Helen of Troy

by Bettany Hughes

  As the poem develops, the twelve virgins smother the ground around a sacred plane tree with olive oil and carve Helen’s name into its bark. Whereas we might expect a romantic graffito like this to read ‘Helen loves Menelaus’, it is the tree – a symbol of fertility in both Bronze Age and classical Greece and perhaps thought to harbour Helen’s spirit – that is being adored. Here is a love triangle – the threesome not Helen, Menelaus and Paris, but Helen, young Spartan virgins and nature herself.

  For you first [Helen], we will weave a wreath of the lotus growing close to the ground,

  And place it on a shady plane tree.

  And first we will pour liquid oil from a silver flask

  And let it drip beneath the shady plane tree.

  And on its bark shall be inscribed in Dorian so that a passerby may read

  ‘Revere me. I am Helen’s tree.’ 6

  Lotus flowers, olive oil – this precursor of the marriage of Spartan girls seems sensual and sylvan: by all accounts precisely what a Spartan wedding ceremony in the classical period was not. The Greek author Plutarch tells us that the Spartans endorsed ‘marriage by capture’. In this – to us – curious rite, a girl was taken from her home to her chosen husband’s at the age of eighteen7 and dressed as a boy.8 The room was sealed from the light. Her hair was shaved off and she was left alone in the dark lying on a straw pallet. The prospective husband would come from the all-male military camp where he lived; in some versions he was expected to ‘seize’ his betrothed from a number of girls. He would then copulate with his androgynous bride. Having had sex with her (some sources suggest this was anal, some between the thighs rather than vaginal penetration) he would then leave.9 The pair were now married but saw each other infrequently. The new bridegroom returned to his peers in the syssition – the all male-training camp in which Spartan boys lived between the ages of seven and thirty. The newlyweds saw each other every few months or so to have sex – it was thought such abstinence would promote more vigorous offspring.

  Marriage by capture may sound humiliating but there are two possible interpretations of this elaborate piece of sexual theatre. The first is that a teenage girl masquerading as a boy might have been less disconcerting to the young Spartiates who knew only close physical and emotional relationships with father figures, having lost all contact with women at the age of seven. The second explanation is that by shaving her hair and dressing as a man, the Spartan girl was being recognised as an important part of the citizen body. Spartan women kept their heads shaved after they were married. This was not humiliation, but ‘promotion’ to masculine status for sexual engagement.10

  On the night before the wedding the bride danced and sang with her girlfriends. Given Helen’s highly coloured personal history – particularly her abandonment of the king of Sparta for an eastern prince – it might seem strange that Theocritus’ Epithalamium for Helen should be recited on this occasion, and perhaps a little odd that Spartan men were happy for their women to invoke her as an example during their pre-nuptials. A wayward wife is an unexpected choice as chaperone for a girl on the last night before a wedding. But we have to remember to look at Helen through Spartan eyes. This is not yet the faithless harlot who, down the centuries, has become cloaked in choler – but a more noble Helen, a full-blooded woman, a fount of erotic power, an irresistible force of nature.

  Elsewhere in the Epithalamium for Helen, there is a playful suggestion that a rather staid, tipsy Menelaus should go to bed early while Helen stays out late, cavorting with her close circle of girlfriends. Menelaus is a gooseberry, insignificant; Helen is the centre of attention, and very much in charge. The poem describes a gifted and blessed woman. The young friends remember the races they have run together, their skin massaged, gleaming with oil. The Spartan princess is at her happiest, sharing a last, glorious night with her adolescent, female friends before she embarks on the life of a wife.

  But the long night must become morning: Menelaus will rouse himself from his stupor: Helen has to leave the girls; she has to marry.11 Menelaus welcomes his ‘Adored Helen’12 into his chamber and locks the door. The virgins weave garlands of hyacinth flowers; Helen has a crown of lotus; the royal wedding has begun.

  To honour a union such as this, in the Bronze Age, the ruling family of Sparta would have prepared what Homer describes as a gamos or gamelia – a word that can mean either a marriage or a marriage feast. As work on Linear B progresses, it becomes clear that banquets in the Mycenaean citadels were vast operations, sometimes accommodating thousands of people. For the biggest feasts additional support staff would be seconded from within the palatial economy. We even have reference to a number of bedsteads being shipped in – almost certainly these were pallets for workers;13 something a little more fancy would be provided for honoured guests.

