Wikipedia
Thoas , son of Andraemon and Gorge, was one of the heroes who fought for the Greeks in the Trojan War. He was a former suitor of Helen of Troy and led a group of forty ships for the Aetolians, one of the larger contingents. The Iliad states that he received his lordship because the previous dynasty of Oineus and Meleagros had perished, so the power to rule was bestowed on him. He was one of the nine volunteers to fight Hector in one on one combat, but lost to the drawing of lots to Telamonian Aias.
In the Iliad Poseidon impersonates Thoas to rally Idomeneus so that he will prevent Hector, who had just killed the sea god's grandson, and his forces from routing the Argives. Later, when Hector has broken through to the ships and the Trojan advance is pressing hard upon them, Thoas advises the Greeks' best warriors to make a stand against Hector and the advancing Trojans in order to allow the rest of the Greek army to retreat to safety. In the Aeneid, Aeneas names Thoas as one of those Greeks hidden within the Trojan Horse.
He figures in a story told by Odysseus in the Odyssey.
Some say that Odysseus, after being exiled from Ithaca by Neoptolemus, came to Thoas and married his daughter, by whom he had a son Leontophonus.
In Greek mythology, Thoas was a son of the god Dionysus and Ariadne, the daughter of Cretan king Minos. Some, however, consider him to be Theseus’s son, together with his brother Oenopion. Rhadamanthus, Ariadne's uncle, bequeathed Thoas the island of Lemnos, over which he reigned until his daughter Hypsipyle, unable to kill her own father to avenge the offenses against the Lemnian women, tied him secretly in an oarless boat and sent him adrift into the Aegean Sea. He was carried to the island of Oinoie, where he consorted with the nymph of the island, also called Oinoie, and had by her a son Sicinus, who later had the island renamed after himself. Thoas eventually arrived at Tauris, in the Crimea, where he was made king and where Artemis installed Agamemnon's daughter Iphigeneia as her temple's priestess.
In the play Iphigenia in Tauris, Iphigenia is ordered to execute her brother, Orestes, after he tries to steal a statue of Artemis. When the siblings discover each other's identity, they discuss ways to escape. Orestes wants to kill King Thoas, but Iphigenia suggests that they trick him. Iphigenia meets Thoas and claims that the statue has been tainted with the sin of matricide. She says that the statue has turned and closed its eyes. Thoas believes her and allows her to wash Orestes and his traveling companion Pylades. He even gives her freedom to do it in privacy, giving the order that everybody should stay indoors. Iphigenia, Orestes, Pylades, and the Greek slaves all escape with the help of Athena. A messenger relays this to Thoas and he immediately sends his men to attack. Athena intervenes and convinces him to let them go.
Thoas was eventually killed by Chryses.
It is worth noting that in earlier sources Thoas, father of Hypsipyle, and Thoas, king of Tauris, were two distinct figures, the latter being called son of Borysthenes, god of a major river to the far north of Greece (now Dnieper). It was probably not until such late authors as Hyginus and Valerius Flaccus that the two were explicitly equated.
Thoas is a name in Greek mythology that may refer to:
- Thoas, one of the Achaean leaders in the Trojan War
- Thoas (Tauri king), son of Dionysus and father of Hypsipyle
- Thoas, grandson of the precedent, twin brother of Euneus; also known as Nebrophon or Deipylus
- Thoas (king of Corinth), a grandson of Sisyphus
- Thoas, a son of Icarius
- Thoas, a Trojan killed by Menelaus
- Thoas, a companion of Aeneas
- Thoas, one of the suitors of Penelope
- Thoas, a Theban killed by Tydeus
- Thoas, a companion of Theseus
- Thoas, one of the Giants (also called Thoon), who, together with Agrios, was clubbed to death by the Moirai (Fates) during the Gigantomachy.