Palamedes

Ancestry

Nauplius was the great-great-great-grandson of the sea-god Poseidon and the founder and king of Nauplia. He had three sons, Palamedes his eldest.

Accomplishments

Known for his great wisom, Palamedes is said to have invented

He also expanded and organized the Greek alphabet: One of the few in his times able to write, he added 11 letters to the alphabet (others say: 16 letters). And he arranged the letters in the traditional order.

Palamedes is also credited with advancements in the field of wine making.

Trojan War

The poet Homer credits Palamedes (Greek: Παλαμήδης, pronounced: /pal-uh-meed'-eez/) with the discovery of dice during the siege of Troy. Specifically, he invented the dice gambling game called Astragaloi (or Astragals) by the Greeks. He dedicated the dice he invented to Tyche (Greek: Τύχη), the Goddess of Fortune, but the goddess did not protect him when he fell a victim of slander.

King Nauplius sent his son Palamedes to force Odysseus to honor his oath to defend the marriage of Helen and Menelaus. Paris had kidnapped Helen, but Odysseus did not want to keep his vow and help lay siege to Troy. Odysseus was warned by an Oracle that if he went to Troy, he would not return for 20 years. So he feigned madness.

Odysseus yoked a donkey and an ox to his plough (as they have different stride lengths, hindering the efficiency of the plough) and began sowing his fields with salt. But Palamedes was wise and he saw through this ruse and placed Telemachus, Odysseus's infant son, in front of the plough. Odysseus veered the plough away from his son, thus exposing his malingering. So Odysseus bore a grudge against Palamedes for dragging him away from his home.

In the early days of the siege of Troy, Palamedes raised the morale of the Greek army when they were disquieted by many unfavorable omens. He defended the Greeks from a plague, a drought, and Apollo's wolf.

As one of the few Greeks able to count, Palamedes counted the Greek forces and the Trojan forces, and then recommended the Greeks go home.

Odysseus used Palamedes smarts against him---after Palamedes recommended going home, Odysseus claimed Palamedes was a traitor. Odysseus planted fake evidence against him:

As a result, Palamedes was tried and condemned to death by the Greeks. Some say he was stoned to death by the whole Greek army. Others say: Odysseus drowned him in a fishing net.

The moral of this story: No one forges his own fortune. No matter how wise you are or how much of a contribution you make, nothing can save you from misfortune. Tyche feels no compassion for her victims, and it is pointless to try and supplicate her.

Aftermath

King Nauplius went to Troy to demand justice for the death of his son, but no one listened to him and all supported King Agamemnon who helped Odysseus kill Palamedes.

Nauplius swore revenge against Agamemnon and the other Greek leaders. He convinced many of the lonely wives of the Greek leaders to be unfaithful to their husbands, and to conspire against them --- including Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra. And as the Greeks were sailing home from Troy after the close of the war, Nauplius lit beacon fires along the perilous coastline of Euboea, resulting in many shipwrecks.

Memorials to Palamedes

Dedication

Palamedes invented dice, which were the inspiration for the first modern studies of probability theory by Cardano, Pascal and Fermat. Back in the 4th century BC, the philosopher Gorgias wrote the Defense of Palamedes, the archetype of the modern legal argument, which uses an informal version of probability theory and Bayesian belief networks --- yet another connection between Palamedes to probability theory.

Therefore, this software, which combines a dice roller, probability calculator and Bayesian belief network inference engine, is hereby dedicated to Palamedes, the mythological inventor of dice and the inspiration for probabilistic arguments and belief nets.

Discussion

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Last update: Fri Sep 23 2016