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Polyxena

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For the Christian Saint, please see Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca

Polyxena was known to be a beautiful Trojan princess from Greek mythology.

Life

Polyxena dies by the hand of Neoptolemus on the tomb of Achilles.

She is the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She is considered the Trojan version of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Polyxena is not in Homer's Iliad, appearing in works by later poets, perhaps to add romance to Homer's austere tale. An oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated if her brother, Prince Troilus, reached the age of twenty. During the Trojan War, Polyxena and Troilus were ambushed when they were attempting to fetch water from a fountain, and Troilus was killed by the Greek warrior Achilles, who soon fell in love with Polyxena. Achilles was interested in marrying Polyxena, and was told by either Paris or Priam to go to the temple of Apollo in order to discuss the issue of marriage. Achilles was genuinely in love with Polyxena--he told her of his only vulnerability: his vulnerable heel. It was later in the temple of Apollo that Polyxena's brother, Paris, struck Achilles in the heel with an arrow that had been steeped in poison that had been guided by the hand of Apollo himself. Some claimed Polyxena committed suicide after Achilles' death. According to Euripides, however, in his plays "The Trojan Women" and Hecuba, Polyxena's famous death was caused at the end of the Trojan War. Achilles' ghost had come back to the Greeks, demanding that the wind needed to set sail back to Hellas was to be appeased by the human sacrifice of Polyxena. She was to be killed at the foot of Achilles' grave. Polyxena's virginity was critical to the honor of her character, and she is described as dying bravely as the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, slit her throat: she arranged her clothing around her carefully so that she was covered when she died.