The Trojan War

• In this lecture we will examine the most famous episode of classical myth, the Trojan

War. The Trojan War functioned as the dividing line between the heroic” age and the

age of normal human history; perhaps because of this function, the episode is

frequently drawn on by authors in various genres.

• The lecture summarizes the basic story of the Trojan War, from its beginnings in the

marriage of Peleus and Thetis through the ill-fated sack of Troy.

• We will then note the Trojan War myth’s importance for understanding the myth of the

House of Atreus and ends by discussing how complicated a picture the myth draws of

the relationships between fate, the gods’ orders, and individual responsibility.

• The Trojan War is the most famous episode of classical myth. This fame results from

the fact that it was a considered an especially important event by the Greeks and

Romans themselves and, thus, because especially productive in classical literature.

• The Greeks of the classical age saw the Trojan

War as the episode that marked the end of the

“heroic” age and the beginning of purely human

history.

• 1. Heroic myth ends about a generation after

the Trojan War. Some myths exist about the

sons of Trojan War heroes about none about

the grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

• 2. The heroes of the Trojan War were seen as

the last of the great race of heroes; they were

also often claimed as ancestors by families

living in the classical age.

• 3. Thus, the Trojan War is a “liminal”

(mediating) episode; it looks back to myth but at

the same time it looks forward to human history.

• Probably because of this liminal nature of the

Trojan War myth, it became the most fruitful

episode of all Greek mythology for literature.

• 1. The most obvious example of this importance is

that the two great Greek epics, The Iliad and The

Odyssey, deal with event during and after the

Trojan War.

• 2. The greatest surviving Latin epic, The Aeneid,

also takes the aftermath of the Trojan War as its

subject.

• 3. Many of the most famous Greek tragedies also

deal with either the Trojan War or its aftermath.

• 4. The Trojan war is exceptionally well represented

in literature, which means that it has continued to

be, in some regards, the primary classical myth for

later Western culture as well.

• Despite its importance for Greek culture, no major surviving ancient work tells the entire story of the Trojan War.

• 1. The great epics narrate only episodes from before and after the war.

• 2. The Illiad focuses on event that happened during the last year of the war, and the Odyssey deals with Odysseus’s further adventures after the

war.

• 3. Other Greek epic poems, now lost, told the rest of the story of the Trojan War.

• 4. The Aeneid recounts the wanderings of the Trojan prince Aeneas after the defeat of Troy and his eventual arrival in Italy, where he became

the ancestor of the Romans. It includes the fullest extant description of the sack of Troy.

• 5. The tragedies tell even fewer details of the war; they focus on specific incidents and the effects of the war on non-combatant groups.

• 6. As is often the case, Apollodorus gives a good summary of the story.

• The story of the Trojan War is basically quite simple; however, many allied

stories link into the story of the Trojan War in one way or another and

make the overall topic quite complex. The basic story is as follows:

• 1. The most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, daughter of Zeus and

wife of the Greek Menelaos, was abducted by the Trojan prince Paris.

• 2. Under the command of Menelaos’s elder brother Agamemnon, the

Greeks mustered an army to go to Troy and fight for Helen’s return.

• 3. The war against Troy lasted for ten years. The fighting was fairly

evenly balanced; each side had its foremost warrior (Achilles for the

Greeks; Hector for the Trojans).

• 4. The greatest Trojan warrior, Hector, was killed by the greatest Greek

warrior, Achilles, who was himself killed by Paris.

• 5. Finally, the Greeks resorted to trickery. Using the famous ruse of the

Trojan Horse, invented by Odysseus, they infiltrated the walled city of Troy

and sacked it by night. The traditional date for the destruction of Troy was

1184 B.C.

• The basic story of the Trojan War attracted many related stories over the centuries. One such

connected story has to do with the birth of Achilles.

• The ultimate cause of the war was a prophecy about the hero Achilles, before he was conceived.

• 1. Achilles’s mother was Thetis, a sea-goddess. She was desired by Zeus, but he heard a prophecy

that she would bear a son who would be greater than his father.

• 2. Therefore, Zeus decided to marry Thetis off to a human being. The human picked for the purpose

was Peleus.

The wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Edward Burne-Jones (1833 - 1898)

• 1. Thetis was less than please with this

marriage; to placate her, Zeus hosted a

magnificent wedding feast, to which all the

gods and goddesses were invited except

Eris, goddess of Strife.

