Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War

by Naoise Mac Sweeney,Jan Haywood

  In excavating this wall further and directly by the side of the palace of King Priam, I came upon a large copper article of the most remarkable form, which attracted my attention all the more as I thought I saw gold behind it … In order to withdraw the Treasure from the greed of my workmen, and to save it for archaeology, I had to be most expeditious, and although it was not yet time for breakfast, I immediately had ‘paidos’ called … While the men were eating and resting, I cut out the Treasure with a large knife, which it was impossible to do without the very greatest exertion and the most fearful risk of my life, for the great fortification-wall, beneath which I had to dig, threatened every moment to fall down upon me. But the sight of so many objects, every one of which is of inestimable value to science, made me foolhardy, and I never thought of any danger. It would, however, have been impossible for me to have removed the Treasure without the help of my dear wife, who stood ready to pack the things which I cut out in her shawl and to carry them away.79

  Schliemann 1874, 289–90

  A priceless ancient treasure is discovered, and a dedicated scholar risks his life to save it from theft and confiscation. This story of adventure and derring-do comes from the final climactic chapter of Trojanischer Alterthümer (Trojan Antiquities), Heinrich Schliemann’s first major work chronicling his discoveries at the site of Hisarlık, the location of the ancient city of Troy/Ilium. In his breathless account, Schliemann describes the excavation of a glittering hoard of gold, silver, and copper objects, which included metal vessels, weapons, and jewellery. This hoard was later styled as the ‘Treasure of Priam’ and to this day continues to stimulate both popular excitement and scholarly controversy.

  Schliemann’s quest to discover the archaeological remains of Troy was, like Herodotus’ Helen logos, a means of seeking the truth behind the Iliad. Like Herodotus, Schliemann sought to use the latest methods and tools to uncover that truth and to establish himself as an authority on the ‘real’ Trojan War. In this section, I will consider how Schliemann constructed authority in relation to Homer in Trojanischer Alterthümer, focusing in particular on Chapter XXIII and the description of the ‘Treasure of Priam’.

  Schliemann’s Trojan controversy

  Controversy surrounded both the personal life and the archaeological career of Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann was a German businessman who amassed a vast fortune in questionable circumstances, first during the Californian gold rush of 1849 and later during the Crimean War of 1853–1856. By 1863, his financial success was such that he was able to retire from business and devote himself to his private passion – Homeric archaeology.80 Schliemann’s first major archaeological project was to establish the location of Homeric Troy. After visiting several sites in the Troad, he was eventually convinced by the results of Frank Calvert’s early investigations at the mound of Hisarlık.

  Calvert had bought much of the land around the site with the aim of conducting major excavations, but had been unable to fund archaeological work on a substantial scale. He therefore enthusiastically supported the idea of Schliemann sponsoring new excavations, which started in 1870. The two had fallen out by 1872, however, with Calvert voicing public disapproval of both Schliemann’s destructive methods and his problematic interpretations. Unabashed, Schliemann published stinging responses in print and aggressively promoted his own interpretation of the material.81 He believed that the remains of Homeric Troy would lie close to the bottom of the mound and so drove the excavations forward at breakneck speed, recording relatively little about the objects, pottery, and architecture that he destroyed along the way. By the time Schliemann concluded his work in 1873, he had identified five successive cities amongst the remains, the second of which he argued to be the Troy of the Iliad – the city of Priam.82 While most scholars accept that Hisarlık is indeed Troy, it is now recognized that the site has no fewer than nine distinct levels; that Schliemann’s second city dates to the Early Bronze Age; and that if any of these cities did offer historical inspiration for the myth of the Trojan War, it is most likely to have been that destroyed at the end of the Late Bronze Age (Troy VIa-VIIb1), rather than Troy II as Schliemann suggested.83 During the 1870s, however, Schliemann’s claims caused a popular sensation.

