Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Andromache

ANDROMACHE, in Greek legend, was the wife of Hector (Iliad, vi. 395), and daughter of Eetion, prince of Thebe in Mysia. Her father and seven brothers had fallen by the hands of Achilles, when their town was taken by him. Her mother, ransomed at a high price, was slain by Diana (Iliad, vi. 428). To Hector Andromache bore a son, Scamandrius or Astyanax, whose death by the Greeks she was forced to look on; and when, her husband also slain by them and Troy taken, the captives were apportioned, she fell to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, with whom she went to Phthia, or, as it is also said, to Epirus, and there bore him the sons Molossus, Pielus, and Pergamus. Neoptolemus having been slain by Orestes, left her to the Trojan seer Helenus, who had followed him, and who now married her, and governed the kingdom of Molossia for her sons. After the death of Helenus, Andromache returned to Asia Minor with her youngest son Pergamus, who there founded a town named after himself. The tragic poets found a favourite subject in the events of her life, and in her faithful and affectionate character as the wife of Hector. In works of art the death of Astyanax, and the farewell scene between Andromache and Hector (Iliad, vi. 323) were represented, the latter, it is said, in a painting which drew tears from Portia the wife of Brutus (Plutarch, Brut. 23).