Trojan War Hero - Sarpedon, King of Lycia

 

Here's a Trojan War hero for Midgard Heroic Battles that I've just finished painting. He is Sarpedon, King of the Lukka (Lycians), who was an ally of the Trojans in Homer's Iliad. Figures are by Redoubt Enterprises who have an excellent Trojan Wars range. I already have Sea People Lukka and Pelset chariots and warriors painted that I can use for Lycians, as allies for the Trojan side. Homer has a great description of him in the Iliad when the Trojans storm the rampart to the Achaeans' camp:

But not even now would Trojans and Prince Hector

have burst appart the rampart's gates and huge bar

if Zeus the Master Strategist had not driven

his own son Sarpedon straight at the Argives,

strong as a lion raiding crooked-horn cattle.

Quickly Sarpedon swung his shield before him -

balanced and handsome beaten bronze a bronzesmith

hammered out with layer on layer of hide inside

and stitched with gold rivets on the rim.

That splendid shield he gripped before his chest

and shaking a pair of spears went stalking out

like a mountain lion starved for meat too long

and the lordly heart inside him fires him up

to raid some stormproof fold, to go at the sheep,

and even if he should light on herdsmen at the spot,

guarding their flocks with dogs and bristling spears,

the marauder has no mind to be driven off that steading,

not without an attack. All or nothing - he charges flocks

and hauls of bloody prey or he's run through himself

at the first assault with a fast spear driven home.

Homer Iliad 13.337-356 translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1998, pp.334-335.