Wikipedia
Neoptolemus (; Greek: Νεοπτόλεμος, Neoptolemos, "new warrior"), also called Pyrrhus (; Πύρρος, Pyrrhos, "red", for his red hair), was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology, and also the mythical progenitor of the ruling dynasty of the Molossians of ancient Epirus.
Achilles' mother Thetis foretold many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her only son was to die if he fought in the war. She sought a place for him to avoid fighting in the Trojan War, due to a prophecy of his death in the conflict. She disguised him as a woman in the court of Lycomedes, the king of Scyros. During that time, he had an affair with the princess, Deidamea, who then gave birth to Neoptolemos. Neoptolemos was originally called Pyrrhos, because his father had taken Pyrrha, the female version of that name, while disguised as a woman.
The Greeks captured the Trojan seer, Helenos, and forced him to tell them under what conditions could they take Troy. Helenos revealed to them that they could defeat Troy if they could acquire the poisonous arrows of Heracles (then in Philoctetes' possession); steal the Palladium (which led to the building of the famous wooden horse of Troy); and put Achilles' son in the war.
In response to the prophecy, the Greeks took steps to retrieve the arrows of Heracles and bring Neoptolemos to Troy. Odysseus was sent to retrieve Neoptolemos, then a mere teenager, from Scyros. The two then went to Lemnos to retrieve Philoctetes. Years earlier, on the way to Troy, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake on Chryse Island. Agamemnon had advised that he be left behind because the wound was festering and smelled bad. This retrieval is the plot of Philoctetes, a play by Sophocles. Euripides, in his play Hekabe (also known as Hecuba), has a moving scene (ll 566–575) which shows Neoptolemos as a compassionate young man who kills Polyxena, Hekabe's daughter with ambivalent feelings and in the least painful way.
Neoptolemos was held by some to be brutal. He killed six men on the field of battle. During and after the war, he killed Priam, Eurypylos, Polyxena, Polites and Astyanax (Hektor and Andromakhe's infant son) among others, captured Helenos, and made Andromache, then a widow, his concubine. The ghost of Achilles appeared to the survivors of the war, demanding Polyxena, the Trojan princess, be sacrificed before anybody could leave. Neoptolemos did so. With Andromache, Helenos and Phoenix, Neoptolemos sailed to the Epirot Islands and then became the King of Epirus. With the enslaved Andromache, Neoptolemos was the father of Molossos and through him, according to the myth, an ancestor of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. According to Hyginus, his son with Andromache was Amphialos:
[123] CXXIII. NEOPTOLEMUS Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia, begat Amphialus by captive Andromache, daughter of Ēëtion. But after he heard that Hermione his betrothed had been given to Orestes in marriage, he went to Lacedaemon and demanded her from Menelaus. Menelaus did not wish to go back on his word, and took Hermione from Orestes and gave her to Neoptolemus. Orestes, thus insulted, slew Neoptolemus as he was sacrificing to Delphi, and recovered Hermione. The bones of Neoptolemus were scattered through the land of Ambracia, which is in the district of Epirus.
Although Neoptolemus is often depicted thus, the play Philoctetes by Sophocles shows him being a much kinder man, who honours his promises and shows remorse when he is made to trick Philoctetes. Two accounts deal with Neoptolemos' death. He was either killed after he attempted to take Hermione from Orestes as her father Menelaus promised, or after he denounced Apollo, the murderer of his father. In the first case, he was killed by Orestes. In the second, revenge was taken by the Delphic priests of Apollo.
After his death his kingdom was portioned out and Helenos (who later married Andromache) took part of it. "Helenus, a son of Priam, was king over these Greek cities of Epirus, having succeeded to the throne and bed of Pyrrhus..."
Neoptolemus may refer to:
Neoptolemus (in Greek Νεoπτόλεμος; died 321 BC) was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great.
According to Arrian he belonged to the race of the Aeacidae, so he was probably related to the family of the kings of Epirus.
Neoptolemus is mentioned as serving in the Macedonian royal guards (εταιρoι) and distinguished himself particularly at the siege of Gaza, 332 BC, of which he was the first to scale the walls.
Little has been written about him during the subsequent campaigns of Alexander, however he appears to have earned a reputation as an able soldier. In the division of the provinces after Alexander the Great's death, Neoptolemus obtained the government of Armenia, 323 BC. However, as he had a reputation of being restless and unsettled, Perdiccas regarded him with suspicion. So in 321 BC, when the Perdiccas set out for Ptolemaic Egypt, he placed Neoptolemus under the command of Eumenes, who was told to exercise particular vigilance regarding Neoptolemus .
Perdiccas' suspicions turned out to be well founded: Neoptolemus immediately entered into correspondence with the hostile Macedonian leaders, Antipater and Craterus, and, on being ordered by Eumenes to join him with his contingent, refused to comply. In response, Eumenes immediately marched against him, defeated his army, and compelled all the Macedonian troops in his service to take the oath of fidelity to Perdiccas.
Neoptolemus managed to escape with a small body of cavalry and joined Craterus, whom he persuaded to march immediately against Eumenes, while the latter was still celebrating his victory and unprepared for a fresh attack. But their cautious adversary was not taken by surprise and met his enemies in a pitched battle. During this battle, Neoptolemus commanded the left wing, on which he was opposed to Eumenes himself; and the two leaders, who were bitter personal enemies, sought each other out during the battle and engaged in single combat, in which, after a desperate struggle, Neoptolemus was slain by Eumenes.
Neoptolemus (, flourished second half of 2nd century BC and first half of 1st century BC, died by 63 BC) was a distinguished general of King Mithridates VI of Pontus. He was the brother of Archelaus, another general of Mithridates VI and the paternal uncle of Archelaus’ sons: Archelaus and Diogenes.
Like his brother Archelaus, Neoptolemus was a Cappadocian Greek nobleman, possibly of Macedonian descent from unknown parents. Perhaps his ancestors descended from those Greeks who arrived in Anatolia after the expedition of King Alexander the Great. Neoptolemus's family were active in the Pontic Court. Like his brother, Neoptolemus was a general and admiral in the First Mithridatic War (89 BC-85 BC). Prior to the First Mithridatic War, Neoptolemus and his brother had gained military experience in the Pontic campaigns on the northern shores of the Black Sea. He took part in campaigns as far as west of the Crimea, reaching possibly as far west as Tyras, where he erected a fortress which continues to bear his name. Also in the Crimea, in the Sea of Azov, he fought two battles on the Palus Maeotis in two years.
In 88 BC, as a part of the First Mithridatic War, Neoptolemus and his brother were involved in a military campaign with the Pontic army against King Nicomedes IV of Bithynia. At the Amnias River the brothers commanded the advance guard and won their first victory of the war. Neoptolemus then went on to defeat a Roman-led army at Protopachium, probably without his brother. The Roman army led by Manius Aquillius was forced to retreat to Pergamon. With these two victories Mithridates VI was able to extend his control of the Roman Province of Asia, and his generals took the war to Greece.
Neoptolemus accompanied his brother and the Pontic army to Athens. He commanded the Pontic forces around Chalcis, where he suffered defeat from the Roman Munatius, losing 1,500 men. After the Pontic army left Greece in 85 BC, Mithridates VI put Neoptolemus in command of the Pontic fleet guarding the Hellespont, where he suffered a final defeat by the Roman fleet led by Lucius Licinius Lucullus. Due to this Pontic defeat, Mithridates VI was forced to end the war with the Roman Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. After this, nothing further is known of Neoptolemus.