Deidameia

Deidameia was the daughter of Lycomedes, king of the Dolopians.

The seer Calchas prophesied that Troy would never be defeated without the aid of Achilles.

Achilles' mother, Thetis, sought to hide Achilles because she knew that if he fought in the Trojan War, he would be killed.

Thetis disguised Achilles as a girl named Pyrrha and hid him amongst the daughters of Lycomedes. Achilles and Deidameia had a son, Pyrrhus (presumably named after Pyrrha, the name of the disguised Achilles).

Odysseus found out where Achilles was hiding and devised a plan to discover which of the daughters of Lycomedes was, in fact, a man.

Odysseus set out weaponry and called out, as if a battle was to ensue. Instinctively, Achilles reached for the weapons. Thus enlisted in the war, Achilles left Deidameia and Pyrrhus (also called Neoptolemus) in Scyros (Bell, 154).

Later, Pyrrhus went off to war, leaving Deidameia alone. It is not known whether Achilles actually married Deidameia.

Propertius, in Book II.9A, poem IXA, of the Elegies, makes a reference to Deidameia's situation once Achilles has left:

(1) Iste quod est, ego saepe fui: sed fors et in hora hoc ipso eiecto carior alter erit. Penelope poterat bis denos salva per annos vivere, tam multis femina digna procis; coniugium falsa poterat differre Minerva, nocturno solvens texta diurno dolo; visuram et quamvis numquam speraret Ulixem, illum exspectando facta remansit anus. Nec non exanimen amplectens Briseis Achillem candida vesana verberat ora manu; et dominum lavit maerens captiva cruentum appositum flavis in Simoente vadis, foedavitque comas, et tanti corpus Achilli maximaque in parva sustulit ossa manu; cui tum nec Peleus aderat nec caerula mater, Scyria nec viduo Deidamia toro. Tunc igitur, verus gaudebat Graecia nuptis, tunc etiam caedes inter et arma pudor.

What that one is, I often have been: but perhaps in time after, this one will have been removed and another will be more dear. Penelope was able to live pure through twice ten years, such a woman worthy of many suitors; the false weaving was able to postpone a marriage, loosening the woven cloth of the day in nocturnal trick; and although she never hoped that she would see Odysseus, she remained, having become an old woman by waiting. Nor did Briseis, clinging to lifeless Achilles, not beat her white cheeck [with] impassioned hand; and the grieving captive washed the bleeding master positioned in the golden shoals by Simois, and she darkened her hair and she lifted the body of great Achilles and the very large bones in her small hand; who then Peleus had not aided nor his mother of the blue sea, nor Deidamia, on a destitute bed in Scyros. Then, in short, Greece rejoiced [in] honorable wives, then also propriety [lived] amongst bloodshed and arms.

After the war, Pyrrhus gave Deidameia to his friend Helenus, son of Priam, and with him she became queen of his kingdom in Molossia.

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