Hecuba

The last Queen of Troy. Her mother was named Metope, but it is uncertain who her father was. Various men were named: Cisseus, Dymas or the river god Sangarius. There were no mentions of her having any siblings.

Hecuba (Ἑκάβη) became wife of Priam, king of Troy, after he had divorced Aisbe. Hecuba had many children. Her sons were named Hector, Paris, Deïphobus, Helenus, Pammon, Polites, Antiphos, Hipponoos and Polydorus. Her daughters included Cassandra, Creusa (married to Aeneas), Laodice and Polyxena. She was also the mother of Troilus (Troilos); Troilus' father was possibly Apollo.

When she was pregnant with Paris, Hecuba had a vision of Troy burning. Her stepson Aesacus, who was a seer, foretold that her second son would cause Troy's destruction. So Priam and Hecuba took the precaution of exposing their newborn son in the wild forest. But he was saved, and returned to Troy after reaching manhood. Cassandra recognised her brother. She and her husband forgot about the prophecy, and welcomed him back.

In the 1ast year of the war, she organised a huge sacrifice to Athena at Hector's advice, but the sacrifice and prayers went unheard, because the goddess was determined to bring about the fall of Troy.

After the sack of Troy, Hecuba was given as a slave to Odysseus. She was one of the women in Euripides' play to witness the death of her daughter Polyxena, sacrificed to Achilles, and her grandson Astyanax, the only child of Hector and Andromache.

She lost all of her sons to the war except Helenus and Polydorus. Polydorus was left in the Thracian kingdom of Polymestor for safekeeping, in case the Trojans lost the war. But upon hearing that the Greeks had sacked Troy, Polymestor thought he could steal the treasure Priam had left his son Polydorus, as well as earn the Greeks' favour.

Hecuba, learning the fate of her son, decided to take revenge against the Thracian king. She murdered the king, and the gods transformed her into a black dog for her crime.

A different version was mentioned in Apollodorus' Library. Helenus was given his freedom, and the Greeks gave his mother to him. Mother and son went to the Chersonese, where she was turned into a bitch, and Helenus buried her at her death, in a tomb called Bitch Tomb. Apollodorus didn't give any reason for Hecuba's transformation into a dog, nor was there any mention of the Thracian king Polymestor's murder of her son, Polydorus.

According to the Greek geographer Pausanias, he mentioned that the poet Stesichorus wrote the Sack of Ilium, and stated that Apollo spirited Hecuba away from Troy to Lycia. Perhaps that was because Apollo was at one time her lover, and their son was Troilus. What happened to her after this, we don't know, for Pausanias never mentions the transformation of Hecuba into a dog.