Philoctetes remained at Lemnos till the tenth year of the war.
It was he who suggested that Neoptolemus and Philoctetes should be fetched from Scyros and Lemnos to Troy, and he was one of those who advised the construction of the wooden horse.
In the later form of the story Philoctetes was the friend and armour-bearer of Heracles, who presented him with his bow and poisoned arrows as a reward for kindling the fire on Mt Oeta, on which the hero immolated himself.
An oracle having declared that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Heracles, Odysseus and Diomedes (or Neoptolemus) were sent to fetch Philoctetes.
Philoctetes was also the subject of tragedies by Achaeus of Eretria, Euphorion of Chalcis and the Roman tragedian Accius.