Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War

by Naoise Mac Sweeney,Jan Haywood

  Figure 4.1 Sophia Schliemann wearing gold jewellery from the ‘Treasure of Priam’.

  Between the description of the larger artefacts and that of the jewellery, Schliemann inserts a brief digression to speculate on the circumstances of the treasure’s deposition.110 All the items, including the large silver vase containing the jewellery, are said to have been found within ‘einer hölzernen Kiste (φωριαμός) lage, wie solche in der Iliad (XXIV, 228) im Palast des Priamos erwähnt warden’ (‘a wooden chest (φωριαμός), such as those mentioned by Homer as being in the palace of King Priam’).111 Schliemann suggests that the treasure would most likely have been packed by a member of the Trojan royal family but later abandoned during their flight. The treasure is thus explained with reference to the myth of the Trojan War – its collection into a single assemblage, the particular find context, and also the circumstances of its deposition. Schliemann here uses his standard strategy for supporting his interpretations – the combination of Homeric and scientific arguments. The location of this imaginative explanation halfway through the catalogue of objects serves a purely literary function. It offers a break in the monotony of description, punctuating the list at a crucial point and acting as a narratological drumroll before the presentation of the jewellery.

  An exclusively Iliadic treasure

  It is significant that in his description of the treasure, Schliemann does not refer to any ancient text besides the Iliad to bolster his arguments. As we have already seen, references to Herodotus and Strabo can be found elsewhere in Trojanischer Alterthümer. They do not, however, appear in this particular section of Chapter XXIII. Similarly, we can find Aelian, Arrian, Cicero, Dio Cassius, Herodian, Pausanias, Philostratus, Pliny, Plutarch, and, of course, the Odyssey elsewhere in the book – but not in this particular section. This is perhaps surprising. Schliemann’s theory concerning the deposition of the treasure, for example, might have been strengthened by a reference to the Posthomerica of Quintus Smyrnaeus – a text that would have been easily accessible in the late nineteenth century and which had been the focus of several scholarly works in the decades prior to the Hisarlık excavations.112 Indeed, in the English edition of Trojanischer Alterthümer, Schliemann’s editor Philip Smith adopted precisely this approach, using his footnotes to add further references to other ancient texts and make additional comparisons. For example, in his footnote to this section on the silver talents quote above, Smith adds first in Schliemann’s original textual reference to the Iliad, before commenting:

  Iliad, XXIII. 262–70 (cf. vv. 612–16) The passage furnishes other striking parallels to Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries … The passage seems to confirm Schliemann’s interpretation of δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον, for what sort of a vessel can we conceive of as a double dish joined bottom to bottom? We know side-dished with their covers can be used as two dishes, but what would be the use of joining them? Aristarchus, indeed, explained ἀμφίθετος as double, i.e. standing on both ends, after the supposed analogy of ἀμφικύπελλον, but Eustathius interpreted it was with handles on both sides, after the sounder analogy of the ἀμφιφοεύς. These cumulative analogies between Hiassarlik [sic] and Homer, gathered incidentally to a climax at the end of each work, are very striking. – [Ed.]

  Schliemann 1875, 328 [all italics original]

  Elsewhere, Smith also uses footnotes to make comparisons between items from the treasure and objects mentioned in the Odyssey (325 and 335); ‘modern travelling flasks’ (329); and Chinese bronze vessels (326–27). Given Smith’s more liberal use of comparative material in the English edition, Schliemann’s failure to employ any comparisons beyond the Iliad in this section of the original German edition is notable. It had the effect of presenting the treasure purely in Iliadic terms, as a coherent entity that could be interpreted and compared exclusively to the Iliad. For Schliemann (although evidently not for Smith), there was no other way of thinking about the treasure apart from in Iliadic terms.

  There can be little doubt that such a rhetorical sleight of hand was deliberate. The account of the Treasure of Priam was the grand climax of Trojaner Alterthümer.113 It was not only a dramatic showcase for his approach and method, as we have seen above, but, as Schliemann argued, it was a crucial piece of evidence that Hisarlık was indeed the location of Homeric Troy. In June 1873, at the time Chapter XXIII was reportedly written, Schliemann was in a difficult position: he was reaching the end of his permitted excavation period; he had suffered vigorous criticism of his work in print; and he still lacked the conclusive proof he needed to connect Hisarlık with Homer. At this point, Schliemann needed something new and dramatic, something which unquestionably confirmed Hisarlık as the seat of a great and wealthy king. Schliemann needed the ‘Treasure of Priam’. Presenting this crucial find only as Homeric was a means of directing its interpretation. If the treasure was so obviously Iliadic, the entire settlement at Hisarlık must have been Homeric Troy.

