Neoptolemus

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Neoptolemus

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Neoptolemus (also Neoptólemos or Pyrrhus; Greek ?e?pt???µ??, "New War") was the son of the warrior Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greeks hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme ; the Wrath of Achilles....
and the princess Deidamia. Achilles' mother foretold many years before Achilles birth that there would be a great war.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Achilles

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
, due to a prophecy of his death in the conflict. She disguised him as a woman in the court of Lycomedes

Lycomedes

Lycomedes , in Greek mythology, was the King of Scyros during the Trojan War....
, the King of Scyros. During that time, he had an affair with the princess, Deidamea, who then gave birth to Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus was originally called Pyrrhus, because the female version of that name, Pyrrha, had been taken by his father while disguised as a woman.

The Greeks captured the Trojan seer, Helenus

Helenus

Helenus was a Trojan soldier and prophet in the Trojan War.In Greek mythology, Helenus was the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, and the twin brother of the prophetess Cassandra....
, and forced him to tell them under what conditions could they take Troy. Helenus revealed to them that they could defeat Troy if they could acquire the poisonous arrows of Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
(then in Philoctetes

Philoctetes

In Greek mythology, Philoctetes was the son of King Poeas of Meliboea in Thessaly. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer, and was a participant in the Trojan War....
' possession); steal the Palladium

Palladium (mythology)

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, a palladium or palladion was an Cult image of great antiquity on which the safety of a city was said to depend....
(which led to the building of the famous wooden horse of Troy

Trojan Horse

The "Trojan Horse" refers to the stratagem that allowed the Greeks to finally enter the city of Troy during the Trojan War. In the best-known version of this Bronze Age story, after a fruitless 10-year siege of Troy, the Greeks built a huge figure of a horse, in which a select force of men hid....
); and put Achilles' son in the war.

In response to the prophecy, the Greeks took steps to retrieve the arrows of Heracles and bring Neoptolemus to Troy. Odysseus was sent to retrieve Neoptolemus from Scyros. The two then went to Lemnos

Lemnos

Lemnos is an island in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. It is part of the prefecture of Greece of Lesbos Prefecture and has a considerable area, about 477 km?....
to retrieve Philoctetes. Years earlier, on the way to Troy, Philoctetes

Philoctetes

In Greek mythology, Philoctetes was the son of King Poeas of Meliboea in Thessaly. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer, and was a participant in the Trojan War....
was bitten by a snake on Chryse

Chryse

*In Greek mythology, Chryse was a lover of Ares and mother of Phlegyas.*Chryse Island is an island in the Mediterranean where, in Greek mythology, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake....
. Agamemnon had advised that he be left behind because the wound was festering and smelled bad. This retrieval is the plot of Philoctetes

Philoctetes (Sophocles)

Philoctetes is a play by Sophocles . It was first performed at the Festival of Dionysus in 409 BC, where it won first prize. The story takes place during the Trojan War ....
, a play by Sophocles

Sophocles

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
, in his Hekabe (also known as Hecuba

Hecuba

Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy, with whom she had 19 children. The most famous of said children was Hector of Troy....
), has a moving scene (ll 566-575) which shows Neoptolemus as a compassionate young man who kills Polyxene, Hekabe's daughter with ambivalent feelings and in the least painful way.

Neoptolemus was held by some to be cruel and savage. During and after the war, he killed Priam

Priam

In Greek mythology, Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous"....
, Eurypylus

Eurypylus

In Greek mythology, Eurypylus was the name of several different people....
, Polyxena

Polyxena

Polyxena - ???????? was known to be a beautiful Troy princess from Greek mythology. She is the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba....
, Polites

Polites

In Greek mythology, Polites referred to two different people, both of whom feature as minor characters in the epics by Homer.*Polites was a member Odysseus's crew....
and Astyanax

Astyanax

In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector and Andromache. His birth name was Scamandrius , but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax , because he was the son of the city's great defender and the heir apparent's firstborn son....
, among others, enslaved Helenus

Helenus

Andromache

In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled....
to become his concubine. The ghost of Achilles appeared to the survivors of the war, demanding Polyxena

Polyxena

Polyxena - ???????? was known to be a beautiful Troy princess from Greek mythology. She is the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba....
, the Trojan princess, be sacrificed before anybody could leave. Neoptolemus did so. With Andromache, Helenus and Phoenix

Phoenix (Iliad)

In Homer Iliad, Phoenix , son of Amyntor, is one of the Myrmidons led by Achilles who along with Odysseus and Ajax urges Achilles to re-enter battle....
, Neoptolemus sailed to the Epirot Islands

Epirot Islands

Epirote Islands are considered those northern Ionian islands that are in proximity to the Epirus mainland.These include:*Corfu usually known as Corfu in English...
and then became the king of Epirus

Epirus (region)

Epirus is a region in south-eastern Europe, currently divided between the Peripheries of Greece Epirus in Greece and the prefectures of Gjirokast?r, Vlor?, Kor??, and Berat in southern Albania....
. With the enslaved Andromache, Neoptolemus was the father of Molossus

Molossus

Molossus has several meanings:*Molossus in Greek mythology, the son of Neoptolemus and Andromache. He became the ancestor of the Molossians....
and through him, according to the myth, an ancestor of Olympias

Olympias

Olympias , ca. 376–316 BC, was an Epirote princess, the fourth wife of King Philip II of Macedon of Macedon and mother of Alexander the Great....
, the mother of Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
. Although Neoptolemus is often depicted thus, the play 'Philoctetes' by Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
shows him being a much kinder man, who honours his promises and shows remorse when he is made to trick Philoctetes. Two accounts deal with Neoptolemus' death. He was either killed after he attempted to take Hermione

Hermione (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Hermione was the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen. She had three brothers. While her parents were away fighting , Hermione was being raised by her aunt, Clytemnestra....
from Orestes

Orestes (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek theatre and of various legends connected with his madness and purification....
as her father Menelaus

Menelaus

Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria....
promised, or after he denounced Apollo, the murderer of his father. In the first case, he was killed by Orestes. In the second, revenge was taken by the Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is an archaeology site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Pythia, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python , a deity who lived there and protecte...
an priests of Apollo.

Neoptolemus or Pyrrhus in Art and Literature

Ermione

Ermione is a tragedy opera in two acts by Gioacchino Rossini to an Italian language libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on the play Andromaque by Jean Racine....
by Rossini

Mark Merlis's Pyrrhus is a modern updating of Neoptolemus's story in which he is both male stripper and warrior called by Odysseus to fight at Troy. The novel was published in the US as "An Arrow's Flight".