Andromache (play)

It dramatises Andromache's life as a slave, years after the events of the Trojan War, and her conflict with her master's new wife, Hermione.

Homer in Illiad describes Andromache's lament, after Hector's death, that their young son Astyanax will suffer poverty growing up without a father.

Instead, the conquering Greeks threw Astyanax to his death from the Trojan walls, for fear that he would grow up to avenge his father and city.

Andromache persuades her to risk seeking the help of the king, Peleus (husband of Thetis, Achilles' father, and Neoptolemos' grandfather).

Hermione accuses Andromache of practising oriental witchcraft to make her barren and attempting to turn her husband against her and to displace her.

The goddess Thetis appears as a deus ex machina and divines the future for Neoptolemus' corpse, Peleus, Andromache and Molossus.