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

Skyros — Rocky Skyros of King Lykomedes — where Achilles hid among the daughters, and the war's finisher was reared.

A rugged Aegean isle that launched no ships to Troy, yet cradled the war's outcome: at Lykomedes' court Achilles was once hidden, and his son Neoptolemus was born and raised — the youth Odysseus fetched to fulfil the prophecy that Ilios could not fall without him. Skyros keeps its old king; its foster-son never returns, but wins a father's kingdom over the Myrmidons.

Leader at Troy: Skyros.

Role in the Trojan War: Achaean by hearth-right, though it fielded no contingent in the Catalogue of Ships. Skyros's whole part in the war was to shelter and rear Achilles' son Neoptolemus, whom Odysseus and Phoinix carried off to Troy once Helenos foretold that Ilios could not be taken unless he fought.

The homecoming: Sent no fleet of its own — its foster-son Neoptolemus sailed on to rule Phthia and never came back to the isle.

Skyros is a rocky island set in the Aegean, the realm of Lykomedes son of Creon, and it marched no host to Troy: you will not find its ships numbered in the Catalogue. Its greatness lies not in a fleet but in a secret it once kept. Here Thetis hid the boy Achilles, dressed as a maiden among the daughters of Lykomedes, that he might escape the war and the early death foretold for him. The stratagem failed — Odysseus unmasked him — but not before Achilles had lain with Deidamia, the king's daughter, and got upon her a son: Pyrrhos, whom Phoinix would later name Neoptolemos, the "young soldier." So Skyros became the nursery of the man without whom Ilios could not fall. While his father raged and died on the plain of Troy, the child was reared on the island — and Achilles himself, mourning Patroklos, measured his grief against the loss of that distant boy, saying he could bear no worse blow "though it were my beloved son who is reared for me in Skyros." When Achilles was dead and the seer Helenos was forced to name the terms of the city's fall, the second condition was that Neoptolemos must fight for the Achaeans. The Greeks sent Odysseus and Phoinix to Lykomedes at Skyros, and the two persuaded the old king to let the youth go. From the island he sailed straight into his father's greatness. Odysseus, who fetched him, freely resigned to him Achilles' own arms; and by his own account before the shade of Achilles in the house of Hades, Odysseus tells how the young man surpassed all but Nestor and himself in council, ran out ahead of all in battle, cut down Eurypylos son of Telephos and his Ceteian company, sat dry-eyed and eager in the belly of the Wooden Horse while older princes trembled, and after the sack "embarked unscathed with his share of the spoil, and with a noble prize." Skyros, alone of the realms, gave the war a hero who took no wound and lost no return. Yet the nostos of this island is a strange one, for its true return-story belongs to a son who never comes back to it. Lykomedes keeps his rocky throne; but Neoptolemos, his grandchild, sails on past Skyros to claim the kingdom of his dead father. At the dramatic present of the returns he rules "the famous city of the Myrmidons," Achilles' own people of Phthia — and to that hall Menelaos is even now sending his daughter Hermione, "as fair as golden Aphrodite," the bride he had promised the son of Achilles back in Troy. Thus the island that sheltered the father now yields the man who inherits both his arms and his throne. The links run outward from Skyros like spokes. To the Myrmidons (MYR) of Phthia, whose lord Neoptolemos becomes — Achilles' inheritance passing from father to Skyros-reared son. To the Cephallenians (CEP) of Odysseus, who unmasked Achilles here and later fetched Neoptolemos, handing him the immortal arms. To Lacedaemon (LAC) of Menelaos, who weds his daughter Hermione to the young lord — a marriage sworn under Troy's walls. To Mycenae (MYC) of the house of Atreus, for that same Hermione was claimed by Orestes, and the feud over her will one day draw Neoptolemos to his death at Delphi. To the Mysians (MYS), whose champion Eurypylos son of Telephos fell to his spear. And to Athens (ATH): for it was on this very isle, guest-friend turned victim, that Lykomedes hurled the aged Theseus from a cliff to his death — the same king who would shelter Achilles' seed had already spilt Athens' greatest king.

“though it were my beloved son who is reared for me in Skyros, if still at least is godlike Neoptolemos alive.” — Iliad 19.326-327