in Greek legend, the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra, mythical founder of Dardania on the Hellespont. He was the ancestor of the Dardanians of the Troad and, through Aeneas, of the Romans.

According to tradition, having slain his brother Iasius, or Iasion, Dardanus fled from Arcadia—a mountainous region of the central Peloponnesus of ancient Greece—across the sea to the island of Samothrace. When Samothrace was visited by a flood, he crossed over to the Troad, a region surrounding Troy in Asia Minor. Being hospitably received by Teucer (ruler of Phrygia), he married Teucer's daughter Bateia and became the founder of the royal house of Troy. In Virgil's Aeneid Dardanus originally came from Italy.