Rhesus (,
Rhêsos) was a
Thracian king who fought on the side of
Trojans in
Iliad, Book X, where
Diomedes and
Odysseus stole his team of fine horses during a night raid on the Trojan camp. According to
Homer, his father was
Eioneus— a name otherwise given to the father of
Dia, whom
Ixion threw into the firepit rather than pay him her
bride price. The name may be connected to the historic
Eion in western
Thrace, at the mouth of the
Strymon, and the port of the later
Amphipolis. The event portrayed in the
Iliad also provides the action of the play
Rhesus, transmitted among the plays of
Euripides.
Scholia to the
Iliad episode and the
Rhesus agree in giving Rhesus a more heroic stature, incompatible with Homer's version.