  This connection is made clear, not only by the unusual treatment of the treasure in Chapter XXIII, but in the introduction to the book as a whole, four pages of which were devoted to the treasure. 114 Schliemann claimed that the violent destruction of the city and the wealth of that city, were proved, ‘vor allen Dingen, durch den … reichen Schatz’ (‘above all other things, by the rich Treasure’).115 The iconography of certain decorative elements on the treasure provided, Schliemann argued, unassailable proof that they belonged to the Homeric city:

  Leider finde ich auf keinem der Gegenstände des Schatzes eine Inschrift, auch kein anderes religiöses Symbol als die an den beiden Diademen (κρήδεμνα) und an den vier Ohrgehängen prangenden 100 Idole der homerischen ‘ϑεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀϑήνη’, welche uns aber den unumstösslichen Beweis geben: dass der Schatz der Stadt und dem Zeitalter angehören, welche Homer besingt.

  Unfortunately upon none of the articles of the Treasure did I find an inscription, nor any other religious symbols except the 100 idols of the Homeric ‘ϑεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀϑήνη’ which glitter upon the two diadems and the four ear-rings. These are, however, irrefragable proof that the Treasure belongs to the city and to the age of which Homer sings.

  Schliemann 1874, xxi116

  The centrality of the treasure for the overall argument about Hisarlık is evident from the debates that sprang up as soon as Schliemann began to publicize his dramatic discovery in the autumn of 1873. In January 1874, the very same month that Trojanischer Alterthümer was first published, the first serious challenge to Schliemann’s account of the treasure was also printed. In the Levant Herald, a notice described the discovery of a cache of gold jewellery which had been illicitly smuggled from Hisarlık by two of Schliemann’s workmen. These items bore many similarities to those of the Treasure of Priam, but were uncovered in a different location and at a different time from the treasure, leading to the suggestion that Schliemann had misreported his findings.117 The charge of misreporting was soon confirmed, with evidence emerging to invalidate Schliemann’s claims about the findspot of the treasure, the presence of his wife at its discovery, and the coherence of the treasure as a single assemblage.118 The treasure proved controversial, not only archaeologically but also politically. Schliemann had secretly shipped it to Athens in defiance of an official agreement to divide all finds equally with the Ottoman government. This resulted in a high-profile international lawsuit, much diplomatic wrangling, a scotched plan to hire a Paris jeweller to make forged copies of the treasure to give to the Ottomans, and clandestine negotiations to sell the treasure to various museums around Europe.119

  The quest for truth

  Schliemann’s approach to the myth of the Trojan War in general, and to the Iliad in particular, was like Herodotus’ – primarily a quest for historical truth. In his introduction to Trojanischer Alterthümer, Schliemann acknowledges that he began work at Hisarlık with an almost religious belief in the accuracy of the Homeric epics,120 but claims that he later recognized that ‘Hom
er is aber nun einmal kein Historiker, sondern ein epischer Dichter, und muss man ihm die Uebertreibungen zugute halten’ (‘Homer, however, is no historian, but an epic poet, and hence we must excuse his exaggerations’).121 Without questioning the fundamental basis of the Trojan War story or Homer’s cultural authority, Schliemann positions himself in relation to Homer in a remarkably similar way to Herodotus, as Jan has shown in the previous section. Schliemann is the historian, the seeker of truth, employing scientific methods of autopsy and archaeology.

  Once more like Herodotus, Schliemann nonetheless maintained the Iliad faithfully reported ancient ‘tradition’ (Überlieferung), and that his own work had proved this tradition to be correct in many of its details.122 He reminds his readers, for example, that the Scaean Gate was described by Homer as a double gate, and that this matched the double gate uncovered at Hisarlık.123 Indeed, Schliemann claims, the events of the Trojan War as a whole had been proved largely true by the Hisarlık excavations.124 Schliemann’s perspective on the myth of the Trojan War therefore was that while some elements of the Homeric epics might not be accurate, they contained an essential kernel of historical truth – a core of hard fact around which later exaggerations and poetic inventions had accumulated.

