Andromache

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"Andromache Mourning Hector" by Jacques-Louis David, 1783

Andromache in Captivity by Frederic Leighton (ca. 1886).

In Greek mythology, Andromache (Ancient Greek: Ἀνδρομάχη) was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled. The name means "battle of a man", from ἀνδρός (andros) "of a man" and μάχη (machē) "battle".^[1]

During the Trojan War, Hector was killed by Achilles, and their son Astyanax was thrown from the city walls by the Greek Herald Talthybius. Neoptolemus took Andromache as a concubine and Hector's brother, Helenus, as a slave. By Neoptolemus, she was the mother of Molossus, and according to Pausanias,^[2] of Pielus and Pergamus. When Neoptolemus died, Andromache married Helenus and became Queen of Epirus. Pausanias also implies that Helenus' son, Cestrinus, was by Andromache. Andromache eventually went to live with Pergamus in Pergamum, where she died of old age.

[edit] Classical treatment

• Homer. Iliad VI, 390–430.
• Apollodorus. Bibliotheke III, xii, 6.
• Apollodorus. Epitome V, 23; VI, 12.
• Euripides. Andromache.
• Virgil. Aeneid III, 294–355.

In Euripides' play, she and her child are nearly assassinated by Hermione, Neoptolemus' wife and daughter of Helen.

[edit] Modern treatment

She is also the subject of a tragedy by French classical playwright Jean Racine (1639–1699), entitled Andromaque, and a minor character in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Andromache is the subject of a 1932 opera by German composer Herbert Windt. She was portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave in the 1971 film version of Euripides' The Trojan Women, and by Saffron Burrows in the 2004 film Troy. She also appears as a character in David Gemmell's Troy series. Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Firebrand" makes her an Amazon princess--Homer does name the Amazons among the Trojan allies, interpreting her name as 'she fights like a man.'

[edit] References

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