Astyanax for if he were allowed to live, it was feared he would avenge his father and rebuild Troy. In the version given by the "Little Iliad" and repeated by Pausanias (x 25.4), he was killed by Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus), who threw the infant from the walls. Another version is given in "Iliou persis", in which Odysseus kills Astyanax. It has also been depicted in some Greek vases that Neoptolemus kills Priam, who has taken refuge near a sacred altar, using Astyanax's dead body to club the old king to death, in front of horrified onlookers. In Ovid's "Metamorphoses", the
Neoptolemus (Pontic general) brother, Neoptolemus was a general and admiral in the First Mithridatic War (89 BC-85 BC). Prior to the First Mithridatic War, Neoptolemus and his brother had gained military experience in the Pontic campaigns on the northern shores of the Black Sea. He took part in campaigns as far as west of the Crimea, reaching possibly as far west as Tyras, where he erected a fortress which continues to bear his name. Also in the Crimea, in the Sea of Azov, he fought two battles on the Palus Maeotis in two years. In 88 BC, as a part of the First