About the work
Tragedy by Euripides, probably written around 425 BC. Whether and where it was first performed remains unclear — an ancient scholiast even claims the play was not staged in Athens at all, a claim modern scholarship regards with scepticism.
Plot
After the fall of Troy, the widowed Andromache lives as the concubine of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, and has borne him a son. Neoptolemus's wife Hermione and her father Menelaus, driven by jealousy, try to kill Andromache and the child; only Peleus, Neoptolemus's aged grandfather, saves them. In the end, the absent Neoptolemus is killed at Delphi by Orestes, who then takes Hermione as his wife.
Cultural significance
Through the scheming, cowardly Menelaus, the play paints a markedly negative picture of Sparta — a scarcely veiled political jab against Athens' wartime enemy set against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War.