Nestor
（
Νέστωρ). Son of Neleus and Chloris, ruler of the
Messenian and Triphylian Pylus, and later also, after the extinction of the royal family
there, of Messenia. He was married to Eurydicé, by whom he had seven sons and two
daughters. He was the only one of twelve sons of Neleus who escaped being slain by Heracles,
since he was, it is said, living at the time among the Gerenians in Messenia, from whom he
derives the name
Γερήνιος, given him in Homer. After this
disaster, the king of the Epeans, Augeas, illegally kept back a fourhorse chariot which Neleus
had sent to Elis to compete in a contest. Nestor , as yet hardly a youth, retaliated by
driving off the herds of the Epeans; upon which the latter with a large army besieged the
Pylian fortress of Thyroessa on the Eurotas. Nestor formed one of the relieving army, serving
as a foot-soldier, owing to his father's having, from regard to his youth, had the war-horses
concealed from him. He slew in battle Augeas's son-in-law, and, fighting from the dead man's
chariot, won a most brilliant victory, so that the Pylians offered thanks to him among men
just as they offered them to Zeus among the gods. In like manner in the war against the
Arcadians, when he was the youngest of all the combatants, he killed the gigantic and
much-dreaded hero Ereuthalion. He also took an important part in the battle between the
Centaurs and the Lapithae, and is mentioned as among the Argonauts (Val. Flac. i. 380). In old
age, when he was ruling over the third generation of his people, he was involved in the
expedition against Troy, owing, as the story went, to the obligation incurred by his son
Antilochus as a suitor of Helen; with Odysseus he gained the help of Achilles and Patroclus
for the undertaking, and himself sailed, in the company of his sons Antilochus and
Thrasymedes, with ninety ships to the seat of war at Ilium. Here, according to Homer,
“ Nestor the horseman,” in spite of his great age, took a prominent part
among the heroes in council and battle alike: the qualities which adorned him were wisdom, justice, eloquence, “from his lips flows language sweeter than
honey” (
Il. i. 248), experience in war, unwearied activity, and courage. All
valued and loved him, and none more than Agamemhon, who wished that he had ten such
counsellors: in which case, he said, Troy would soon fall (
Il. ii. 372). He is so great a favourite with Homer that in ancient
times it was conjectured that the poet was himself a native of Pylos. After the destruction of
Troy he returned in safety with his son Thrasymedes to Pylos,
Antilochus (q.v.) having for the sake of his father, who was in sore
peril, sacrificed his own life in battle against Memnon. Ten years afterwards, Telemachus
found him still at Pylos, amidst his children, in the enjoyment of a cheerful and prosperous
old age. On the “cup of Nestor ,” see
Toreuticé.