  From the analysis of residues on the interiors of pottery sherds we know of a selection of the dishes that would have been passed around to the assembled company: lentil broths flavoured with cumin, celery and coriander; chick-pea pancakes; grilled meat, fruit stews; roast boar, hare, duck and venison.14 The vast spreads were not necessarily laid on by the tribal leaders – these were often bring-your-own parties,15 guests vying to provide ever more lavish supplies in the hope of social advancement.16 A ruler could demonstrate his standing merely by the quantity of food he managed to garner from his population. Individuals might give, for example, a single goat.17 Those who had more to prove and had the resources to meet their ambition could rise to the heights of generosity displayed on one tablet: 1 cow, 2 bulls, 13 pigs (1 fattened), 1 ewe, 15 rams, 13 male goats, and 8 yearlings, not to mention around 375 litres of wine and over 1,000 litres of olives.18 The names of individual donors have, in some cases, been care-fully recorded – this was a good list to be on. Linear B experts debate whether or not these tablets represent obligatory taxes or prestigious gifts. But whether the food was brought in voluntarily or under obligation, it was undoubtedly there in enormous quantities.19 A single tablet from Pylos lists animals ready for sacrifice (bulls, sheep, goats and a fatted pig) whose carcasses would have produced over 1,600 kg of meat.20 Each and every animal was chosen because it was a plum specimen.21

  The doorways in the palace-fortresses are noticeably wide – were they thus designed in part to accommodate these rushes of livestock? Pouring into the citadels or into the designated killing-yards the animals must have panicked as they smelt the death ahead of them, slipping and sliding on the stone surfaces which would have run with muck and blood. Animals were ritually slaughtered before they were eaten, using sets of sacrificial instruments: stunning axes from Crete, knives and gold-leaf-covered restraining chains.22 Carbonised faunal remains from Pylos tell us – almost certainly – that burnt offerings, including the tongues of oxen, were offered up to the gods.23 A sarcophagus from Crete shows a woman at an altar, responsible for the kill; if we are to envisage Helen officiating at the grand feasts of the Late Bronze Age, perhaps at her own wedding celebrations, we should picture her with a sacrificial knife in her hand.24

  Homer talks a great deal about the consumption of animal flesh by his hero-protagonists. For years this was considered epic exaggeration, and that, in fact, the Greek elite survived on a diet that consisted predominantly of vegetables and a kind of fruit porridge. Together with the evidence from Linear B, bone analysis now shows that Helen and her peers would have been pretty resolute carnivores and serious drinkers to boot.25 Special storage spaces had to be created at Nestor’s palace in Pylos for 2,856 kylikes (long-stemmed drinking vessels). When the palace was first excavated in 1939, the kylikes were found stacked neatly in storerooms, some waiting for their baptismal use. One tablet appears to record over 1,700 litres of wine ready to be drunk.26 Analysis of the organic residue in a number of vessels reveals that as well as neat wine the Mycenaeans drank a lethal cocktail of honey mead and retsina,27 a recipe reminiscent of the ‘honeyed, mellow wine’ quaffed by the heroes in the Iliad. 28 In the palace at Knossos, aristocrats
on one of the fragmentary frescoes sit on drinking stools and sup from their deep cups.29

  The higher up one was in the pecking order at a grand feast, the closer one was, physically, to the centre of things. Some of the population would be served outside in the palace courtyard, these have-nots gratefully eating out of the pots and cups made of rough clay that have been found in nearby rooms and were possibly used to serve the people.30 From here the lower orders could still appreciate the beneficence of their ruler, and perhaps glimpse the king and queen themselves in the magnificent central megaron – or at least watch as their food, served in fine, gleaming metalware,31 was brought to and from their table.32The archaeology supports Homer’s picture of careful social apartheid on the rich occasion of a marriage feast.33

