Xiphos: A sword. Achaean swords of the Late Bronze Age, around the time of the Trojan War, were broad, straight and relatively short. They were made of bronze, as were all weapons of the time.
The Gods
Around 1300 BC, religious worship in the western Aegean region is dominated by the gods of the Achaean peoples. They are worshipped throughout Achaea (geographically equivalent to modern Greece); and their influence has recently begun to extend as far as the kingdom of Troy, on the Anatolian coast (modern western Turkey).
These Achaean deities are divided into the Olympian gods (those aligned to Zeus, the Skyfather and head of a pantheon of allied sects); and the unaligned gods whose worship is independent of the Olympic pantheon.
However, in Troy, a client kingdom of the Hittite Empire (modern central and eastern Turkey), worship is dominated by the Hittite gods, with some Achaean influences through settlement and trade. As Troy’s influence grows, so too does the influence of their gods, especially Apaliunas (known in Achaea as Apollo).
The Olympian Gods
Zeus is the senior god of the Achaean peoples, but in Oracle’s War, as indeed it it testified as doing not long after the Bronze Age, his worship has already spread well beyond the Achaean kingdoms. As a sky god, he is actively aligning himself with other such deities as his priests seek to make his worship universal. The Zeus cult is now questioning their alliance with the primary Achaean goddess, Hera, whose worship is limited to Achaean lands.
Hera is Achaea’s strongest goddess, aggressively absorbing other fertility goddesses (such as Leto, Gaia, Themis, Hestia and others) into her cult to increase her worship. Most of her followers are women, though she is still the dominant deity at the Achaean High King’s capital of Mycenae, and her priestesses control the main oracular site of Pytho. As a purely Achaean deity, her cult faces challenges in a changing world.
Athena is a lesser goddess whose cult promotes wisdom and skill in war and peace, and whose primary power base is Athens, capital city of Attica. Outside that kingdom, her cult is in conflict with Ares the traditional war god. Like Hera, she is worshipped only in Achaea, and is even more vulnerable if Achaean culture were to fail.
Ares, an Achaean god of war, personifies the belligerent warrior culture of Achaea. Recently, his sect has joined forces with that of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love – a deliberate alignment to match the cult of Ishtar, the Trojan/Hittite Goddess of Love and War. Ares is the particular rival of Athena, who inhibits his worship in Attica.
Aphrodite, the Achaean Goddess of Love, promotes an alternative view of femininity to the Hera cult, idealising beauty, love and marriage in an outwardly submissive context, compared to Hera’s traditions of strong womanhood. The cult of Aphrodite is in the process of breaking from the failing cult of the Smith, Hephaestus, and partnering with that of Ares, leading to a spate of new ‘legends’ that depict Hephaestus as being a crippled lecher. Aphrodite’s cult follows that of her new ally Ares in seeking alignment with Ishtar (in the hope that they will usurp the eastern deity in due course).
Hephaestus is the Smith God, harking back to an earlier time when smiths were community leaders venerated for their ‘magical’ skill in metalwork. But society has changed, the Smith is now just an artisan, and their cult is in decline. Tales now portray this failing deity as crippled and cuckolded, the first step in a process designed to erase him from human worship.
Apollo is revered already by the Trojans as their patron god Apaliunas, and his cult is aggressively expanding into Achaea, aligning him with the Achaean hunter goddess Artemis to capture the next generation. He is worshipped by the Trojans as a source of light, which brings him in conflict with Helios, the Achaean God of the Sun, whose cult is collapsing in the face of his more sophisticated rival.
Artemis, the Huntress, is the traditional goddess of young Achaean maidens, and for centuries has dovetailed with Hera’s cult, though in a subservient role. However, threatened by Hera’s dominance, the cult has aligned with that of the new shooting star, Apollo/Apaliunas. The next generation, they believe, belongs to them.
Leto, like Gaia, Themis, Eileithya and Hestia, is now a minor goddess. Her cult is seeking to regain their earlier influence by putting her forward as ‘mother’ to Apollo and Artemis, hoping to be instated as Zeus’s consort if or when the Skyfather’s cult renounces that of Hera.
Hermes is a nature deity from the Achaean mountain region, Arcadia, whose cult has been subordinated by that of Zeus, and is tolerated by the Skyfather’s priests as it gives them access to the Achaean heartland. With Hermes personified as Zeus’s herald, his cult exemplifies masculine cunning, in the grey area where skill morphs into trickery, and functions as a ‘political’ wing of the Zeus cult.
