Perkote (Ἄβυδος) — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Perkote — Perkote of the Hellespont narrows — where the horse-lord who would not dismount rode to his death.

The Trojan-allied march of Hellespont towns — Perkote, Sestos, Abydos, Arisbe — led to Troy by Asios son of Hyrtakos. Asios drove his chariot recklessly against the Achaean wall and was speared through the throat by Idomeneus; his son Adamas fell to Meriones, and no return-song is sung for his house.

Leader at Troy: Asios.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Asios.

Role in the Trojan War: Trojan ally. Asios son of Hyrtakos led the Hellespont contingent (Perkote, Praktios, Sestos, Abydos, Arisbe) behind his sorrel steeds, and commanded the third Trojan company in the storming of the Achaean wall — a reckless horseman cut down by Idomeneus at the ships.

The homecoming: No nostos — the horse-lord Asios lies in the dust before the ships, slain by Idomeneus.

Perkote was no kingdom but a march of towns strung along the narrows of the Hellespont, where the sea runs like a river between two shores. Its men held **Perkote** and **Praktios**, **Sestos** on the near bank and **Abydos** facing it across the strait, and **bright Arisbe** upon the Selleeis — the gate-country through which every ship must pass to windy Ilios. When the summons came, these Hellespont towns marched for Priam as Trojan allies, mustered under one lord: **Asios son of Hyrtakos**, whom the Catalogue names *a prince of men*, brought to the war behind his tall sorrel steeds out of Arisbe, from the river Selleeis.\n\nAsios was a horseman before he was anything else, and it was his horses that killed him. In the great assault on the Achaean wall the Trojans divided into five companies; Asios led the third, beside Priam's sons Helenos and Deiphobos. When wise Polydamas counselled the captains to leave their chariots at the ditch and storm the rampart on foot, all obeyed but Asios — *fond man!* — who would not part with his car and driver, but drove straight at the left-hand gate where the fleeing Achaeans streamed in. There the poet marks him for death in the same breath as his pride: *never was he, avoiding evil Fates, to return, rejoicing in his horses and chariot, back from the ships to windy Ilios.* At the open gate two Lapith champions, Polypoites and Leonteus, stood like rooted oaks and would not yield; the men above rained stones like snowflakes, and Asios groaned and smote both his thighs and cried out against Zeus for loving a lie.\n\nHis end came soon after at the ships. Asios came on foot to rescue a comrade Idomeneus had felled, his charioteer holding the horses so close their breath touched his shoulders — and the Cretan lord was beforehand with him, and drove the spear through his throat below the chin. He fell *as an oak falls, or a poplar, or tall pine tree, that craftsmen have felled on the hills.* Antilochos son of Nestor then speared the dazed charioteer and drove off the famous horses; Deiphobos, grieving, cast in vengeance and killed Hypsenor, boasting that Asios would not go down to Hades unescorted. So the lord of the Hellespont towns lies stretched in the dust before the ships — and there is his nostos: there is none. His son **Adamas** avenged nothing and shared his fate, cut down by Meriones — Idomeneus' own comrade — so that both father and son of the house of Hyrtakos fell to Cretan spears.\n\nThis is why Perkote's fortunes bind it above all to **CRE**, the Cretans of Idomeneus, who slew both its lord and its heir; to **TRO**, the Trojans of Hektor under whose banner Asios marched and died; and to **ADR**, neighbouring Adrasteia, led by Adrestos and Amphios, the two sons of **Merops of Perkote** — that seer who *beyond all men knew soothsaying* and foretold his children's deaths, yet could not hold them back, *for the fates of black death led them on.* Merops' house and Asios' were the two great names of Perkote, and both were emptied by the war. In the Catalogue Perkote stands between **ZEL**, the Lycians of Zeleia under Pandaros, and the **PEL** Pelasgians of Larisa — the same reach of allied Asian coast. Even Perkote's stones bled at other hands: from **Abydos** came Demokoon, Priam's bastard son who had left off tending his fleet mares, and Odysseus drove a javelin through both his temples in revenge for a fallen friend.\n\nAt the dramatic present, ten years gone and Troy fallen, no return-song is sung for Perkote. The horse-lord who would not dismount never rode home; his heir lies beside him; the seer's sons are ash. The narrow towns of Sestos and Abydos keep their watch over the strait as they always did, waiting on men who will not come back across it.

“never was he, avoiding evil Fates, to return, rejoicing in his horses and chariot, back from the ships to windy Ilios.” — Iliad 12.113-115