Son of Deucalion and grandson of Minos, Idomeneus was king of Crete. He took part in the Trojan War, distinguishing himself in numerous enterprises, the most important of which was hiding in the wooden horse. After the war, he left for his land. But having found the throne usurped by Leuco, to whom he had left the regency, he had to leave again.
Idomeneo took refuge on the opposite Adriatic shore, in Calabria (the ancient name for Salento) where he defeated Dauno, son of Malennio, legendary founder of Lecce and king of the Messapians, and took his throne, governing the people of Salento.
Similarly to what happened with the figure of Diomedes in the rest of Puglia, literary tradition identified Idomeneo as the allegorical personification of an ancestral Hellenic (perhaps Mycenaean) colonization of Salento, much earlier than the more famous one carried out by Spartan Taranto in the Magna Graecia era.
Amore DI Puglia Pillow
Sagnette Pasta
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