  Schliemann did not pioneer this approach to Greek myth, but he was one of its most vocal proponents. The approach was not de rigeur amongst professional classicists, who argued that literary texts such as the Homeric poems were shaped more by artistic concerns and social context than by the passive reportage of a received tradition. One such critic of Schliemann was Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.125 Wilamowitz dismissed Schliemann’s historicist approach as naïve, mocking Schliemann in person and in print. It is telling that perhaps Wilamowitz’s sharpest lampoon of Schliemann focused on the cornerstone of Schliemann’s argument – the discovery of the Treasure of Priam. This took the form of a theatrical skit at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome in Christmas 1873, at which he appeared dressed as Sophia Schliemann, and performed a mock epic poem he had composed in hexameter entitled ‘das Epos von der Findung des Schatzes’ (‘The Epic of the Discovery of the Treasure’).126 Similar criticisms were made by students of comparative mythology and linguistics.127 The prominent scholar Max Müller, for example, argued that seeking to prove the details of the Homeric poems was ridiculous. Once more, his objection was phrased in terms of an attack on the central piece of ‘proof’ in Schliemann’s argument – the Treasure of Priam. Müller is widely reportedly to have said ‘to look for the treasure of the Homeric Priamos at Hissarlik [sic] would be like looking for the treasure of the Niebelunge at Worms’.128

  Schliemann’s historicizing approach to Homer was therefore out of step with disciplinary trends both in classics, which favoured ‘scientific’ philology, and in the study of mythology, which favoured ‘scientific’ comparative studies. Wilamowitz was better aligned, however, with contemporary movements in the new discipline of archaeology. Reacting against the antiquarianism of the enlightenment era, two major trends were emerging in archaeology.129 First, there was a growing interest in the prehistoric as opposed to the classical past, with the development of the three-age chronological system for prehistory in Scandinavia (i.e. the stone, bronze, and iron ages). Secondly, there was a focus on scientific methods in excavation, recording, and interpretation, in contrast to the more descriptive and aesthetic approaches of eighteenth-century art historians.130 Schliemann’s aims at Troy, with their prehistoric focus and its emphasis on empirical proof, fitted both trends. But while his aims may have been aligned with contemporary archaeological thinking, his methods were not. As already illustrated above, Schliemann’s excavations at Hisarlık were widely criticized both for their destructive nature and for the poor quality of the recording.

  Scholarly responses to Schliemann therefore varied between disciplines, and also between countries. He faced substantial hostility in Germany, for example, while in Britain he was widely feted.131 Schliemann’s legacy in the twenty-first century is similarly mixed. In general, while his discoveries at Troy and elsewhere are celebrated, his methods, mendacity, and underhand dealings are condemned. His historicizing approach to the Iliad continues to have widespread appeal in the popular sphere,132 while in academic circles such approaches have by now been thoroughly debunked.133

  Schliemann’s engagement with the Iliad was, like that of Herodotus, primarily focused on a quest for historical truth. Yet in Schliemann’s quest for an ancient truth, he was willing to tell some very modern lies. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the Treasure of Priam. The account of the treasure’s discovery, the claims about its findspot, and its very identity as a coherent hoard: it is now clear that these were all deliberate fictions, shrewdly presented using a range of rhetorical and literary strategies. The incongruity of engaging in a series of falsehoods in pursuit of truth does not seem to have bothered Schliemann, who perhaps felt that, like Homer, his own ‘exaggerations’ should be overlooked while the central kernel of his text should be believed. Indeed, towards the end of Chapter XXIII, Schliemann made his final claim for a Homeric truth:

  die Wahrheit geht mir über alles, und ich freue mich, durch meine dreijährigen Ausgrabungen, wenn auch nur in verkleinertem Massstabe, das homerische Troja aufgedeckt und bewiesen zu haben, dass die Ilias auf wirkliche Thatsachen basirt ist.

  I value truth above everything, and I rejoice that my three years’ excavations have laid open Homeric Troy, even though on a diminished scale, and that I have proved the Iliad to be based on real facts.

