Neoptolemus

Also known as: Achilles' child / Achilles' offspring / Achilles' son / NEO / NEO. / NEOPTOLEMUS / son of Achilles · Family: Greeks · Role: son of Achilles · First appears: Sophocles, Philoctetes — Scene 1

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles in the Achaean host, was recruited by Odysseus to bring Philoctetes and his bow back to the campaign for Troy. “It was fated that Troy should be taken by Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, assisted by the bow of Heracles in the hands of Philoctetes.” At first he rejected Odysseus’s plan to deceive Philoctetes, insisting that craft and guile were not his nature or Achilles’s, but he eventually agreed. His anger toward Odysseus also arose when Achilles’ armor was denied him and given to Odysseus instead; Neoptolemus knew the Atridae and Odysseus as evil men.

At Lemnos, Neoptolemus formed a friendship with Philoctetes, agreed to take him aboard, and received his bow while the wound’s pain incapacitated him. He promised not to abandon him, yet revealed that Philoctetes was expected to sail to Troy and join the Achaean host. When Philoctetes recognized the betrayal, Neoptolemus initially refused to return the bow, saying interest and duty compelled obedience; later he admitted, “Yea, for I have them through base sinful means,” and restored it. He and Philoctetes then accepted Heracles’ command to sail to Troy rather than return home, while Phoenix, Acamas, and Demophon pursued them.

Neoptolemus was fostered by Lycomedes, and Patroclus’s death was reported to him as part of Achilles’s story. He later resolved to take the captive Andromache as his wife; she was bestowed upon him as a reward for his victorious arms, and he also married Hermione. When his grandfather Peleus suffered misfortune and Acastus expelled him from his realm, Neoptolemus departed for Phthia with Andromache. At Delphi, Orestes plotted his death, and Neoptolemus was killed by a Delphic citizen with the aid of a multitude at Apollo’s sanctuary.