Andromache (play)

Andromache
Captive Andromache (detail) by Frederic Leighton
Written by	Euripides
Chorus	Women of Phthia
Characters	Andromache Maid Hermione Menelaus Child of Andromache (sometimes called "Molossus" proleptically) Peleus Nurse of Hermione Orestes Messenger Thetis
Original language	Ancient Greek
Subject	Andromache's life as a slave
Genre	Athenian tragedy
Setting	Phthia (in northern Greece)

Andromache (Ancient Greek: Ἀνδρομάχη) is an Athenian tragedy by Euripides. It dramatises Andromache's life as a slave, years after the events of the Trojan War, and her conflict with her master's new wife, Hermione. The date of its first performance is unknown, although scholars place it sometime between 428 and 425 BC. A Byzantine scholion to the play suggests that its first production was staged outside of Athens, though modern scholarship regards this claim as dubious.

During the Trojan War, Achilles killed Andromache's husband Hector. The Greeks threw Andromache and Hector's child Astyanax from the Trojan walls for fear that he would grow up and avenge his father and city. Andromache was made a slave of Achilles' son Neoptolemus. Euripides dramatised these events ten years after Andromache in his tragedy The Trojan Women (415 BC).

Years pass and Andromache has a child with Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen. Even though Andromache is still devoted to her dead husband Hector, Hermione is deeply jealous and plots her revenge. Fearing for her life and the life of her child, Andromache hides the child and seeks refuge in the temple of Thetis (who was the mother of Achilles).

...
Wikipedia