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...

, Polydorus (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: Πολύδωρος, i.e. "many-gift[ed]") referred to several different people.

• An Argive, son of Hippomedon
  Hippomedon
  In Greek mythology, Hippomedon was one of the Seven Against Thebes and father of Polydorus.His father was either Talaus, the father of Adrastus, or Aristomachus , or Mnesimachus. If he is the son of Mnesimachus, then his mother is Metidice, daughter of Talaus, which makes him Adrastus's sister's...
  
  . Pausanias
  Pausanias (geographer)
  Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
  
   lists him as one of the Epigoni
  Epigoni
  In Greek mythology, Epigoni are the sons of the Argive heroes who had fought and been killed in the first Theban war, the subject of the Greek Thebaid, in which Polynices and six allies attacked Thebes because Polynices' brother, Eteocles, refused to give up the throne as promised...
  
  , who attacked Thebes
  Thebes, Greece
  Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...
  
   in retaliation for the deaths of their fathers, the Seven Against Thebes
  Seven Against Thebes
  The Seven against Thebes is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to as the Oedipodea. It concerns the battle between an Argive army led by Polynices and the army of Thebes led by Eteocles and his supporters. The trilogy won...
  
  , who died attempting the same thing.
• Polydorus (son of Cadmus)
  Polydorus (son of Cadmus)
  Polydorus was the only son of Cadmus and Harmonia and king of Thebes. His sisters were Semele, Ino, Agave, and Autonoë.Upon his father's death, Pentheus, the son of his sister Agave and Echion, one of the Spartoi, ruled Thebes. Pentheus, however, ruled only for a short time, before Dionysus caused...
  
  , son of Cadmus
  Cadmus
  Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...
  
   and Harmonia, and father of Labdacus
  Labdacus
  In Greek mythology, Labdacus was the only son of Polydorus and a king of Thebes. Labdacus was a grandson of Thebes' founder, Cadmus. His mother was Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus. Polydorus died while Labdacus was a young child, leaving Nycteus as his regent, although Lycus soon replaced him in that...
  
   by his wife Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus
  Nycteus
  In Greek mythology, Nycteus was a king of Thebes. His rule began after the death of Polydorus, and ended when he was succeeded by his brother Lycus.-Genealogy:...
  
  .
• Polydorus (son of Priam)
  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....
  
  , a Trojan, and 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 :...
  
  's youngest son during the Trojan War
  Trojan War
  In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
  
  .
• Polydorus (son of Astyanax)
  Polydorus (son of Astyanax)
  Polydorus or Polydore was the son of Astyanax, prince of Troy. Astyanax was killed by either Neoptolemos or by Odysseus. According to another legend, Astyanax was brought to Greece to take Neoptolemos....
  
   or Polydore
• One of the three Rhodian sculptors who created the statue Laocoön and his Sons
  Laocoön and his Sons
  The statue of Laocoön and His Sons , also called the Laocoön Group, is a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The statue is attributed by the Roman author Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus...
  
  .

His death is also alluded to 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

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

", when 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...

 encounters a tree that bleeds while on his quest to found a new home for the Trojan people.

Polydorus is also the name of an Agiad King of Sparta. He was preceded by his father Alcmenes

Alcmenes

Alcmenes or Alcamenes, Alkamenos, was the king of Sparta, of the Agiad dynasty, from c. 740 to c. 700 BC. According to Pausanias, he was a commander in the night-expedition against Ampheia, which began the First Messenian War, but died before its 4th year...

 and succeeded by his son Eurycrates

Eurycrates

Eurycrates or Eurykrates was a king of the Greek city state of Sparta, one of the Agiad kings, who was preceded by his father Polydorus and followed by his son Anaxander. He ruled from 665 to 640 BC....

, reigning in the 7th century BC

7th century BC

The 7th century BC started the first day of 700 BC and ended the last day of 601 BC.The Assyrian Empire continued to dominate the Near East during this century, exercising formidable power over neighbors like Babylon and Egypt. In the last two decades of the century, however, the empire began to...

. He fought in the latter part of the First Messenian War

First Messenian War

The First Messenian War was a war between Messenia and Sparta. It began in 743 BC and ended in 724 BC, according the dates given by Pausanias. They are considered solid....

, alongside the Eurypontid king Theopompus

Theopompus (king of Sparta)

Theopompus was a Eurypontid king of Sparta. He is believed to have reigned during the late 8th and early 7th century BC.Theopompus was the son and successor to Nicander....

.

According to Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

's [Life of Lycurgus] (Section 8), Polydorus may have had a role in reorganising the distribution of land in Laconia.