Editing Andromache (section)

==Life==
[[Image:Leighton Captive Andromache.jpg|thumb|upright=2|''Andromache in Captivity'' by [[Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton|Frederic Leighton]] (c. 1886)]]

=== Families ===
Andromache was born in [[Cilician Thebe]], a city that the [[Achaeans (Homer)|Achaeans ]] later sacked, with Achilles killing her father [[Eetion]] and seven brothers.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Minchin |first=Elizabeth |date=2011 |title=Andromache |encyclopedia=The Homer Encyclopedia |editor=M. Finkelberg |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |pages=53–54 |isbn=978-1-4051-7768-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gTxCvwEACAAJ&pg=PA53}}</ref> After this, her mother died of illness (6.425).  She was taken from her father's household by Hector, who had brought countless wedding-gifts (22.470-72). Thus [[Priam]]’s household alone provides Andromache with her only familial support. In contrast to the inappropriate relationship of [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]] and [[Helen of Troy|Helen]], Hector and Andromache fit the Greek ideal of a happy and productive marriage, which heightens the tragedy of their shared misfortune. Andromache and Hector have a son together, named Scamandrius but called [[Astyanax]] by both the people of Troy and Homer.<ref>Homer, ''The'' ''Iliad'' VI 369-493</ref> According to some accounts, they had other children including [[Oxynios]]<ref>Narrations 46, [[Conon (mythographer)|Conon]].</ref> and [[Laodamas]].<ref>Trojan War Chonicle 6.12, [[Dictys Cretensis]].</ref>

Andromache is alone after [[Troy]] falls and her son is killed. Notably, Andromache remains unnamed in ''Iliad'' 22, referred to only as the wife of Hector (Greek ''alokhos''), indicating the centrality of her status as Hector's wife and of the marriage itself to her identity.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Segal |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Segal (classicist) |title=Andromache's Anagnorisis: Formulaic Artistry in ''Iliad'' 22.437–476 |journal=[[Harvard Studies in Classical Philology]] |volume=75 |date=1971 |pages=33–57 |jstor=311213 |doi=10.2307/311213}}</ref> The Greeks divide the Trojan women as spoils of war and permanently separate them from the ruins of Troy and from one another. Hector's fears of her life as a captive woman are realized as her family is entirely stripped from her by the violence of war, as she fulfills the fate of conquered women in ancient warfare (6.450–465). Without her familial structure, Andromache is a displaced woman who must live outside familiar and even safe societal boundaries.

=== Life after the fall of Troy ===
[[File:Guérin Andromaque et Pyrrhus 1810.jpg|thumb|''[[Andromache and Pyrrhus]]'' by [[Pierre-Narcisse Guérin]], 1810]]
After Troy falls, Andromache is given as a concubine to [[Neoptolemus]], also called Pyrrhus, son of [[Achilles]], after her son Astyanax is murdered at the suggestion of [[Odysseus]], who fears he will grow up to avenge his father Hector.<ref name=":3" /> She goes with him to Phthia, where [[Thetis]] and [[Peleus]], the parents of Achilles, lived.<ref name=":2">Euripides, ''Andromache''</ref> Hyginus calls her son [[Amphialus]],<ref>Hyginus, ''Fabulae'' 123</ref> while Euripides gives his name as [[Molossus (son of Neoptolemus)|Molossus]]<ref name=":2" /> and Pausanias says that she has three children, named Molossus, Pielus and [[Pergamus]].<ref name=":1" /> In Euripides' ''Andromache'', Hermione, the wife of Neoptolemus and daughter of Helen and [[Menelaus]], tries to kill Andromache because she believes Andromache has cursed her with infertility. In the play, Neoptolemus is killed by [[Orestes]], who marries Hermione, and the goddess [[Thetis]] announces that Andromache will marry her ex-brother-in-law [[Helenus of Troy|Helenus]] and live with him in "the land of the Molossians", where her son Molossus will start "an unbroken succession of kings who will live happy lives".<ref name=":2" /> In Pausanias' account Helenus' son [[Cestrinus]] was the child of Andromache.<ref name=":1" /> [[Aeneas]] also visits Andromache and Helenus when they are living in Buthrotum, Chaonia, where Helenus gives him a prophecy and Andromache brings robes and a Phrygian cloak for Aeneas' son Ascanius and tells him he is "the sole image left to [her] of [her] Astyanax".<ref name=":4">Virgil, ''Aeneid'' 278-505</ref> Because Buthrotum functions as a hollow replica of the once-vibrant, razed Troy in the ''Aeneid'', Andromache's dedications to the city--particularly Hector's grave--represent her dedication to her family and people.<ref name=":4" /> Andromache's actions after the fall of Troy thus reaffirm her virtuosity represented throughout Homer's ''Iliad'' and Vergil's ''Aeneid''. Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, says that "there is still a shrine [to Andromache] in the city" that was named after her son Pergamus.<ref name=":1" />