1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nestor (legend)

NESTOR, in Greek legend, son of Neleus and Chloris, king of Pylos in Messenia. When all his brothers were slain by Heracles, in consequence of the refusal of Neleus to purify him for the murder of Iphitus, Nestor alone escaped, being absent at Gerenia—hence his epithet Gerenios in Homer (Apollodorus i. 9). He is the old warrior of the Iliad and the wise counsellor of the Greeks before Troy. After the fall of the city he returned to Pylos, where Telemachus visited him to obtain news of his father. In his earlier years he took part in the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae, the Calydonian boar hunt, and the Argonautic expedition. The name is used in modern times for any old man of ripe experience, or the oldest member of a class or corporation.