Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Polydorus.
The gallery
The Legend of Polydorus
Titian, c. 1505–1510
Titian's Padua fresco cycle turns on Polydorus — Priam's youngest, murdered for Trojan gold by Polymestor in Thrace. Early Titian makes the boy's fate a civic moral for Padua: hospitality betrayed, a prince's corpse the spark of Hecuba's revenge.
Hecuba Discovering the Body of Her Son Polydorus
Charles Meynier, c. 1791–1793
Meynier freezes the Euripidean and Ovidian recognition: Polydorus washed ashore after Polymestor's murder, Hecuba stretching toward her youngest. The corpse is the painting's centre — the Priamid whose death opens the queen's vengeance.
Hecuba Blinds Polymestor
Giuseppe Maria Crespi, early 18th century
Crespi paints the revenge for Polydorus: Hecuba and the Trojan women blind the Thracian king who killed the boy for gold. The Priamid's murder is the invisible hinge — Euripides' Hecuba staged as Baroque violence.
Hecuba Discovering the Body of Her Son Polydorus
André-Joseph Allar, 1871
Allar's relief returns to the shore recognition: Polydorus cast up on the sand, the youngest son of Priam as Ovid's ghost and Euripides' prologue. Nineteenth-century sculpture keeps the boy's corpse as Hecuba's turning point.
In play
Hecuba
Euripides
Euripides opens with Polydorus' ghost: the boy Priam sent to Thrace with gold, murdered by Polymestor — the Priamid whose death drives the captive queen's revenge.
Iliad
Homer
Iliad 20 makes Polydorus the swift youngest son of Priam whom Achilles spears — Hector's grief at his brother's fall that precipitates the duel.