Protesilaus

[1] Hyginus surmised that he was originally known as Iolaus—not to be confused with Iolaus, the nephew of Heracles—but was referred to as "Protesilaus" after being the first (πρῶτος, protos) to leap ashore at Troy, and thus the first to die in the war.

[4] He brought forty black ships with him to Troy,[5] drawing his men from "flowering" Pyrasus, coastal Antron and Pteleus, "deep in grass", in addition to his native Phylace.

Protesilaus was the first to land: "the first man who dared to leap ashore when the Greek fleet touched the Troad", Pausanias recalled, quoting the author of the epic tale called the Cypria.

[6] An oracle by Thetis had prophesied that the first Greek to walk on the land after stepping off a ship in the Trojan War would be the first to die,[2] and so, after killing four men,[7] he was himself slain by Hector.

[16] There was a shrine of Protesilaus at Phylace, his home in Thessaly, where his widow was left lacerating her cheeks in mourning him,[17] and games were organised there in his honour, Pindar noted.

Coins of Elaeus from the time of Commodus with Protesilaus on the prow of a ship, in helmet, cuirass and short chiton on the reverse probably depict this statue.

[25] A founder-cult of Protesilaus at Scione, in Pallene, Chalcidice, was given an etiology by the Greek grammarian and mythographer of the Augustan-era Conon[26] that is at variance with the epic tradition.

[32] The Metropolitan's sculpture of a heroically nude helmeted warrior stands on a forward-slanting base, looking down and slightly to his left, with his right arm raised, prepared to strike, would not be identifiable, save by comparison made by Gisela Richter[33] with a torso of the same model and its associated slanting base, schematically carved as the prow of a ship encircled by waves: Protesilaus about to jump ashore.