  Public interest in the discovery of Homeric Troy was stoked not only by Schliemann’s findings but also by the ensuing controversy. At the time, there was substantial scepticism about the existence of an historical Troy, as it was argued amongst professional classicists that the Iliad should be read as literature, rather than as history (see below). In his preface to the English edition of Trojanischer Alterthümer, published under the title Troy and Its Remains in 1875, Schliemann’s editor and translator Philip Smith dismissed these views as ‘sentimental objection’ and claimed that Schliemann’s discoveries added ‘the interest of truthfulness to those poetic beauties which remain the pure creation of Homer’.84

  In addition to this principled opposition about the historicity of Homer, Schliemann also attracted criticism on a more practical level relating to his methods and findings. Archaeologists condemned the speed of excavation and scale of destruction, as well as the poor quality of recording and the frequent contradictions in Schliemann’s claims.85 One of Schliemann’s most vocal early critics was his erstwhile friend, Frank Calvert, who disputed several of Schliemann’s claims about his discoveries. Indeed, Schliemann dedicated a substantial section of Trojanischer Alterthümer to refuting an article published by Calvert in the Levant Herald in 1873.86 Taking recourse to Homer for historical verification, he casts aspersions on the quality of Calvert’s scholarship, claiming that Calvert would have a better grasp on antiquity: ‘Wenn Herr Calvert sich aber die Mühe gemacht hätte, im Homer nachzusehen’ (‘If Mr Calvert had taken the trouble to look into Homer’).87 He also denies building directly on Calvert’s work, saying: ‘er bemerkt irrthümlich, dass ich seine Ausgrabungen fortgesetzt habe’ (‘he is wrong in saying that I have continued his excavations’).88 While Calvert had censured Schliemann for what he saw as exaggeration and misinterpretation, other critics went further, accusing him of outright deceit and the falsification of evidence.89 While many of these accusations have since been proved true, in the mid- to late 1870s Schliemann’s infamy and the controversy surrounding his discoveries only served to make the excavations at Hisarlık all the more sensational.90 Schliemann’s first major publication on the Hisarlık excavations therefore sought both to answer his critics and to play to the crowd.

  Autopsy and adventure

  Schliemann chose to structure his book in the form of journal entries, each labelled with a date and location. In doing so, he presents his reader, not with an account of the material remains in historical order, but rather with a dramatic chronicle of discovery casting himself as the protagonist. This structure heightens the drama of the piece, placing the archaeologist rather than the archaeology centre stage.

  The diary style also served to construct Schliemann’s claim to truthfulness and authority. The preface begins with a conspicuously Herodotean statement about autopsy, with Schliemann asserting that the vividness of his descriptions proved the genuine nature of his diary entries: ‘Das vorliegende Werk ist eine Art von Tagebuch meiner Ausgrabungen in Troja, den alle Aufsätze, woraus es besteht, sind, wie die Lebhaftigkeit der Schilderungen es beweist, an Ort und Stelle, beim Fortschreiten der Arbeiten, vor mir niedergeschrieben’ (‘The present book is a sort of Diary of my excavations at Troy, for all the memoirs of which it consists were, as the vividness of my descriptions will prove, written down by me on the spot while proceeding with my works’).91 Schliemann was certainly familiar with Herodotus, and the Histories had indeed proved useful for Calvert in his early explorations of the Troad.92 In Trojanischer Alterthümer, however, Schliemann referred to Herodotus only six times, mostly in relation to Xerxes’ visit to Troy and the appearance of the site in the classical period.93 In comparison, Strabo appears no less than twenty-seven times, again mostly concerning the preservation of the sit
e later in antiquity.94 Schliemann’s debt to Herodotus therefore lay less in the content of the Histories and more in his rhetoric of authority.

