Pylos (Πύλος) — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Pylos — Sandy Pylos, house of Neleus — the old horseman who alone came home clean, and buried his son at Troy.

The western Messenian realm of Nestor, wisest and oldest of the Achaean kings, who led ninety ships to Troy and sailed straight home to Pylos without loss. At the dramatic present he still rules in his halls — but his dear son Antilochos lies dead on the Trojan plain.

Leader at Troy: Nestor.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Nestor.

Role in the Trojan War: Achaean. Ninety hollow ships — second only to Agamemnon's hundred — under Nestor of Gerenia, the host's chief counsellor, whose rede was proved best; his son Antilochos slew the war's first Trojan and fell defending his father against Memnon, the last great death before Troy fell.

The homecoming: Came home swift and unscathed — the one clean return, bought with a son's death at Troy.

Sandy Pylos on the western shore of Messenia was the seat of Nestor son of Neleus, knightly Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots — oldest and wisest of all the kings who sailed for Troy. His lands ran from Pylos itself through Arene and Thryon at the ford of Alpheios, past established Aipy and Kyparisseis and Amphigeneia, to Pteleos, Helos, and Dorion — that place where the Muses met Thamyris the Thracian as he came boasting from Oichalia and, in their anger, maimed him and took from him the high gift of song.\n\nNestor was the survivor of a broken house. In an earlier age Heracles sacked the old Pylos and slew Neleus and all his sons — Periklymenos most valiant among them — and Nestor alone was spared, because he was being reared away among the Gerenians. From that lone seed the line grew again, and by the dramatic present Nestor has 'seen two generations of mortal men perish' and is king among the third — 'thrice king through the generations of men,' as Telemachos marvels. He is the clear-voiced orator of the Pylians, he from whose tongue flowed discourse sweeter than honey; at Troy he and goodly Odysseus (see CEP) 'never spake diversely either in the assembly or in the council, but always were of one mind.'\n\nHis ninety ships were the second-largest contingent of the whole host, and though age had taken his arm from the front rank, his counsel steered the war. His pride and grief was his son Antilochos — swift of foot, first of the Achaeans to slay a Trojan when the two lines closed, and the near companion of Achilles who bore to him the black news of Patroclus. When Memnon, the mighty son of the Dawn, bore down upon aged Nestor whose chariot-horse was struck, Antilochos threw himself between and was cut down saving his father; and Achilles of the Myrmidons (see MYR), 'Patroclus' death I avenged on Hector, and Antilochus on thee,' hunted Memnon down over the corpse — one of the last great deaths before the city fell. So Nestor stands in his own returning-tale beside the mightiest dead: 'There lies valiant Aias, and there Achilles, and there Patroclus… and there my own dear son, Antilochus.'\n\nYet Nestor's is the one clean nostos. When the host quarrelled at Troy over the hour of sailing, he embarked with the half that put to sea early; strife broke out again at Tenedos, but he held on, and from Lesbos the god gave a sign and a shrill wind that never quenched. He and Diomedes of Argos (see ARG) ran together across the open sea to Euboea and sacrificed at Geraestus to Poseidon; Diomedes moored at Argos, 'but I held on for Pylos,' and came home without the loss of a ship or a man. At the dramatic present he sits ruling in his stablished castle, ringed by his sons Thrasymedes and Peisistratos and his revered wife Eurydice, keeping the old rites of Poseidon on the sand. There, in the tenth year of the returns, Telemachos finds him seeking word of Odysseus. Nestor has no tidings — but he presses on the boy the great exemplum of the age: how Agamemnon of Mycenae (see MYC) was cut down on his return, and how Orestes took vengeance — 'be valiant, that even men unborn may praise thee' — and sends him on by chariot with Peisistratos to Menelaos in Lacedaemon (see LAC), from whom he himself parted at the scattering of the fleet.

“and there my own dear son, strong and noble, Antilochus, that excelled in speed of foot and in the fight.” — Odyssey 3.111-112