Diomedes

King of Argos and son of Tydeus (one of the Seven against Thebes a generation earlier). The *aristeia* given to him in *Iliad* 5 is the most extraordinary of any mortal: with Athena beside him to point out the gods, he wounds Aphrodite in the wrist as she rescues Aeneas, drives Apollo back four times from the body, and at last spears Ares himself in the belly — the only mortal in the epic to injure two Olympians in a single day. He partners Odysseus in the night-raid of book 10 (the *Doloneia*) and in the recovery of Achilles. The Italian tradition makes him after the war an exile from Argos who founds cities in Apulia, where the salt-marsh birds of Diomedea are said to be his transformed companions.

Associated Places