Demeter is an Achaean Goddess of Fertility and Harvests, the latest to find her cult overwhelmed by that of Hera. To survive, the cult of Demeter has built an alliance with Hades, God of the Underworld, personified by the figure of her ‘daughter’ Persephone, a subordinate deity ‘married’ during winter to Hades. As an Achaean alliance, it is threatened by eastern expansion, but believes the universality of death will enable it to survive any circumstance.
Dionysus is God of Wine and the intoxicating power of nature. His cult has – like that of Apollo – pushed westwards into Achaea from the east. While appearing to align with Apollo and Zeus, the core rites are highly secretive, and the cult’s true allegiances remain unknown.
The Unaligned Achaean Gods
Poseidon claims mastery of the sea and as a result gains worshippers throughout Achaea, primarily those involved in seaborne trade and travel, a vital part of life in such a mountainous, sea-girt country. His equivalent god in the mostly landlocked east (Aruna) is a minor deity, so any foreign invasion of Achaea will diminish Poseidon’s cult. As a result, he is in potential conflict with Zeus, but his cult believes his worship is universal and unassailable.
Hades is the Achaean God of Death and the Afterlife, conceived by Achaeans either as an eternal limbo or as a reward or punishment, as appropriate. This universal concept affords the cult great durability, but dread of death is not worship of death; the cult has therefore limited influence in daily life. As a consequence, it has sought alliance with Demeter, Goddess of Fertile Life (as personified by a ‘marriage’ to Demeter’s ‘daughter’ Persephone), as a direct challenge to the Zeus/Hera hegemony.
Persephone, a seasonal harvest deity, has become ‘daughter’ of Demeter and ‘wife’ of Hades, enabling followers of both sects to bridge the divide between life and death, fecundity and sterile extinction, and make their worship more universal. Persephone’s worship is growing as this duality of life and death in harmony gains appeal in Achaea.
Helios, the ancient God of the Sun, has suffered from the growing worship of Zeus, who claims dominance over all the heavens, and more recently by the emergence of Apollo/Apaliunas, the Trojan God of Light. As a consequence, the cult of Helios is collapsing almost unnoticed.
Eros is a primal God of Procreation. Recently his worshippers have been increasingly lured away by Aphrodite, forcing the cult of Eros to subordinate itself to the rival cult to survive.
Hercules was originally a powerful theios. Such was his strength and ruthlessness that he has become a subject of worship among Achaean warriors after his death, which has seen his spirit (‘daemon’) elevated to godhead by the Zeus cult. He is now seen as a powerful figure in Achaean religion, closely aligned to Zeus – and a potential rival to both Athena and Ares.
Hecate is a Goddess of Magic, a personification of the mysteries of womanhood and born of a time when women’s cults excluded men and handed down secrets and traditions only to their own gender. Her cult has increasingly suffered from the increasingly urbanized and domesticated lot of women; although marginalized, it still maintains a following.
Notable Trojan and Hittite Gods
There are many Hittite and Trojan deities; these are the ones who impact on this tale (so far).
&n
bsp; Tarhun is the Trojan sky god, the most important deity in the Hittite pantheon, who is placated to gain favourable weather and therefore crops. The priests of Tarhun foresee the dominance of the Hittite Empire over the entire Aegean region through their client kingdom of Troy, and are more than willing to merge their cult with that of their Achaean equivalent Zeus, to undermine the Achaean people and extend their own dominance.
Ishtar is Goddess of Love and War, who personifies a union of warrior-man and fecund-woman that has captured the imagination of the Trojan and Hittite peoples. This powerful notion has forced the Achaean cults of Ares and Aphrodite to seek alignment; the priests of Ishtar are happy to swallow up both, and foresee a time when they, not Zeus-Tarhun, dominate the Aegean.
Apaliunas is the patron god of the Trojans, who worship him as a source of light. In Achaea, he is now called Apollo and revered as the son of Zeus and Leto, and the brother of Artemis.
Kamrusepa is Goddess of Magic, the equivalent of the Achaean cult of Hecate: her cult however enjoys the powerful patronage of many influential women in the eastern kingdoms, especially Queen Hekuba of Troy, and is therefore powerful among women.
Lelwani is the Hittite and Trojan Goddess of Death, believed by her followers to preside over the Underworld in much the same way that Hades rules over Erebus. Her priests also attribute her with the power not only to induce sickness but the ability to heal it.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Canelo
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Copyright © David Hair and Cath Mayo, 2019
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ISBN 9781788632805
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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