Astyanax: Death Variants (Neoptolemus vs. Odysseus)

Catalogue ID: 04-trojan-cycle/106-astyanax-death-variants

Cycle: Trojan — Sack / Hector’s heir

Version line: Cyclic / Apollodorean / tragic — killer variants isolated

Sources: Apollodorus, *Epitome* 5.23 (Odysseus kills Astyanax); Proclus, *Iliou Persis* (Astyanax thrown from the walls; agent variously reported); Euripides, *Trojan Women* 709–798, 1118–1250 (Odysseus’s counsel; child taken from Andromache); Pausanias 10.25.9 (Lesche of the Cnidians: Neoptolemus killing the child)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/04-trojan-cycle/106-astyanax-death-variants.md

Characters

Andromache — mother; forced to surrender the child
Astyanax — son of Hector and Andromache; thrown from the walls
Hecuba — dead father whose vengeance the Achaeans fear
Odysseus — counsel and/or killer in Apollodorean and Euripidean strands
Pyrrhus — killer in cyclic/artistic and some handbook strands
Talthybius — herald who removes the child in Euripides

Places

Achaean council — where Odysseus’s counsel prevails (*Troades*)
Delphi, Lesche of the Cnidians — Pausanian notice of Neoptolemus as killer in painting
Troy in sack — surrounding destruction
Walls of Troy — site of the fall

Themes

Narrative

Astyanax (also Scamandrius), the small son of Hector and Andromache, is doomed in the sack so that no heir of Troy’s greatest defender may live to avenge the city. The manner is shared across strands: the child is thrown from the walls of Troy. The agent is not. In Apollodorus and in Euripides’ *Trojan Women*, Odysseus argues or executes the death: the army must not leave a lion’s cub to grow. Talthybius takes the boy from Andromache; the walls become the place of execution. In the Epic Cycle’s *Iliou Persis* as summarized, Astyanax is cast from the battlements; later mythographic and artistic traditions often give the act to Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus), son of Achilles—fitting the pattern that Achilles’ heir completes the ruin of Hector’s house (Priam at the altar; Astyanax from the wall). Pausanias describes Polygnotus’s painting at Delphi showing Neoptolemus killing the child. Both lines serve the same political and tragic logic: the extinction of Hector’s male line and Andromache’s absolute bereavement before her allotment as spoil. Catalogue the variants apart from the general sack so Neoptolemus-killer and Odysseus-killer strands remain distinct classical options for the same precipice.