Abantes (Χαλκίς) — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Abantes — The proud Abantes of long-shanked Euboia — long-haired spearmen whose king fell in the first rush and never sailed home.

The island realm of the Abantes of Euboia, seated at Chalkis and led to Troy by Elephenor with forty ships. Their king fell in the war's first renewed clash and never returned; leaderless, his people were storm-scattered onto foreign coasts.

Leader at Troy: Elephenor.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Elephenor.

Role in the Trojan War: Achaean. Forty black ships of the fury-breathing Abantes under Elephenor son of Chalkodon — close-quarter spearmen who tore the corslets from their foes; their king was slain almost in the first exchange after the broken truce, cut down by the Trojan Agenor.

The homecoming: No homecoming: Elephenor fell at Troy, and his leaderless people were cast away on the Ceraunian shore.

Long-shanked Euboia, the great island lying broadside against the coast of Boeotia and Attica, was the country of the Abantes — a fierce old people "breathing fury," their seat the bronze-working city of Chalkis on the narrows. Their reach ran the length of the island: Chalkis and Eretria, Histiaia rich in vines, Kerinthos by the sea, the steep fortress of Dion, and southward Karystos and Styra facing the Attic shore. Over them all was set Elephenor, son of Chalkodon, "of the stock of Ares" — and it is his death, not his homecoming, that fixes the fate of this realm in the tale of the returns.\n\nThe Abantes came to Troy Achaean, forty black ships behind their captain. Homer marks them out from every other contingent by their look and their savagery: they wore their hair long and flowing behind, the fore-scalp shorn, and they were spearmen who did not fight at a distance but closed to tear the very corslets on the breasts of the foe with outstretched ashen shafts. They were, in the poet's word, the "proud Abantes" — a contingent built for the press of hand-to-hand slaughter.\n\nElephenor's own moment came at the very rupture of the truce, when the war reopened after the broken oaths. Antilochos, son of Nestor of Pylos, drew first blood, spearing the Trojan Echepolos through the brow so that he crashed "like a tower amid the press of fight." Elephenor lunged to seize the glory — he caught the falling man by the foot and hauled him from beneath the darts, hungry to strip the armour. But as he stooped, his flank uncovered where his shield swung aside, great-hearted Agenor son of Antenor drove a bronze-tipped spear into his side and unstrung his limbs. So the lord of the Abantes fell almost in the first exchange of the renewed war, over the corpse he had coveted, and above him "the task of Trojans and Achaians grew hot; like wolves leapt they one at another." His people fought on through the long years to the sack of Ilios, but their king would never see Euboia again.\n\nThis is the realm's nostos: there is none. Elephenor died at Troy, and no crowned Abas came home to Chalkis. When the host scattered on the homeward sea, his leaderless people were driven far off their course — cast away, the old accounts hold, in the Ionian gulf upon the Ceraunian mountains, where with storm-wrecked Locrians they founded a new Thronium and named the coast about it Abantis after themselves; while another remnant, sailing in company with Menestheus of Athens as far as Mimas, was scattered still further abroad. At the dramatic present of the returns, the ancestral island keeps its cities and its ashen-speared warriors, but the house of Chalkodon has no living lord over the strait — its king lies in the plain of Troy, and its folk are strewn along foreign shores.\n\nThe realm's bonds run to its neighbours across the water. Locrian Aias led an equal forty ships from the mainland that "dwells over against holy Euboia," and the two contingents share a wreck and a refuge in the tale of the returns [LOC]. Athens lies just across the southern strait: Elephenor had sheltered the sons of Theseus, and his surviving Abantes sailed homeward in the fleet of Menestheus [ATH]. To Pylos the tie is bitter — Antilochos, Nestor's son, made the kill that Elephenor died trying to plunder [PYL]; and the spear that felled him was Trojan, thrown by Antenor's son Agenor within the walls of Ilios [TRO].

“As he fell lord Elephenor caught him by the foot, Chalkodon's son, captain of the great-hearted Abantes, and dragged him from beneath the darts, eager with all speed to despoil him of his armour.” — Iliad 4.463-466