In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, Ilione was the oldest daughter of King Priam

Priam

Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...

 and Queen Hecuba

Hecuba

Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra...

 of Troy

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

. Her husband was the Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

 king Polymestor

Polymestor

In Greek mythology, Polymestor was a King of Thrace. His wife was Ilione, the eldest daughter of King Priam. Polymestor appears in Euripides' play, Hecuba and in the Ovidian myth "Hecuba, Polyxena and Polydorus"...

. She is briefly mentioned in Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid: Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

 gives her scepter to Dido.

Ilione plays a significant role in a version of the story of her younger brother Polydorus

Polydorus (son of Priam)

Polydorus is the youngest son of Priam and Hecuba in the mythology of the Trojan War. Polydorus is an example of the fluid nature of myth, as his role and story vary significantly in different traditions and sources....

. He had been entrusted by Priam and Hecuba to the care of his older sister and her husband. Ilione, who already had a son of her own, Deipylus, brought her brother up as her son, and her son as her brother, thinking that if anything happened to one of them, she could return the other one to her parents in any case. So when Polymestor was instigated by the Greeks to kill the son of Priam, he killed Deipylus instead, taking him for Polydorus. The real Polydorus thus survived and escaped. Later, he went to inquire the oracle at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

 about his parents, and was answered that his native city had been destroyed, father killed, and mother enslaved. Still thinking that he was the son of Polymestor and Ilione, Polydorus thought that the oracle must have been wrong, and asked Ilione about it. She told him all the truth and suggested that he take revenge on Polymestor; Polydorus then blinded and killed him.

Ilione was said to have eventually committed suicide, grieving at her parents' deaths.

Her story was the subject of early Roman tragedies by Pacuvius

Pacuvius

Marcus Pacuvius was the greatest of the tragic poets of ancient Rome prior to Lucius Accius.He was the nephew and pupil of Ennius, by whom Roman tragedy was first raised to a position of influence and dignity...

 and Accius

Lucius Accius

Lucius Accius , or Lucius Attius, was a Roman tragic poet and literary scholar. The son of a freedman, Accius was born at Pisaurum in Umbria, in 170 BC...

.