Everything about Dardanus totally explained
In
Greek mythology,
Dardanus (
Greek: Δάρδανος,
English translation: "burned up", from the verb
δαρδάπτω (
dardapto) to wear, to slay, to burn up) was a son of
Zeus and
Electra, daughter of
Atlas, and founder of the city of
Dardania on
Mount Ida in the
Troad.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.61–62) states that Dardanus' original home was in
Arcadia where Dardanus and his elder brother Iasus (elsewhere more commonly called
Iasion) reigned as kings following Atlas. Dardanus married
Chryse daughter of
Pallas by whom he fathered two sons:
Idaeus and
Dymas. When a
great flood occurred, the survivors, who were living on mountains that had now become islands, split into two groups: one group remained and took Deimas as king while the other sailed away, eventually settling in the island of
Samothrace. There Iasus (Iasion) was slain by
Zeus for lying with
Demeter. Dardanus and his people found the land poor and so most of them set sail for Asia.
However another account by
Virgil in his
Aeneid (3.163f), has Aeneas in a dream learn from his ancestral
Penates that "Dardanus and Father Iasius" and the Penates themselves originally came from Hesperia which was afterward renamed as
Italy. This tradition holds that Dardanus was a
Tyrrhenian prince, and that his mother Electra was married to Corythus, king of Tarquinia (
Aeneid 7.195-242; 8. 596 ss. ; 9. 10; Servio,
ad Vergilium,
Aeneidos, 9.10).
Other accounts make no mention of Arcadia or Hesperia, though they sometimes mention a flood and speak of Dardanus sailing on a hide-raft (as part of the flood story?) from
Samothrace to the
Troad near
Abydos. All accounts agree that Dardanus came to the Troad from Samothrace and was there welcomed by
King Teucer and that Dardanus married
Batea the daughter of Teucer. (Dionysius mentions that Dardanus' first wife Chryse had died.) Dardanus received land on
Mount Ida from his father-in-law. There Dardanus founded the city of
Dardania.
Dardanus' children by Batea were
Ilus,
Erichthonius and
Idaea. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.50.3), Dardanus also had a son named Zacynthus by Bataea and this Zacynthus was the first settler on the island afterwards called
Zacynthus. Dionysius also says (1.61.4) that Dardanus's son Idaeus gave his name to the Idaean mountains, that's
Mount Ida, where Idaeus built a temple to the Mother of the Gods (that is to
Cybele) and instituted mysteries and ceremonies still observed in
Phrygia in Dionysius's time. There are
operas on the subject of Dardanus by
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1739),
Carl Stamitz (1770) and
Antonio Sacchini (1784).
Family Tree
Further Information
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