  The diary style of the book also has the effect of making it into a story. It is a tale that begins with Schliemann’s arrival on site, and describes his activities through the 1871, 1872, and finally the 1873 seasons. As with any good story, there are moments of triumph and catastrophe, from plagues of scorpions and outbreaks of fire, to startling discoveries and remarkable local characters.95 The climax of the story, however, is unquestionably the discovery of the ‘Treasure of Priam’ in the concluding chapter of the book, Chapter XXIII.96

  The chapter opens with Schliemann expressing his anxiety over his slow progress and claiming this slow pace made it necessary to excavate a ‘tiefen Einschnitt’ (‘deep cutting’), and to break through several ancient walls in order to reach the early periods.97 This destruction, we soon hear, was more than vindicated by the discovery of the Treasure of Priam. The unearthing of the treasure itself is described in dramatic terms, as we saw in the passage quoted at the start of this section. According to this account, it was Schliemann alone who was responsible for the treasure’s detection and excavation, with only his wife to help with its packing and storage. In the story that we are told, once he has recognized the glint of gold through the dirt, our hero must work against the clock in order to save the treasure from his greedy workmen, labouring in imminent physical danger with the ancient fortification wall threatening to collapse on him at any moment.98

  This narrative of discovery recalls the drama of the adventure novels that were popular across Europe and the United States at the time.99 Schliemann is known to have enjoyed these stories and, by his own admission, even to have memorized them.100 It has even been suggested that Schliemann’s various autobiographical writings101 may have followed the pattern of the ‘rags-to-riches’ tale that was popularized in the mid-nineteenth century by the American novelist Horatio Alger.102 While it is impossible to know whether Schliemann deliberately drew from adventure novels when crafting his autobiographical reflections or his archaeological description, the parallels with the genre are nonetheless striking. This is particularly true of the passage in which he describes the discovery of the treasure – the elements of environmental danger (the nearly collapsing wall), dastardly natives (the greedy workmen), hidden mysteries (the lost city of legend), and fabulous riches (the treasure) are all classic hallmarks of the genre.103

  Archaeology: An Homeric science

  If Schliemann sought to beguile his readers with a combination of vivid autopsy and exciting adventure, he also sought to reassure them by constructing a clear sense of himself as a reliable archaeological authority. His strategy for this was twofold. Most obviously, Schliemann appealed to the idea of archaeology as an emerging scientific discipline, and sought to give his account an air of scientific precision and objectivity. In his description of the treasure itself, Schliemann methodically details each object in turn, with each description conforming to a standard pattern. We are first presented with a description of the item’s physical form and material, several measurements, and then an interpretation of the object’s function based on Homeric epic. For example, the description of six particularly mysterious silver items runs thus:

  Ich fand dort ferner sechs mit dem Hammer getriebene Stüke allerreinsten Silbers in Form von grossen Klingen, deren eines Ende abgerundet, das andere in Gestalt eines Halbmondes ausgeschnitten ist. Die beiden grössern sind 21½ Centimeter lang und 5 Centimeter breit, und wiegt eins davon 190, das andere 183 Gramm. Die darauffolgenden zwei Stücke sind 18½ Centimeter lang und 4 Centimeter breit, und wiegt eins davon 174, das andere 173 Gramm; die beiden übrigen Stücke sind 17¼ Centimeter lang und 3 Centimeter breit, und wiegt eins davon 173, das andere 171 Gramm. Höchst wahrscheinlich sind dies die homerischen Talente (τάλαντα), welche nur klein sein konnten, da z. B. Achilles (Ilias, XXIII, 269) als ersten Kampfpreis eine Frau, als zweiten ein Pferd, als dritten einen Kessel und als vierten zwei goldene Talente aufstellt.

  I also found in the Treasure six pieces of the purest silver in the form of large knife-blades, having one end rounded, and the other cut into the form of crescent; the two larger blades are nearly 8½ inches long and 2 inches broad, and weigh respectively 190 and 183 grammes. The next two pieces are about 7½ inches long and 1½ broad, and weigh respectively 174 and 173 grammes. The two other pieces are nearly 7 inches long and 1⅕ inches broad, and weigh respectively 173 and 171 grammes. It is extremely probably that these are the Homeric talents (τάλαντα), which could only have been small, as, for instance, when Achilles offers for the first prize a woman, for the second a horse, for the third a cauldron, and for the fourth two gold talents.104

