Neoptolemus

In Greek mythology, Neoptolemus (also Pyrrhus) was the son of Achilles.

Achilles didn't want to fight in the Trojan War, so he disguised himself as a girl in the court of the king of Scyros. During that time, he had an affair with the princess, Deidamea, who gave birth to Neoptolemus.

Twenty years later in the war, after the death of Achilles and Ajax and no signs of victory for the Greeks, the Greeks desperately captured the Trojan seer, Helenus, and forced him to tell them under what conditions could they take Troy. Helenus revealed to them that they could defeat Troy if they could achieve the poisonous arrows of Heracles (then at Philocthetes); steal the Palladium (which lead to the building of the famous wooden horse of Troy); and persuade Achilles' son to join the war. The Greeks made haste to fetch Neoptolemus at Scyros, and brought him to Troy.

In contrast to Achilles, a noble and gentle warrior, Neoptolemus was savage and cruel. He killed Priam, Polyxena and Astyanax, among others, and enslaved Helenus and Andromache after the war. With Andromache, Helenus and Phoenix, Neoptolemus sailed to the Epirot Islands and then became the king of Epirus, exiling Odysseus after he killed a large number of suitors that pestered his wife, Penelope.

With Andromache, Neoptolemus was the father of Molossus and Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great.

Neoptolemus was killed after he attempted to take Hermione from Orestes as her father, Menelaus, promised, or after he denounced Apollo, the murderer of his father. He was killed by Orestes or some Delphian priests of Apollo.