A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Andromache
ANDROMACHE, the Wife of Hector, Daughter of Ætion, King of Thebes, in Cilicia, who, with seven sons, perished by the Hand of Achilles, in the same Day.
Dares, the Phrygian, represents Andromache as having brilliant eyes, fair, and tall. He adds, that she was beautiful, modest, wise, affable, and virtuous; tenderly attached to her husband and children; and it appears, that, notwithstanding the prevalent infidelity of the eastern nations, he confined his affection solely to this princess.
Euripides, on the contrary, has affirmed, that the tenderness of Andromache for her husband was so great, that it extended even to his mistresses; and, that she had nursed the children he had by them: but, this appears to have been said without sufficient foundation, and only proves the general opinion of the mildness and benevolence of her character.
The resignation, which an early acquaintance with misfortune inspires in minds even of the most sensibility, appears to have supported Andromache under the death of her husband, and the multiplied miseries which followed. Dictys of Crete, in his third book affirms, that she accompanied Priam to the tent of Achilles, to demand the dead body of Hector; and brought before him her two sons, Astyanax, (afterwards thrown by the Greeks from a high tower) and Laodamas, to excite his compassion.
On the partition of the captives, after the destruction of Troy, she fell to the share of Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles. She had by him three sons, named Molossus, Pielus, and Pergamus; and a daughter, Deidamia. Some make Pielus the eldest, and successor to his father; and deduce from him the kings of Epirus, down to Pyrrhus the Great, who died anno 272 B.C.
On the marriage of Pyrrhus with Hermione, this prince united Andromache to Helenus, the son of Priam, who was likewise his captive. Servius and Pausanius place it after the murder of Pyrrhus, at Delphi; and the former says that it took place, because, in dying he had commanded it. By this marriage she had Cestrinus.
Andromache survived Helenus, and left Epirus with Pergamus, the youngest of her sons by Pyrrhus, and followed him into Asia, where Pausanius says Pergamus disputed the sovereignty of the city of Teuthra, with its prince Areus, who had built it; that he killed the latter in single combat, and made himself master of the place, which he called Pergamus; and that the tomb of himself and Andromache were shown there in his time.