  Schliemann 1874, 292–93

  This passage is peppered with numerical measurements, lending a sense of objectivity to the descriptions and bolstering claims that Schliemann’s work was a serious contribution to ‘Wissenschaft’ (‘science’). Details offered about the nature of the materials had a similar effect – the silver of these objects is described as ‘allrreinsten’ (‘the most pure’). The final items of the treasure described are some 8750 small gold objects – mostly, wire rings, buttons, studs, and pegs. These are presented with even more attention to detail, rounding off the section on the treasure as a whole with an apparently objective and scientific fashion.105 For several of these objects, Schliemann offers measurements exact to half a millimetre (converted into hundredths of an inch in the English edition), and specifies that he examined the finds scientifically with a magnifying glass. In addition to conducting his own analysis, Schliemann then also mentions that he had the finds examined by an independent and well-respected metallurgical expert, who corroborated Schliemann’s own opinions about materials and manufacture:

  Mein geehrter Freund, der durch seine Entdeckungen und Schriften bekannte Chemiker Landerer in Athen, welcher alle im Schatze enthalten kupfernen Gegenstände aufs genaueste untersucht und Bruchstücke davon analysirt hat, findet, dass alle, ohne jegliche Beimischung von Zinn oder Zink, aus reinem Kupfer bestehen, welches, um es haltbarer zu machen, geschmietdet worden (σφυρήλατον) ist.

  My esteemed friend M. Landerer, of Athens, a chemist well known through his discoveries and writings, who has most carefully examined all the copper articles of the Treasure, and analysed the fragments, finds that all of them consist of pure copper without any admixture of tin or zinc, and that, in order to make them more durable, they had been wrought with the hammer (σφυρήλατον).

  Schliemann 1874, 301–2106

  Science was not the only source, however, upon which Schliemann based his claims of authority – classical texts and especially the Iliad were equally important. For example, he calls the silver weights described above as ‘talents’, deliberately using Iliadic terminology and offering a textual reference to the Iliad (although in the English edition, these textual references are usually included in footnotes – an interesting point of divergence between the German and English editions). Not only are the ‘talents’ named according to Iliadic terminology, they are also ascribed a function and a relative value according to their Iliadic precedent. In the case of the small gold studs and pegs, these too are interpreted with reference to ancient Greek terms: a tube of 6 millimetre length is a αὐλίσκος (‘little pipe’); a peg of the same length was a ἔμβολον (a word meaning anything wedge shaped); and the studs were ornaments for the leather τελαμῶνες (‘strap’ or ‘band’) of shields.107 Even Schliemann’s mention of the independent metallurgical specialist includes the Greek term for an object that has been worked with a hammer. While this use of ancient Greek, and in particular Homeric Greek, can be found throughout the book (consider, for example, the names Schliemann assigned to major architectural features: the Scaean Gate, Priam’s Palace), this practice is conspicuous in the description of the treasure. It seems there was a Homeric precedent for almost every item. Given t
he crucial role played by the treasure in Schliemann’s overall argument about Hisarlık (for which see below), it was especially important to link each item of the hoard to the Iliad.

  The catalogue of the treasure is given in two sections: the first presents the vessels, weapons, and other objects; the second describes the jewellery.108 The division of the objects into two groups was ostensibly because Schliemann claimed that he excavated the objects first, and only found the jewellery later inside a large silver vase. This structure also serves, however, to raise tension and build the narrative dramatically to a climax. We are presented with a mouth-watering parade of precious items, and just when things could not get any more sensational, we are confronted with the biggest of all the vases encountered so far.109 Hidden inside this largest and grandest of the metal vessels is an even more bewildering array of treasures than has hitherto been described – diadems, rings, earrings, headbands, necklaces, and other ornaments. This jewellery, made internationally famous in a photograph where it was modelled by Schliemann’s wife Sophia (Fig. 4.1), soon came to represent the treasure as a whole.