Lycaon was the Trojan prince whom Achilles killed after he begged for mercy. Lycaon was a son of King Priam and a half-brother of Hector, making him part of Troy’s royal family. His story appears in the Iliad’s account of Achilles’ brutal fighting near the river Scamander.
Lycaon had encountered Achilles before. Achilles captured him while he was cutting branches in Priam’s orchard and sold him into slavery. Lycaon was later ransomed and returned to Troy, only to meet Achilles again twelve days afterward. During their second encounter, Lycaon grasps Achilles’ knees and pleads for his life, offering ransom and appealing to the compassion once shown to him.
Achilles refuses. Still consumed by grief and rage after Patroclus’ death, he argues that Lycaon’s earlier release did not protect him from a second death. Achilles kills him and throws his body into the Scamander. The scene is often confused with Hector’s death, but Hector does not beg Achilles for mercy in the same way; Lycaon’s plea and killing occur in Book 21.