Neoptolemus
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(b) Achilles and Iphigenia
(2) Lanassa
(3) Hermione
(2) eight children
In
Description
In his Chronography the chronicler Malalas described Neoptolemus as "of good stature, good chest, thin, white, good nose, ruddy hair, wooly hair, light-eyed, big-eyed, blond eyebrows, blond beginnings of a beard, round-faced, precipitate, daring, agile, a fierce fighter".[4] Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, he was described as "large, robust, and easily irritated. He lisped slightly, and was good-looking, with a hooked nose, round eyes, and shaggy eyebrows".[5]
Background and Birth
In Cypria, Achilles sails to Skyros after a failed expedition to Troy, marries princess Deidamia and fathers Neoptolemus with her before being called to arms yet again.[6]
In a non-Homeric version of the story, Achilles' mother Thetis had a vision many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war, and that her only son was to die in it if he partook. She tried to prevent him from being called to fight in the Trojan War by hiding him, disguised as a woman, in the court of Lycomedes, the king of Skyros. During his stay, Achilles had an affair with the princess, Deidamea, who then gave birth to Neoptolemus (originally called Pyrrhus, because his father had called himself Pyrrha, the female version of that name, while disguised as a woman).
Most accounts mention Deidamia being Neoptolemus' mother, but in some accounts, he was the son of Achilles by Iphigenia instead.[7] In those accounts, his father transported him to the island of Skyros after the sacrifice of his mother.
Trojan War
The Greeks captured the Trojan seer
The Greeks then sent Odysseus to retrieve Neoptolemus, then a mere teenager, from Skyros. The two then went to
Some sources portray Neoptolemus as brutal. He killed at least six on the field of battle
By the enslaved Andromache, daughter of Cilician king Eëtion, Neoptolemus was the father of Molossos (and, according to the myth, therefore an ancestor of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great), Pielus, Pergamus[9] and Amphialus.[10]
Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia, begat Amphialus by captive Andromache, daughter of Ēëtion. But after he heard that Hermione his betrothed had been given to Orestes in marriage, he went to Lacedaemon and demanded her from Menelaus. Menelaus did not wish to go back on his word, and took Hermione from Orestes and gave her to Neoptolemus. Orestes, thus insulted, slew Neoptolemus as he was sacrificing to Delphi, and recovered Hermione. The bones of Neoptolemus were scattered through the land of Ambracia, which is in the district of Epirus.[10]
By Lanassa, granddaughter of Heracles, he fathered eight children.[11]
Like in Euripides' Hekabe, Sophocles' Philoctetes also shows him as a much kinder man, who honours his promises and shows remorse when he is made to trick Philoctetes.
After the War
There are two differing accounts of Neoptolemus' death: he was either killed after he attempted to take Hermione from Orestes, or after he denounced Apollo, the murderer of his father. In the first case, he was killed by Orestes; in the second, the Delphic priest of Apollo named Machaereus took revenge.
After Neoptolemus' death his kingdom was partitioned. According to Virgil's Aeneid,
In art and literature
- Neoptolemus is one of the main characters in Philoctetes, a tragedy by Sophocles.
- Andromache, a tragedy by Euripides. Neoptolemus does not appear on stage but his death at Delphi is described
- Apollodorus' Library, in Book 3 and in the Epitome 5.10-12, 5.21, 5.24
- The Aeneid by Virgil
- Trojan Women by Seneca
- The Posthomerica, an epic poem by Quintus of Smyrna
- In Historia Regum Britanniae, he enslaved Helenus and other Trojans in revenge for the death of his father
- In Confessio Amantis Book 4 line 2161ff he is the slayer of the Amazon Penthesilea
- The Tragedy of Dido by Christopher Marlowe
- Pyrrhus features in the player's speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet(Act 2, Scene 2) where his killing of Priam is described
- The Second Part of the Iron Age, the final play in the Ages series by Thomas Heywood
- Pyrrhus is a leading character in Andromaque (1667), a play by Jean Racine
- Astianatte (1725), an opera by Leonardo Vinci
- Grétrybased on Racine's play
- Ermione (1819), an opera by Gioachino Rossini based on Racine's play
- An Arrow's Flight, a novel by Mark Merlis (1998)
- The Song of Troy, a novel written by Colleen McCullough (1998)
- The Golden Prince, a novel written by Ken Catran (1999)
- The Song of Achilles, a novel by Madeline Miller (2011)
- The Silence of the Girls, a novel written by Pat Barker (2018)
Mentioned briefly in Euripides' plays
Notes
- Photius, Bibliotheca 190.20
- ^ Ovid, Heroides 8.3
- ^ Virgil, Aeneid 2.263 & 3.296
- ^ Malalas, Chronography 5.104
- ^ Dares Phrygius, 13
- ^ Fragments of the Cypria
- ^ Tzetzes on Lycophron, 133; Eustathius on Homer, p. 1187
- Hyginus, Fabulae 114
- ^ Pausanias, 1.11.1
- ^ a b Hyginus, Fables 123
- ^ Justinus, 17.3
- ^
Virgil (1990). The Aeneid. Penguin Books, David West. pp. 65, line 292. ISBN 9780140444575.
References
- Dares Phrygius, from The Trojan War. The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian translated by Richard McIlwaine Frazer, Jr. (1931-). Indiana University Press. 1966. Online version at theio.com
- Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Publius Ovidius Naso, The Epistles of Ovid. London. J. Nunn, Great-Queen-Street; R. Priestly, 143, High-Holborn; R. Lea, Greek-Street, Soho; and J. Rodwell, New-Bond-Street. 1813. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Publius Ovidius Naso. Amores, Epistulae, Medicamina faciei femineae, Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris. Edition by R. Ehwald; Rudolphi Merkelii; Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1907. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Publius Vergilius Maro, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Publius Vergilius Maro, Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Publius Vergilius Maro, Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
External links
- Media related to Neoptolemus at Wikimedia Commons
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Neoptolemus" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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