  Schliemann 1874, 305134

  1 Cline 2013 and Mac Sweeney 2018, 29–36.

  2 Examples of the topic in recent popular books include: Strauss 2006 and Alexander 2009. In terms of television programmes, the BBC alone has produced a series: In Search of the Trojan War (aired in the United Kingdom in 1985), with its accompanying popular book (Wood 1986, reprinted in a new edition in 1996), as well as the documentary, The Truth of Troy (first aired in the United Kingdom in 2004). National Geographic has produced: The True Story of Troy; Troy in Season 1 of the Unforgettable Histories series and Troy: Behind the Movie (2004); as well as Troy in Season 1 of the Unforgettable Histories series. The History Channel filmed The Battle of Troy as part of its Ancient Mysteries series (first aired in 1995) and also released a documentary called The True Story of Troy on DVD in 2007. For a particularly recent magazine article on the historicity of the Trojan War, see: ‘The Search for the Real Troy’ (The Guardian Newspaper, 9 August 2016).

  3 The compelling arguments developed by Fornara 1981 have convinced many (though by no means all) that Herodotus lived throughout the Archidamian War; for other works on Herodotus’ publication date, see Asheri 2007, 51, n.12.

  4 See Thomas 2001.

  5 Haubold 2007, 55–56, following Georges 1994, 59–63, places complete faith in this episode, arguing that it forms part of a thoroughly Xerxean reading of Greek epic; pace Grethlein 2009, 123. Erskine 2001, 84–85 appears to accept the visit, but discerns no evidence in Herodotus to assume that Xerxes saw a Trojan-Persian parallel.

  6 Erskine 2001, 85, who is more sceptical about any Trojan-Persian parallel in this ‘low-key’ scene. Rose 2014, 144–45 accepts the historicity of the visit, yet posits that Xerxes’ sacrifice was not so much an acknowledgement of the site’s legendary foundations, but rather an attempt to secure meat for his army.

  7 See especially Cobet 2002.

  8 Thus Hornblower 1991, ad loc.

  9 Most-Homeric: [Longinus] On the Sublime 13.3; prose Homer: Lloyd-Jones 1999.

  10 Priestley 2014, 187–219.

  11 Fornara 1971, 19–20, who regards this account as ironic, humorous, and superficial; Vandiver 1991, 130, is correct to discern more sophisticated themes at work (see below).

  12 On the meaning of to discern more sophisticated Thomas 2000: 161–67, 262–74 and Bakker 2002: 13–19, 29–32.

  13 As recognized by Neville 1977, 9, Hunter 1982, 52–61, Munson 2001, 14
2–44, and de Jong 2012, 127–28.

  14 Ayo 1984.

  15 The bibliography on this passage and its relationship with epic traditions is gargantuan; see further Vandiver 2012, 152, n.33 and Saïd 2012, nn.58–65 with text. Note, however, the especially valuable contributions of Fornara 1971, 35, Ayo 1984, Nagy 1990, 218–21, Vandiver 1991, 114–24, Moles 1993, 92–98, Węcowski 2004, 150–53, 155–58, Chiasson 2012, Saïd 2012, 102–05, Blondell 2013, 143–50, and Branscome 2013, 178–86.

  16 For the post-Homeric emergence of collective Hellenic identity, see Hall 2002.

  17 Similarly, Herodotus uses the formula ἀρχὴ κακῶν at 5.97.3, for which see Pelliccia 1992, 79; Munson 2007, 152-3; cf. Il. 1.6, 5.62-3, 11.604; Thuc. 2.12.3.

  18 This interest in tracing firsts reverberates throughout the Histories: 1.5.3, 6.2, 23, 94.1, 163.1, 2.188.2, 6.112.3, cf. Harrison 2000, 75; and, in early prose works more generally, Fowler 1996, 73–74.

  19 Cf. Il. 1.7f. with Gould 1989, 48–49.

  20 Momigliano 1966, 114: ‘he definitely decided that if you want to know something about the causes of the Persian Wars, you must not look at Greek myths, you must not look at Homer’; see also Ayo 1984, 32, Lateiner 1989, 38, 42, Thomas 2000, 268, Luraghi 2001, 156, and Węcowski 2004, 154, n.64.

  21 Il. 2.485-86; Od. 1.1-3. On Herodotus’ use of ἐγὼ, see de Jong 1999, 228. On the similarities and differences between the Homeric and Herodotean narrator, see de Jong 1999, 220–29. Cf. de Jong 2012, 141–42, comparing the authority of the Egyptian priests in the Helen logos to that of the Muses in the Iliad (e.g. Il. 2.485).

  22 On this closing passage as a commentary on fifth-century Athenian imperialism, see especially Fornara 1971, passim, Boedeker 1988 and Moles 2002.