Hecuba - Hecuba in arts and literature

In Greek legend, the wife of Priam, King of Troy, and mother of 18 children, including Hector and Cassandra. After the Greeks took Troy, she saw her sons and her husband killed, and was sent into slavery.

For the asteroid, see 108 Hecuba.

Hecuba (also Hekuba or Hekabe) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy.

With the god Apollo, Hecuba had a son named Troilius.

Polydorus, Priam's youngest son by Hecuba, was sent with gifts of jewelry and gold to the court of King Polymestor to keep him safe during the Trojan War. After Troy fell, Polymestor threw Polydorus to his death to take the treasure for himself. Hecuba, though she was enslaved by the Achaeans when the city fell, eventually avenged her son.

In another tradition, Hecuba went mad upon seeing the corpses of her children Polydorus and Polyxena. Yet a third story of her fate says that she was given to Odysseus as a slave, but as she snarled and cursed at him, the gods turned her into a dog, allowing her to escape.

Hecuba in arts and literature

Central character of the play Hecuba by Euripides Character in The Trojan Women, also by Euripides Character in King Priam by Michael Tippett Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hecuba