Astyanax

In Greek mythology, Astyanax ( /əˈstaɪ.ənæks/; Ancient Greek: Ἀστυάναξ – Astyánax, gen.: Ἀστυάνακτος) was the son of Hector, Crown Prince of Troy and Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe. His birth name was Scamandrius (in Greek Σκαμάνδριος or Σκάμανδρος, after the river Scamander), but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax (i.e. high king, or overlord, of the city), because he was the son of the city's great defender (Iliad VI, 403) and the heir apparent's firstborn son.

During the Trojan War, Andromache hid the child in Hector's tomb but the child was discovered, and his fate was debated by the Greeks, for if he were allowed to live, it was feared he would avenge his father and rebuild Troy. In the version given by the Little Iliad and repeated by Pausanias (x 25.4), he was killed by Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus), who threw the infant from the walls. Another version is given in Iliou persis. It has also been depicted in some Greek vases that Neoptolemus kills Priam, who has taken refuge near a sacred altar, using Astyanax's dead body to club the old king to death, in front of horrified onlookers. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the child is thrown from the walls by the Greek victors (13, 413ff). In Euripides's The Trojan Women (719 ff), the herald Talthybius reveals to Andromache that Odysseus has convinced the council to have the child thrown from the walls, and the child is in this way killed. In Seneca's version of The Trojan Women, the prophet Calchas declares that Astyanax must be thrown from the walls if the Greek fleet is to be allowed favorable winds (365–70), but once led to the tower, the child himself leaps off the walls (1100–3). Other sources for the story of the Sack of Troy and Astyanax's death can be found in the Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus), Hyginus (Fabula 109), Tryphiodorus (Sack of Troy 644–6).