Pherai (Ἰωλκός) — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Pherai — Pherai of the swift mares — the charioteer who came home whole.

The Thessalian horse-realm of Eumelos son of Admetos, who led eleven ships to Troy and drove the finest team in the whole Achaean host. He is among the few captains whose nostos was clean: he sailed home unscathed and rules Pherai still.

Leader at Troy: Eumelos.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Eumelos.

Role in the Trojan War: Achaean contingent of eleven ships from Thessalian Pherai, led by Eumelos son of Admetos. Famed less for slaughter than for horses — the goodliest team at Troy — and for driving in the funeral games; Eumelos was also among the chosen chiefs who entered the Wooden Horse.

The homecoming: Sailed home unscathed — the charioteer who came back whole.

Pherai lay in the green horse-country of Thessaly, ringed by the reedy Boibeian mere. Its lord at the dramatic present is Eumelos son of Admetos — and of all the kings who sailed for Ilios, his is among the cleanest returns: he came home whole, and rules his father's meadows still while half the Achaean host lies dead or scattered on the sea.\n\nIn the Catalogue of Ships Homer counts him among the Achaean captains: 'of them that dwelt in Pherai by the Boibeian mere, in Boibe and Glaphyre and stablished Iolkos, of them, even eleven ships, Admetos' dear son was leader, Eumelos.' Eleven ships is a modest muster beside Agamemnon's hundred out of golden **MYC** Mycenae — the overlord to whom every Thessalian keel answered. But Pherai's glory was never in numbers. It was in horses. When the Muse is asked who was first and foremost of all that followed the sons of Atreus, the answer for the beasts is Eumelos: his two mares, reared in Peraia by Apollo of the silver bow, were 'far goodliest,' swift as birds, matched hair for hair and year for year. The realm that bred the Argo at Pagasae bred also the finest team at Troy.\n\nThat mastery of the rein is why Pherai's most vivid hour comes not in the killing but in the games. At the funeral of Patroklos, in the household of **MYR** Achilles and the Myrmidons — the host who set out the prizes — it was Eumelos who 'first of all arose up... a skilful charioteer,' and his mares who broke to the front, so far ahead that Diomedes of **ARG** Argos was left breathing on his shoulders. He would have won outright had not Athene, wroth on Diomedes' behalf, snapped his yoke: the pole twisted to the ground, the mares ran sideways off the course, and Eumelos was hurled beside the wheel, elbows and mouth and nose flayed, his lusty voice choked with dust. He came in last, his ruined car dragged home on foot. Achilles, pitying the best driver of the host, moved to award him the second prize — the mare — but Antilochos of **PYL** Pylos, Nestor's son, who had stolen that place by cunning, rose in fury to keep his own; and so Achilles gave Eumelos instead the bronze breastplate stripped from Asteropaios. In that one race stand ranged the four great racing houses of the returns — Pherai, Argos, Pylos, and, driving Agamemnon's mare Aithe, Menelaos of **LAC** Lacedaemon.\n\nEumelos did his part in the killing too, and in the ending. When the host went up into the hollow horse of Epeios to take Troy from within, Eumelos climbed into that cavernous belly among Achilles' son, Odysseus, Diomedes and the chosen chiefs — one of the men who 'in silence sat 'twixt victory and death' until the city burned.\n\nHis house was old and strange with god-touched fortune. His father Admetos of Pherai had Apollo himself for a thrall a year, and won by the god's help the hand of Alkestis, 'fair among women,' most beautiful of the daughters of Pelias of neighbouring Iolcus — the queen who once died in her husband's stead. From that marriage of a god's favourite and a self-sacrificing queen came Eumelos, and something of both gifts — the horses of Apollo, the luck to survive — went home with him. His Thessalian neighbours fared harder: **MEL** Meliboea's lord Philoktetes had been left rotting on Lemnos, and the **MAG** Magnetes' captain Prothoos would drown among the many who never saw Pelion again. Eumelos alone of that northern coast came back unbruised by the sea, and at year ten of the nostoi the eleven ships of Pherai ride again at their own shore, their king in his hall, his father's line unbroken.

“Of horses they of Pheres' son were far goodliest, those that Eumelos drave, swift as birds, like of coat, like of age, matched to the measure of a levelling line across their backs.” — Iliad 2.763-767