Astyanax - Survival

Survival

There are numerous traditions up through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that have Astyanax survive the destruction of Troy:

• In one version, either Talthybius finds he can't bear to kill him or else kills a slave's child in his place. Astyanax survives to found settlements in Corsica and Sardinia.
• The Chronicle of Fredegar contains the oldest mention of a medieval legend linking the Franks to the Trojans. One legend, as further elaborated through the Middle Ages, established Astyanax, renamed "Francus", as the founder of Merovingian dynasty and forefather of Charlemagne.
• In Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando innamorato (1495), Andromache saves Astyanax by hiding him in a tomb, replacing him with another child who is killed along with her by the Greeks. Taken to Sicily, Astyanax became the ruler of Messina, killed the giant king of Agrigento (named Agranor) and married the queen of Syracuse. He was killed treacherously by Aegisthus, but his wife escaped to Reggio and bore a son (Polidoro), from whom the epic hero Ruggiero is descended (III, v, 18-27). In this tradition, the epic hero Roland's sword Durendal was the very sword used by Hector, and Roland wins the sword by defeating a Saracen knight (almonte, the son of Agolant) who had defeated Ruggiero II.
• In Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, a continuation of Boiardo's poem, Astyanax is saved from Odysseus by Hector (36.70) who substitutes another baby. Astyanax arrives in Sicily and eventually becomes king of Messina, and his heirs later rule over Calabria (36.70–73). From these rulers is descended Ruggiero II, father of the hero Ruggiero, legendary founder of the house of Este.
• Based on the medieval legend, Jean Lemaire de Belges's Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie (1510–12) has Astyanax survive the fall of Troy and arrive in Western Europe. He changes his name to Francus and becomes king of Celtic Gaul (while, at the same time, Bavo, cousin of Priam, comes to the city of Trier) and founds the dynasty leading to Pepin and Charlemagne.
• Lemaire de Belges' work inspired Pierre de Ronsard's epic poem La Franciade (1572). In this poem, Jupiter saves Astyanax (renamed Francus). The young hero arrives in Crete and falls in love with the princess Hyanthe with whom he is destined to found the royal dynasty of France.
• In Jean Racine's play Andromaque (1667), Astyanax has narrowly escaped death at the hands of Odysseus, who has unknowingly been tricked into killing another child in his place. Andromache has been taken prisoner in Epirus by Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) who is due to be married to Hermione, the only daughter of the Spartan king Menelaus and Helen of Troy. Oreste, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, brother to Electra and Iphigenia, and by now absolved of the crime of matricide prophesied by the Delphic oracle, has come to the court of Pyrrhus to plead on behalf of the Greeks for the return of Astyanax.