Epeians (Ἦλις) — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Epeians — The plainsmen of Elis — four captains, forty ships, and a homecoming split between the grave and the hearth.

A federation of four Epeian houses in Buprasion and Elis that sent forty ships to Troy; two of its captains, Diores and Amphimachos, fell in the fighting, while the other two returned, so that Elis stands intact — "where the Epeans bear rule" — at the time of the returns.

Leader at Troy: Amphimachos.

Role in the Trojan War: Achaean. A four-house federation of the Elean plain that furnished forty ships (four captains, ten keels each); its lord Diores was slain by Peiros of Thrace in Book 4 and avenged by Thoas of Aetolia, and Amphimachos son of Kteatos was cut down by Hector at the ships.

The homecoming: Two captains fell at Troy, two came home — and the Epeans still bear rule in Elis.

Where the wide Peneios runs to the western sea, Buprasion and goodly Elis were the land of the Epeians — the plainsmen of Elis, so much of it as Hyrmine and Myrsinos on the borders and the Olenian Rock and Aleision hold bound between them. No single king ruled here but a federation of four houses, and to Troy each house sent its own captain and ten swift ships: forty keels in all, and many Epeians embarked thereon. The four were great names of the western Peloponnese. Amphimachos and Thalpios came of the lineage of Aktor, the one a son of Kteatos and the other of Eurytos — the Aktoridai, whom men called the Molione, sons whose grandsire Poseidon owned. Stalwart Diores was son of Amarynceus, at whose burial at Buprasion the Epeians once held the king's funeral games where young Nestor of PYL contended. And godlike Polyxeinos was son of Agasthenes, son of that king Augeias whose vast herds Heracles once cleansed. Between Elis and the Pylians of Nestor lay old blood — the cattle-feud of Nestor's youth, when the Molione fought the Neleidai — yet in the war of Ilios the Epeians marched in the Achaean host under the sceptre of Agamemnon of MYC. Their nostos is a divided one — two captains buried in Trojan dust, two brought home. In the fourth year of the fighting Diores son of Amarynceus was caught in the snare of fate: a jagged stone from Peiros son of Imbrasos, captain of the Thracians (THR) who had come from Ainos, crushed the sinews of his leg, and Peiros ran in and spilled his bowels with the spear. But vengeance was swift — Thoas of the Aetolians (AET) drove his own spear through Peiros' chest, so the two captains lay stretched in the dust side by side, he of the Thracians and he of the mail-clad Epeians. Thus the Aetolian slaying binds the Epeian death to Thrace and to Aetolia both. Later, in the battle at the ships, Hector of TRO caught Amphimachos son of Kteatos in the breast as he came back to the fray; and Poseidon himself was wroth at heart when his son's son fell, and went along the huts spurring the Danaans on. So of the four houses, two lords never sailed west again. Yet Thalpios and Polyxeinos came home, and the federation held: through every mention of the returns, Elis stands as a fixed and living power — "goodly Elis, where the Epeans bear rule." It is a near neighbour of the wanderers' own world. Noemon of Ithaca keeps twelve brood mares with hardy mules across the water in spacious Elis; the isles on the side of Elis lie within sight of rocky Ithaca; and when the kin of the slain suitors of CEP rise against Odysseus, they fear he will slip away "either to Pylos or to fair Elis, where the Epeians bear sway." Beyond the sea over against Elis lie the Echinean isles of Doulichion (DOU), Meges' realm and the Epeians' seaward neighbours. At the dramatic present, then, the Epeian land needs no restoring: it is whole, its surviving captains returned, and its four cornered lordship endures on the plain while much of Achaea reels from murdered kings.

“So were the two captains stretched in the dust side by side, he of the Thracians and he of the mail-clad Epeians; and around them were many others likewise slain.” — Iliad 4.536-538