Iliad 6.402-6.403

The first name for the son of Hector, Astyanax [Astuanax], I.06.403, means ‘king [anax] of the city [astu]’. The meaning of this “speaking name” (nomen loquens) is relevant to the heroic function of the father as guarding a citadel from sieges. See the comment on I.22.506–507. The second name for the son of Hector, Scamandrius [Skamandrios], I.06.402, derives from a rival Aeolian tradition, here undermined by the prevailing Ionian tradition of the Iliad (HPC 203–205). According to this rival tradition, as we read in Euripides Andromache 224 (together with the scholia for that verse), Scamandrius was a bastard son of Hector who survived the Trojan War, to be distinguished from the legitimate son of Hector and Andromache, Astyanax, who tragically failed to survive. According to Aeolian traditions, Scamandrius not only survived the Trojan War but later became king of Troy (scholia T for I.24.735). By contrast, according to the dominantly Ionian traditions as represented by the Iliad as we have it, Scamandrius could not have survived if he was the same child as Astyanax, which is what we read here at I.06.402–403. So, the version as we have it kills off the potentially surviving half-brother.