Verse tragedy · c. AD 50

Troades

The Trojan Women

by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Translated by Frank Justus Miller (1907)

Troy has fallen and the Greek fleet waits on the shore for a wind. The ghost of Achilles demands the sacrifice of the princess Polyxena, and the prophet Calchas declares that Hector’s little son Astyanax must die before the Greeks can sail. Hecuba and Andromache, captives awaiting their allotment to Greek masters, are made to watch as the boy is torn from his hiding-place in Hector’s tomb and the girl is led to her death.


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