This article is about wife of Tlepolemus. For other uses, see Polyxo.
In Greek mythology, Polyxo (/pəˈlɪksoʊ/; Ancient Greek: Πολυξώ, romanized: Poluxṓ), also known as Philozoe (Ancient Greek: Φιλοζώη, romanized: Philozṓē, lit. 'animal-loving' or 'life-loving'), is the wife of the Trojan War hero Tlepolemus, and later the queen of Rhodes, an island in the southeastern Aegean sea. Following her husband's death during the war, Polyxo took revenge against Helen, whom she blamed for all the sorrows she had suffered.
Family
Polyxo was born in Argos, of unclear line. She married a son of Heracles called Tlepolemus, and had an unnamed son by him.[1]
Mythology
After her marriage to Tlepolemus and his subsequent exile due to his murder of Licymnius, Polyxo followed him to the island of Rhodes, where they had a son together.[2][3] But Tlepolemus had once been one of the suitors of Helen of Troy,[4][5] so when Paris took her with him to Troy, Tlepolemus left to join the expedition that would bring Helen back to her husband Menelaus.[3] Tlepolemus fought and was killed by Sarpedon at Troy, leaving Polyxo a widow and their son an orphan.[6] Mourning greatly, Polyxo organised funerary games for her deceased husband in which children competed and the victors were crowned with wreaths of poplar leaves.[7]
Many years later, after Menelaus had died, his illegitimate sons drove Helen out of Sparta, and she came to Rhodes, requesting shelter from her old friend Polyxo who was ruling as queen at the time.[8][9] Polyxo still desired to take revenge for her slain husband, so she pretended to receive Helen warmly.[10] But while Helen was relaxing in a bath, she sent her some handmaidens dressed up like the Erinyes, goddesses of justice, retribution and revenge.[3][11] The servants seized Helen and hanged her on a tree, killing her.[12][13] The Rhodians would build a sanctuary to worship Helen of the Tree (Helene Dendritis), as they dubbed her.[2][14]
In another version, Menelaus and Helen landed at Rhodes on their way back from Egypt. Polyxo, wanting to avenge Tlepolemus, sent a large host of Rhodians armed with stones and fire to the ships.[15] Menelaus hid Helen under the deck, and made one of his wife's most beautiful attendants wear her crown and garment.[12] The Rhodians killed the servant then, mistaking her for Helen.[11] Satisfied that justice had been served, Polyxo and the Rhodians withdrew, and troubled the Spartan royal couple no more.[16]
In culture
The version where Polyxo kills Helen in Rhodes is rather contrary to the usual happy traditions about Helen's post-Troy fate, and was probably invented to explain the Rhodian tree cult.[17] Dedications to the goddess Athena are recorded in the Lindos Chronicle to have been offered by Helen and Menelaus.[14] Traces of hanged-woman worship were also found elsewhere in ancient Greece as well.[18]
Polyxo and her myth seem to have been used to explain how the cult of Helen arrived in Rhodes from Laconia via the Trojan War narrative and the Rhodian hero who joined the war; Polyxo was probably invented in order to tie the gap and be the agent who causes Helen's death.[15] The motiff of the Erinyes that Polyxo sends against her might have been unique to Rhodes, or also imported from mainland Greece.[15] It is also possible that it is a remnant of a lost version of the myth in which the actual Erinyes hanged Helen or caused her to hang herself.[19]
