Chapter NineteenLecture One

The Trojan War

The Trojan War

• A great legendary event about which many stories are told

• Set in about 1200 BC• The two great stories, among others,

are The Iliad and The Odyssey• The Iliad, the first we’ll read, is not

about the Trojan War, but about something that happens during it

The Myths of the Trojan War

• The causes of the war and aftermath are elaborated in the Epic Cycles (epitomes)

• These are attached to legends of different areas of Greece, particularly that of the area known as the Argolid and Elis

The House of Atreus

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

• Elis• Oenomaüs• Hippodamia• Either . . . a premonition that his son-in-law

would kill him• or passion for Hippodamia

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

• Set up a race that no one could win• His horses were sired by the wind• Losers were decapitated• The hero Pelops of Lydia hears of the

contest and determines to enter

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

• Son of the evil Tantalus, king of Lydia – in Asia Minor.

• Tantalus was impious toward the gods, with whom he used to associate

• Tried to feed them his own son, Pelops

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

• The gods, except Demeter, detected the “trick” and punished Tantalus

• “tantalize”• Demeter ate part of Pelop’s shoulder –

Hephaestus made a replacement of ivory

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

• Poseidon gives Pelops horses that can never tire

• Pelops also bribes Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaüs to sabotage the king’s chariot– the first night with Hippodameia

• But Pelops reneges and kills Myrtilus when he tries force

Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia

• Myrtilus's dying curse• Pelops becomes king in Pisa and lives

happily with Hippodameia . . . but the curse will follow his family

• Much later . . .

The Banquet of Thyestes

The Banquet of Thyestes

• An oracle requires that the next king of Mycenae be a descendant of Pelops

• The two available were Atreus and Thyestes

• To decide which, Thyestes proposed a test

The Banquet of Thyestes

• Thyestes: “whoever could produce a golden fleece” to prove the gods were with him

• Atreus agreed, for he knew he had a golden fleece

• But his wife, Aëropê, had been having an affair with Thyestes and smuggled the fleece to him

The Rising Sun

• Atreus was wroth and proposed another test – whoever could make the sun rise in the west and set in the east

• Thyestes agreed, and when Zeus made it happen, Thyestes withdrew his claim, and Atreus became king in Mycenae

In Mycenae

• Atreus is king• But he is angry with his bother,

Thyestes, because he had had an affair with his wife

The Banquet of Thyestes

• Atreus invites him and his children to a banquet to bury the hatchet

• Serves him his own children – the Feast of Thyestes

• Thyestes curses Atreus

The Banquet of Thyestes

• Delphi tells him he must have a son with his daughter, Pelopeia, who will avenge him

• But Pelopia’s whereabouts is not known• By chance, he rapes a girl in the woods

near Sicyon, who turns out to be Pelopia

The Banquet of Thyestes

• He accidentally left his sword behind and Pelopia keeps it

• Meanwhile, Atreus is again hunting for Thyestes

• In his search, he goes to Sicyon, sees, falls in love with and marries Pelopia

The Banquet of Thyestes

• Pelopia soon has a son – Thyestes’s son – and Atreus, thinking it is his own son, names him Aegisthus

• Later, Atreus’s real sons, Agamemnon and Menelaüs, are still looking for Thyestes; they find him at Delphi

• He’s brought back to Mycenae

The Banquet of Thyestes

• Atreus orders Aegisthus to go into the prison and kill Thyestes

• He gives him the sword that Pelopia had kept from the day of the rape

• Thyestes recognizes the sword as his own – Pelopia confirms the fact that Thyestes is Aegisthus’s true father

The Banquet of Thyestes

• Horrified by what has happened, Pelopia kills herself with the sword

• Aegithus takes the bloody sword to Atreus and kills him with it.

• Thyestes becomes king in Mycenae• Agamemnon and Menelaüs flee to

Sparta, where Tyndareüs was king

The House of Tyndareüs

Leda and the Swan; the Dioscuri

The House of Tyndareüs

• Leda: Wife of the King of Sparta• Children of Zeus

– Clytemnestra– Castor– Pollux (Polydeuces)– Helen

Oath of Tyndareus

Oath of Tyndareus

• The heroes:–Odysseus, Diomedes, Ajax, Philoctetes,

Patroclus, Menelaus• The Oath (concocted by Odysseus)• Helen of Troy• Menelaus wins her hand• Agamemnon marries Clytemnestra

The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Wedding of Peleus and Thetis• Meanwhile, Peleus, an exiled son of

Aeacus, the king of Aegina, is living in Phthia (in Thessaly)

Wedding of Peleus and Thetis• Peleus, one day, saw and captured the

nymph Thetis– the one from whom Prometheus told Zeus

a son greater than the father would be born.

• Zeus requires her to marry him

The Judgment of Paris

The Judgment of Paris

• All the gods and goddesses are invited, except for Eris

• She rolls in the golden apple, engraved “for the fairest”

• Zeus declines to decide who among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite is the fairest

• Paris chooses Aphrodite and “gets” Helen . . .

Next Lecture

The Trojan WarThe Iliad