The center of the play is Hecuba, the exiled queen of Troy, and her sorrow at the death of her family and her city at the end of the Trojan War. In Euripides' play, the ladies of Troy are depicted after their city has been taken over, their husbands have been killed, and their remaining families have been sold into slavery. Athena and Poseidon, two Greek gods, are talking about how to punish the Greek soldiers for tolerating Ajax the Lesser's rape of Cassandra as the story opens.Upon her arrival, the widowed princess Andromache finds that her youngest daughter, Polyxena, had been killed by her mother's enemies.The Greek authorities are worried that the little kid would one-day exact revenge on his father Hector. She is still alive, as is made clear in the book's conclusion.Many of the Trojan ladies mourn the loss of the land that gave them a good upbringing throughout the book. Hecuba in particular makes it clear that Troy had been her home her entire life, only for her to see herself as an elderly grandmother witnessing the destruction of Troy, the deaths of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before being sold into slavery by Odysseus.