  What a fine thing it is to listen to such a bard as we have here – the man sings like a god. The crown of life, I’d say. There’s nothing better than when deep joy holds sway throughout the realm and banqueters up and down the palace sit in ranks, enthralled to hear the bard, and before them all, the tables heaped with bread and meats, and drawing wine from a mixing-bowl the steward makes his rounds and keeps the wine-cups flowing. This, to my mind, is the best thing that life can offer.34

  Homer tells us that accompanying the food, at a marriage such as that of Helen and Menelaus, there would have been music and song. ‘The gods made music and banquets to go together’35 says Odysseus. He describes the hymenaios, the wedding song accompanied by the music of lyres and flutes, theatricalised with torchlight and whirling dancers.36 Archaeological finds demonstrate that the courtly life of a woman such as Helen would indeed have had a varied and sophisticated soundtrack; metal and clay rattles, finger cymbals, a whistle made from the tooth of a hippopotamus, and tortoiseshells to be used as the resonating box of a lyre, have all survived.37 There is one tantalising Minoan seal-stone that seems to show a girl leading a procession, blowing a triton shell.38 Tritons – or other conches – were used both as libation vessels and cups; the girl might be drinking from the shell, or using it to form a rare sound. In the Museum at Agios Nikolaos in Crete there is an exquisite man-made version of the conch that suggests the engraved seal-stone does indeed denote a young girl at the head of a musical procession.39 Sitting proudly in a case by itself the stone conch has been skilfully carved out of serpentine.40 It is solid, a good couple of kilos in weight, its surface crusted with demons and sea-creatures. Identified as a libation vessel, it has an aperture at one side that makes a perfect mouth-piece. Certainly one museum official managed to get a good – and eerie – note out of it.

  The instrument most in evidence in the Late Bronze Age was the lyre. Helen’s epic story is itself lyrical – composed by bards to be sung to the lyre. Homer imagined his gods and heroes ‘plucking strong and clear on the fine lyre’: Achilles plays to ‘delight his heart’41 and Paris plays the lyre to delight Helen – an image that has proved perennially inspirational. It was said that when Alexander the Great landed at Troy in 334 BC, the leaders of the city came out to honour him, offering up as a gift the lyre with which the prince of Troy had serenaded the ‘world’s desire’.42 Alexander, with his much discussed predilection for men, allegedly retorted that he would have preferred the instrument Achilles used to woo his own warrior-love, Patroclus.

  Paris was said to have learnt his seductive, mellifluous art while a young man out tending flocks of goats in the countryside around Troy. The image of the Trojan prince, rustic, unaware of Helen’s existence, happily strumming, was a popular one in antiquity – much replicated on vases from the 6th century BC onwards. In a number of the depictions we learn of the next chapter in Helen’s story: that as he sat alone on that rock, Paris was visited by three goddesses who had hastily left another wedding party, this time on Mount Pelion, to lay a dreadful challenge in front of the young cub – a challenge that would draw him to Helen’s bed. On one vase, now in the Louvre, the Trojan prince, overwhelmed by the task ahead of him, has sensibly grabbed his lyre and is beating a hasty retreat out of the picture.43

  Over two thousand years later, in 1788, the French painter, Jacques-Louis David painted a canvas featuring Paris and his lyre.44 Oozing sentimentality and sexual imagery, it shows the young lovers, Helen and Paris, tenderly entwined. Paris’ modesty is preserved by a finger of cloth, but a priapic lyre rests, heavily, on his thigh. At first glance the image is sweeter and more intimate than the other grand Davids in Salle 75 of the Louvre where the painting now hangs. The lovers are pressing against each other but they seem contented and still; the palette the artist has used is warm and velvety. Yet the painting’s title, Les Amours de Paris et d’Hélène, is fitting. Paris’ colour is high, Helen’s see-through dress has already slipped off one shoulder, jets of water spurt into a sunken bath in front of the amorous couple.

  Whereas Paris is staring directly at Helen, one thing on his mind, Helen looks demurely down, lost in thought. This is one of the most perceptive portraits of Helen that exists. There is something resigned about her. This Helen is both victorious and vanquished. The momentary act of abduction is subsumed by a greater problem: the problem of being the most beautiful woman in the world.

