myth lecture

1. 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.

2. • 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.

3. • 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.

4. • 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.

5. • 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.

6. • 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)

7. • 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

8. • 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

9. • 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)

10. • 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.
Panorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World
Maerten van Heemskerck (Dutch, 1498-1574

11. • 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.

12. • 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.

13. • -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.

14. • 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

15. • 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