• 2. In anger at her exclusion, Eris threw

onto the table a golden apple inscribed

“for the fairest.”

• 3. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each

claimed the apple as her own.

• 4. Zeus appointed the Trojan prince Paris

to judge among these three goddesses.

The Judgment of Paris, Peter Paul Rubens, ca 1636

• The “Judgment of Paris” provided the immediate cause for the

war, because each goddess offered him a bribe if he would

award the apple to her.

• 1. Hera offered him sovereignty over many cities.

• 2. Athena offered him power in battle.

• 3. Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the

world for his wife.

• 4. Paris chose Aphrodite, which led to his abduction of

Helen and Menelaos’s determination to get her back.

• 5. The “Judgment of Paris” is not directly mentioned in either

the Iliad or the Odyssey; scholars disagree on whether Homer

knew of his detail of the story or not. As we know, myth

develops over centuries; it is not static.

Anton Raphael Mengs 1728-1779

• This explanation of the causes of the Trojan War

contains an interesting chronological

inconsistency.

• 1. Achilles was the most important Greek warrior

in the Trojan War and was old enough to have a

son who fought in the war as well.

• 2. Yet the Apple of Discord, which sparked the

war, was thrown down on the table at the

marriage feast of Achilles’s parents.

• 3. To harmonize the chronology, we have to

account for a missing period of some twenty or

twenty-five years.

• 4. Again, probably the best explanation is that

the incongruities are caused by disparate strands

of tradition being woven into a whole.The Wrath of Achilles, by François-Léon Benouville (1821–1859)

• The events leading up to the war are also closely connected with the story of the family of

Agamemnon and Menelaos. Their entire past and future are bound up with this war.

• The most obvious connection, of course, is that Helen was the wife of Menelaos, and her half-sister

Clytemnestra was Agamemnon’s wife.

• The abduction of Helen was an offense against the honor of Menelaos’s whole family and a profound

offense against the Greek notion of xenia, or guest friendship. Because Agamemnon was the elder

brother, the task of leading the expedition to get her back fell to him.

Maerten van Heemskerck (Dutch, 1498-1574

Panorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World

• The events that occurred during the Trojan

War affected the Greeks’ attempts to return

home.

• -The return to Greece was neither easy nor

simple. The Greeks committed many outrages

against the Trojans during the sack of Troy.

• 1. King Priam was killed at his household altar.

• 2. Priam’s daughter Cassandra was raped in

the temple of the virgin goddess Athena.

• 3. Before leaving Troy, the Greeks sacrifice

Priam’s daughter Polyxena to the ghost of

Achilles; their expedition both begins and ends

with the sacrifice of an innocent girl.

• Because of the gods’ anger, the surviving Greeks suffered any hardships on their way home.

• 1. Agamemnon was killed by his wife and her lover.

• 2. Odysseus spent ten years wandering on his way from Troy.

• 3. Menelaos and Helen were blown off course and spent seven years in Egypt.

• -Stories were also told

about the surviving Trojans;

the most important of these

was Aeneas, son of

Aphrodite and Anchises and

a cousin of Hector.

• 1. The Iliad says that

Aeneas was destined to

survive and found another

city elsewhere.

• 2. Roman tradition said that

he made his way to Italy

and became the ancestor of

the Romans.

• In all these connected

stories, we can see

how complex the

interaction is between

the gods’ commands

and individual

responsibility.

• The war was

inevitable. Although it

was caused by the

actions of several

individuals (most

notably Paris), all the

actions were

sanctioned by the

gods; thus the

individuals involved

could claim necessity.

Venus Presenting Arms to Aeneas by Nicolas Poussin

• Yet this necessity does not mitigate the horror of

the individuals’ wrongdoings on both sides.

• 1. Paris violated the guest-host relationship, or

xenia, by his abduction of Helen.

• 2. Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter

Iphigeneia was a great transgression..

• 3. In both cases, the actions had the sanction of a

goddess, but this does not spare the doers from

the consequences.

• Add to this the concept of Fate, and we have a

very complicated system indeed.

François Perrier's "The Sacrifice of Iphigenia" (17th century),

depicting Agamemnon's murder of his daughter Iphigenia