Rhesus of Thrace
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- For others named Rhesus, see Rhesus.
Rhesus (Rhêsos) was a Thracian king who fought on the side of Trojans in the Iliad. Homer gives his father as one Eioneus, otherwise unknown, although the name is undoubtedly connected to the city of Eion in western Thrace, at the mouth of the Strymon. Later writers provide Rhesus with a more exotic parentage, claiming that his mother was one of the Muses (Calliope, Euterpe, or Terpsichore), his father the river god Strymon, and he was raised by fountain nymphs. Rhesus arrived late to Troy, because his country was attacked by Scythia, right after he received word that the Greeks had attacked Troy. He was killed in his tent, and his famous steeds were stolen by Diomedes and Odysseus. The event is portrayed in book X of Homer's the Iliad and in the play Rhesus.
His name (a Thracian anthroponym) probably derives from PIE *reg-, 'to rule', showing a satem-sound change. There was also a river in Bithynia named Rhesus, with Greek myth providing an attendant river god of the same name. Rhesus the Thracian king was himself associated with Bithynia through his love affair with Bithynian huntress Arganthone (see the Erotika Pathemata [Sufferings for Love] by Parthenius of Nicaea, chapter 36).
