Gallery Sarpedon

The legendary founder and leader of Lycia and came to be associated through Greek legend with Lycia in the same way that nearly every ancient British site has some association with King Arthur.

In Homer’s Iliad, Sarpedon is the courageous leader of the Lycian contingent that went to assist the Trojans against the invading Greeks. He is the son of Zeus and Laodamia, who was the daughter of Bellerophon, and was killed by Patroclus after which Zeus had him carried back to Lycia by Apollo for a hero’s burial.

This may be a Homeric invention, but it seems that Homer took his material from some Lycian epic. Sarpedon’s chief cult center was at Xanthos, where he was supposedly entombed. By the 5th century BC a large cult complex was built atop the acropolis, the Sarpedoneia, and it was most likely here that the games of the Sarpedoneia were played and regular sacrifices were made to Sarpedon.