The Trojan Women and Other Plays

The Trojan Women and Other Plays brings together tragedies by Euripides that examine the Trojan War through the experiences of defeated women and displaced royal families. Rather than celebrating Greek victory, the plays concentrate on bereavement, enslavement, forced marriage and the continuation of violence after Troy has fallen. Hecuba, Cassandra and Andromache survive the destruction of their city, but their futures are controlled by the commanders who divide Troy’s surviving women and children as spoils of war.

Hecuba follows Troy’s fallen queen as she endures two further losses. Her daughter Polyxena is sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, while her youngest son Polydorus is murdered by Polymestor, the Thracian ruler entrusted with protecting him, so that Polymestor can seize the Trojan gold. With Agamemnon’s reluctant permission, Hecuba draws Polymestor and his sons into a trap, kills the children and blinds their father. Her revenge punishes his betrayal, but it cannot restore her family, recover her former position or release her from captivity.

The Trojan Women gathers Hecuba, Cassandra, Andromache and Helen among the ruins while the Greek commanders determine their fates. Cassandra is assigned to Agamemnon, Andromache to Neoptolemus and Hecuba to Odysseus, while Hector’s young son Astyanax is condemned to death to prevent him from avenging Troy. Andromache moves the story to the victors’ homeland, where Hector’s widow lives as Neoptolemus’s captive and must protect her child from Hermione’s jealousy and Menelaus’s dynastic calculations. Together, the plays show how war survives beyond the battlefield through slavery, displacement and violence within the households of the victors.