on 4th February 2026
By Zoe Lister
When I first encountered the character of Hecuba, I have to be honest, I wasn’t fond of her. I’m not sure why – something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. But the more I have read about her, the more I have come to appreciate her.
She was the queen of Troy, wife of King Priam. According to Homer, she had 19 sons, among them Hector, Paris, Helenus and Polydorus, and numerous daughters including Cassandra and Polyxena, both of whom I have already written about.
Part of the tragedy of her character is that she has to watch as one by one, her children are killed in battle, sacrificed, or taken into slavery. She not only suffers the loss of her city, but her entire family. In the play Trojan Women by Euripides, her love for her children is shown when she recalls the blessings of her life, saying “I was of royal blood, I married into a royal house, and there I gave birth to the best of children”. After all she had suffered, she still held on to that love for her family as a way of coping with the horrors of war.
For me, the most striking example of her love for her children is in the play Hecuba, also by Euripides. After the Thracian king Polymestor kills Hecuba’s son Polydorus, she decides it is time for revenge. When Polymestor visits the Greek camp, she lures him and his sons into her tent, promising gold. Once inside, he and his sons are overwhelmed by a group of women. They tie Polymestor down, take his sword, and kill his sons. They then gouge out his eyes with their brooch pins, but leave him alive so that he suffers longer.
After being blinded, Polymestor prophecies that while being carried aboard a ship, Hecuba will die after leaping from the mast. He tells her she will climb the mast after being transformed into a dog with fire-red eyes, and leap into the sea, to her death. Considering the fact the furies are likened to dogs hunting their prey, this is a fitting end for a woman who has, through her love for her children, become a fury in human form herself.
Image: Black figure amphora in the British museum (1897,0727.2) showing Neoptolemus about to kill Priam on the altar of Zeus Herkeios. Neoptolemus stabs Priam with his spear, while pushing back Hecuba (right) with his other arm, who has her hand on his helmet.
©️ Zoe Lister