HECUBA (Gr. `Exa(3n)  , wife of Priam, daughter of the Phrygian king Dymas (or of Cisseus, or of the river-god Sangarius) . According to Homer she was the mother of nineteen of Priam's fifty sons . When Troy was captured and Priam slain, she was made prisoner by the Greeks . Her fate is told in various ways, \most of which connect her with the promontory Cynossema, on the Thracian shore of the Hellespont . According to Euripides (in the Hecuba), her youngest son Polydorus had been placed during the siege of Troy under the care of Polymestor, king of Thrace . When the Greeks reached the Thracian Chersonese on their way home Hecuba discovered that her son had been murdered; and in revenge put out the eyes of Polymestor and murdered his two sons . She was acquitted by Agamemnon; but, as Polymestor foretold, she was turned into a dog, and her grave became a mark for ships (Ovid, Metam. xiii . 399-575; Juvenal x . 271 and Mayor's note) . According to another story, she fell to the lot of Odysseus, as a slave, and in despair threw herself into the Hellespont; or, she used such insulting language towards her captors that they put her to death (Dictys Cretensis v . 13 . 16) .

It is obvious from the tales of Hecuba's trans-formation and death that she is a

form of some goddess to whom dogs were sacred; and the analogy with Scylla is striking .