Hermione

Hermione was the only daughter of Menelaus, king of Sparta, and Helen of Troy. Homer says that she was Helen’s only child by Menelaus and that she had the beauty of golden Aphrodite (Odyssey 4.12–14). She is promised to more than one man: to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and in the tragedians also to her cousin Orestes. The tragic poets make her a central figure in the stories of the homecomings after the Trojan War.

Family

Hermione was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen (Apollodorus, Library 3.11.1; Homer, Odyssey 4.12–14). Homer adds that the gods gave Helen no further children after Hermione, and that Menelaus had a son, Megapenthes, by a slave woman (Odyssey 4.10–12). Her grandfather on her father’s side was Atreus, which made her the cousin of Orestes, son of Agamemnon (Ovid, Heroides 8.27–28).

The sources disagree about where Hermione was when her mother left. In the Epitome of Apollodorus, Helen left Hermione behind when she sailed away with Paris, and the girl was nine years old (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.3). In Euripides’ Orestes, Menelaus left her as a girl in the care of Clytemnestra when he sailed for Troy (Euripides, Orestes 63–65).

Betrothal and Marriages

In the Odyssey Menelaus has promised Hermione to the son of Achilles at Troy, and when Telemachus arrives at Sparta the wedding feast is being held: Menelaus is sending her to the city of the Myrmidons, where Neoptolemus rules (Odyssey 4.3–9). In this version Hermione is the wife of Neoptolemus and no earlier marriage is mentioned.

Later writers add a second suitor. In Euripides’ Andromache, Orestes says that Menelaus had given Hermione to him before he invaded Troy, and later promised her to the man who now held her, Neoptolemus, if he sacked the city (Euripides, Andromache 966–970). In Ovid’s letter of Hermione to Orestes it is Tyndareus, the mortal father of her mother Helen, who gave her to Orestes, while her father, not knowing of it, promised her to the son of Achilles (Ovid, Heroides 8.31–34). Apollodorus follows this story: when Orestes went mad after killing his mother, Neoptolemus seized his wife Hermione, who had been pledged to Neoptolemus earlier at Troy (Apollodorus, Epitome 6.14). Pausanias, describing an offering of the Spartans at Delphi that showed Hermione, says that she married Orestes after being married to Neoptolemus (Pausanias 10.16.4).

Hermione in Euripides’ Andromache

Euripides’ play Andromache shows Hermione in Phthia as the wife of Neoptolemus. She has no child, while the Trojan captive Andromache, whom Neoptolemus keeps as a concubine, has borne him a son. Hermione accuses Andromache of using drugs to make her barren and hated by her husband (Euripides, Andromache 32–35, 155–160). She contrasts her own rich dowry from her father Menelaus with the slave woman (Andromache 147–153). While Neoptolemus is away at Delphi, her father Menelaus joins her plan to kill Andromache and her child; he seizes the boy and threatens to kill both (Andromache 39–40, 309–314). Peleus, the grandfather of Neoptolemus, arrives and saves them (Andromache 547–765).

When Peleus has driven off Menelaus, Hermione is afraid of her husband’s anger and wants to die (Andromache 802–808). Orestes arrives on his way to Dodona, asks after his kinswoman Hermione, and offers to take her away; he tells her that she had been his by Menelaus’ gift and that a plot is ready to kill Neoptolemus at Delphi (Andromache 881–1008). Neoptolemus is killed at Delphi, and Orestes leaves Phthia with Hermione.

Hermione and Orestes

Euripides’ Orestes shows Hermione at an earlier moment, before the marriage. Orestes and Pylades, plotting against Helen and Menelaus, seize Hermione as she comes into the palace and hold a sword to her throat so that Menelaus will have to listen (Euripides, Orestes 1311–1352). The play ends when Apollo appears and declares that Orestes is destined to marry Hermione, and that Neoptolemus, who thinks he is to marry her, never will, since he is fated to die by a Delphian sword (Orestes 1653–1657).

Apollodorus says that Neoptolemus was killed at Delphi by Orestes for the seizure of Hermione (Epitome 6.14). Virgil tells it the same way: Neoptolemus went after Hermione and a Spartan marriage, and Orestes, inflamed with love for the bride taken from him, caught him off guard and cut him down at his father’s altar (Virgil, Aeneid 3.327–332). Apollodorus also gives another version, in which Neoptolemus went to Delphi to demand satisfaction from Apollo for the death of his father and was killed by Machaereus the Phocian when he plundered the offerings (Epitome 6.14).

Children and End

Pausanias says that Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus) had no child by Hermione, though he had sons by Andromache (Pausanias 1.11.1). With Orestes she had a son, Tisamenus, who became king after his father (Pausanias 2.18.6). Apollodorus says that Orestes, after returning to Mycenae, married Hermione, “or, according to some, Erigone”, and had Tisamenus by her, and that Orestes later died of a snakebite in Arcadia (Apollodorus, Epitome 6.28). The ancient sources I could check do not tell how or where Hermione herself died.

Hermione Sources

Homer, Odyssey 4.3–14. Euripides, Andromache 32–35, 147–160, 309–314, 547–765, 802–808, 881–1008; Orestes 63–65, 1311–1352, 1653–1657. Apollodorus, Library 3.11.1; Epitome 3.3, 6.14, 6.28. Pausanias 1.11.1, 2.18.6, 10.16.4. Ovid, Heroides 8.27–34. Virgil, Aeneid 3.327–332.

See Also: Menelaus, Helen, Tyndareus, Orestes, Neoptolemus, Andromache, Tisamenus, Trojan War