(), or in Latin HE'CUBA, a daughter of Dymas in
Phrygia, and second wife of Priam, king of Troy. (Hom. Il.
16.716, 22.234; Apollod.
3.12.5.) Some described her as a daughter of Cisseus, or the Phrygian rivergod
Sangarius and Metope. (Eur. Hec. 3 ; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1083.) According to the tragedy of
Euripides, which bears her name, she was made a slave by the Greeks on their taking Troy, and
was carried by them to Chersonesus ; and she there saw her daughter Polyxena sacrificed. On
the same day the waves of the sea washed the body of her last son Polydorus on the coast where
stood the tents in which the captive women were kept. Hecabe recognised the body, and sent for
Polymestor, who had murdered him, pretending that she was going to inform him of a treasure
which was concealed at Ilium. When Polymestor arrived with his two sons, Hecabe murdered the
children, and tore out the eyes of Polymestor. Agamemnon pardoned her for the crime, and
Polymestor prophesied to her that she should be metamorphosed into a she-dog, and should leap
into the sea at a place called Cynosema. (Strab. p 595 ; Thuc.
8.104.) According to Ovid (Ov. Met. 13.423-575), this prophecy was fulfilled in Thrace, the inhabitants of
which stoned her; but she was metamorphosed into a dog, and in this form she howled through
the country for a long time. (Comp. Hyg. Fab. 111; Serv. ad Virg. Aen. 3.6; Cic. Tusc 3.26.) According to other
accounts she was given as a slave to Odysseus. and in despair she leaped into the Hellespont
(Dict. Cret. 5.13), or being anxious to die, she uttered such invectives against the Greeks,
that the warriors put her to death, and called the place where she was buried κυνὸς σῆμα, with reference to her impudent invectives. (Dict.
Cret. 5.16.) Respecting her children by Priam, see Apollod.
3.12.5: comp. PRIAMUS, HECTOR, PARIS.