In Greek mythology, the name Laodice referred to different people but most importantly the wife of Telephus and the Queen of Mysia.
Laodice
Myth
The Murder of Helicaon
- Laodice was the fairest daughter of Priam of Troy and Hecuba, wife of Telephus, who was the son of Heracles. According to Apollodorus, after the destruction of Troy, she was "swallowed up by the earth," (Bibliotheca, 11.5.23); when Telephus came to fight the Greeks off and defend Troy. As they set foot on Asia Minor, Helicaon forced her to marry him and was going to drown their six year old son Eurypylus in Xanthos' Lake, but Telephus, king of Mysia, returned just in time. Telephus decapitated Helicaon and had the latter's face engraved in all Mysian shields- with the same expression of terror and fear in his eyes.
She abandons Helicaon for Telephus
Yet others say that that she had married Helicaon but when Telephus came she tricked him into believing that the cattle that was handed down to him by his father had been stolen and that she would exact his revenge if he would marry her. And so at night she stabbed him and married Telephus which explains why she was punished by being sucked up into a hell pit chasm in the earth.
The Rape of Laodice
Afterwards when the Greeks were attacking from the inside of the walls of Troy Acamas raped her and had his many warriors hold Telephus down so that he could do nothing to stop it and was forced to watch his wife scream and wail at her misfortune.
Historical Laodices
In Hellenistic history, too, many women bear this name, almost all of them related:
- Laodice of Macedonia was the mother of Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid dynasty.
- Laodice I was a queen of Antiochus II Theos and mother of Seleucus II Callinicus
- Laodice II was the queen of Seleucus II Callinicus
- Laodice III was the daughter of Mithridates
II of Pontus and the wife of Antiochus III the Great
- Laodice of Pontus, her sister, was another daughter of Mithridates II king of Pontus and the wife of Achaeus, a Seleucid general.
- Laodice of Cappadocia was the wife of Ariarathes VI of Cappadocia
- Laodice was the wife of King Eucratides I of Bactria.
- Laodice VII Thea was a daughter of king Antiochus VIII Grypus and mother of king Antiochus I Theos of Commagene
- Laodice daughter of Mithridates V of Pontus and Sister-Wife of Mithradates VI of Pontus
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