native land. And Taphius had a son Pterelaus, whom Poseidon made immortal by implanting a golden hair in his head.4 And to Pterelaus were born sons, to wit, Chromius, Tyrannus, Antiochus, Chersidamas, Mestor, and Eueres.”

"I have had the noblest of sons in Troy, but I say not one of them is left to me, Mestor like a god and Troilos whose delight was in horses, and Hektor, who was a god among men [...] All these Ares has killed, and all that are left me are the disgraces [...]"

(i imagine paris and deiphobus looking at each other like 😐)

mostly i've been wondering who's this MESTOR? he's even the first one listed of the three, ahead of troilus and hector. he's not mentioned elsewhere in the iliad but i found this in apollodorus' bibliotheca:

[...] Achilles waylaid Troilus and slaughtered him in the sanctuary of Thymbraean Apollo, and coming by night to the city he captured Lycaon. Moreover, taking some of the chiefs with him, Achilles laid waste the country, and made his way to Ida to steal the cattle of Aeneas. But Aeneas fled, and Achilles killed the herdsmen and Mestor, son of Priam, and drove away the cattle.

ooh!! lately i've been really fascinated with the "achilles chasing aeneas down mount ida" event which is only referenced in the iliad. i didn't think i'd trip over more information about it like this. whatever mestor's role was, it seems he was connected to aeneas in some way (part of his entourage maybe?).

so if that's part of the same storytelling tradition, it's extra devastating that priam's "noblest sons" were all killed by achilles (as were lycaon and polydorus, who do not get included in priam's list 🥲)

a quick search reveals mestor appears in dictys cretensis as well, but there's something odd going on where he's killed during the war in book 2 and also still alive after the war as neoptolemus' captive in book 6 (where neoptolemus takes his clothes and pretends to be him). i should get around to reading dictys cretensis soon.

finally i wondered about the root meaning of mestor's name, and CRUEL logeion gave me this:

Μήστωρ, the name of four mythical personages, of whom nothing of interest is related.

Headcanon: So when the guys were puppies and still a part of Kallamar's cult. Kallamar genuinely helped Mestor with his illness, and Mestor was grateful for it.

However, Mestor was extremely sore and tried that his brothers couldn't really tell the difference and thought he was still ill.

You can pretty much guess the rest from here. They went to Marchosias, believed Kallamar is an a-hole making Mestor lose his voice yada yada...

Genus Mestoronema, new genus

ETYMOLOGY.—After the ruler of the intelligent evil gastropods from the world's longest running science fiction serial, Doctor Who.

Wagner (2002)

“You must destroy his body...”