  We know that Iron Age bards such as Homer strummed their lyres and sang about Helen ‘the beautiful problem’. But what of the Bronze Age: was the lyricist really a feature of Helen’s world?45 Could Paris have wooed Helen with its sweet sound? Was Helen part of a story sung by Bronze Age bards? Lyres certainly existed in the Late Bronze Age; fragments of them have been found at Mycenaean sites, they appear in art, and miniature versions of the instrument – probably votive offerings to the gods – are scattered around shrines.46

  Perhaps lyre-players and singers recorded the deeds of the Mycenaeans as eye-witnesses. Even if the words of the Iliad were first written down in the 8th or 7th century BC, could they have started off life in the Mycenaean palaces themselves? In 1953 a fragmented fresco of a bard with his lyre – in the same scheme as two aristocrats who appear to be drinking and a giant bull trussed and waiting for sacrifice – was uncovered at Pylos, generating much excitement in the academic world. Suddenly a 13th-century BC bard-singer, whose job was to celebrate his palatial patrons, entertaining with an exposition of events past and present, was found right at the heart of one of the Mycenaean palatial complexes. Here was a man, commemorated on the walls of the palace throne room itself,47 who could have recounted, verbatim, the tales of his king and queen. Just such a man might have transmitted the original Bronze Age version of Helen’s story.

  So, as the aristocrats of the Late Bronze Age ate, we can hold a picture in our mind’s eye of the court musicians adding music to the gamelia, feasts and marriage celebrations, and a singer of songs recalling the deeds of mighty ancestors, celebrating the achievement and the ambitions of those around him. Imagine that lyrical music, that bright, rich sound stealing through the palace – notes coming in an ioe, a ‘rush’ or a ‘sweep’ as Homer says,48 filling the central hall and then drifting down the corridors beyond.

  Helen, ‘the pearl of women’, had been won. Menelaus must have felt his brother’s generosity rewarded many times over. On their wedding night, in the imagination of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus, Menelaus lies ‘breast pillowed upon breast, breath mingling love and desire’.49 The younger son of the House of Atreus has kudos: he has won the girl, and has a stock-pile of gifts left by his rivals, the scores of unhappy, thwarted suitors. But the audience of the ancient poets knows what he does not; within a few years, after an affront of international proportions, the ‘happy groom’, as Theocritus calls him,50 will be travelling five-hundred-odd miles east to try to win wife, treasure and reputation back again.

  PART FOUR

  KOUROTROPHOS

  Previous page:

  An ivory triad, two women and a girl – one of the first pieces of Greek art carved in the round. Discovered in the citadel at Mycenae. Probably made around 1350 BC. Some believe these are goddesses.

  1 Helen emer
ges from an egg. In some versions of the story, Helen’s mother was not Leda but Nemesis – the spirit of Fate or Revenge – who took the form of a goose and mated with Zeus.

  2 From the Classical period onwards, men have searched for the site of Troy. This illustration from a 15th century AD manuscript gives an artist’s impression of the settlement. Troy was a totemic site for both the East and the West – after taking Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman ruler Mehmet the Conqueror visited, declaring his desire to avenge the age-old Trojan dead.

  3 Women appear to dominate the religious rituals of the Mycenaean age. This fresco was discovered in the cult complex at Mycenae in 1968. The imagery is obscure. One woman holds a giant sword, another a staff, a third ears of wheat. Two tiny male figures tumble down in front of the armed ladies.

  4 Helen was worshipped in the town of Sparta itself and on the nearby hill of Therapne. These are two of the votive offerings left to her: a mounted terracotta female figure and a perfume jar inscribed with Helen’s name (5).

  6 Spartan girl-athletes dedicated mirrors, such as this 6th century BC example, at religious sanctuaries. These were expensive, finely wrought items.

  7 Theseus’ abduction of Helen could relate to a broader mythological story: the seizure of a young woman who represents fertility (spring and summer) and whose absence brings winter to the earth. In this early image (c. 680 BC) Helen has monstrous proportions, suggesting she is being represented as a quasi-divine figure (8). Theseus and Peirithous seize her, but she is about to be saved by her two brothers, Castor and Pollux, mounted on horses.