Antenor was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "tall, thin, white, blond, small-eyed, hook-nosed, crafty, cowardly, secure, a story-teller, eloquent".
[4] He was the husband of Theano,[5] daughter of Cisseus of Thrace, who bore him at least one daughter, Crino,[6] and numerous sons, including Acamas,[7][8] Agenor,[9][10] Antheus,[11] Archelochus,[12][13] Coön,[14] Demoleon,[15] Eurymachus,[16] Glaucus,[17] Helicaon,[18] Iphidamas,[19] Laodamas,[20][21] Laodocus,[22] Medon,[23] Polybus[9][24] and Thersilochus[23] (most of whom perished during the Trojan War).
[30] In later developments of the myths, particularly per Dares and Dictys,[29] Antenor was made an open traitor, unsealing the city gates to the enemy.
There was no play nor graceful movement of his sceptre; he kept it straight and stiff like a man unpractised in oratory- one might have taken him for a mere churl or simpleton; but when he raised his voice, and the words came driving from his deep chest like winter snow before the wind, then there was none to touch him, and no man thought further of what he looked like."
"Antenor," he writes, "came after many wanderings to the inner extremity of the Adriatic gulf with a multitude of the Enenites, who had been driven out of Paphlagonia and at Troy had lost their king Pilimenes: to move to that place they sought a leader.