35 Thanks to Roman Roth for this example, from his forthcoming article on ‘Myth and Female Identity in North Etruscan Burials of the Hellenistic Period: A Closer Look at the Urn of velia cerinei from Castiglioncello’, in Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of Italian Archaeology (Supplement to Bulletin Antieke Beschavingen).
36 Odyssey 4.162 [LCL 4.145].
37 Euripides, Andromache 628.
38 Lycophron, Alexandra 850–1. Trans. G.W. Mair. This theme – Helen’s degeneracy proven by her lack of male offspring – is picked up by a number of Elizabethan writers.
39 Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece 1471–7.
40 Eidolon gives us our word ‘idol’.
41 As stated in the Foreword, Homer describes the Greek peoples as the Achaeans, the Danaans and the Argives.
42 For discussion of the possible dates for the end of Troy VI, see Mountjoy (1999).
CHAPTER ONE
A Dangerous Landscape
1 Homer, Iliad 13.20–4 [LCL 13.17–19].
2 The ancient Greeks described the island as ‘kalliste’ (the most beautiful). The island’s Greek name is Thira or Thera. It was renamed Santorini by conquering Venetians in the 13th century AD.
3 Dating of the eruption of Thera ranges from 1625 to 1550 BC depending on methodology. For a good summary of debates around the issue see Wiener (2003).
4 Forsyth (1997), 103. For another good overall summary of the data on the Theran eruption, see Manning (1999).
5 Forsyth (1997), 113ff.
6 See Minoura et al. (2000).
7 See Fitton (1995), 125ff.
8 Keftiu seems to be the name given to Bronze Age Cretans on the wall paintings of the tomb of Rekhmire in Egyptian Thebes.
9 For the impact of migration on disease in general see Arnott (2005a).
10 There are many ways of interpreting the interface between Minoans and Mycenaeans from the 16th to the 12th centuries BC. See Bibliography for a number of articles on the subject.
11 For ‘Great King’ epithets, see the Alakšandu treaty (CTH 76); the treaty between Hattusili III of Hatti and Rameses II of Egypt (CTH 91); the letter from Queen Naptera of Egypt to Queen Puduhepa of Hatti (CTH 167); the letter from Rameses II of Egypt to Queen Puduhepa of Hatti (CTH 158); the letter from Hattusili III of Hatti to Kadashman-Enlil II of Babylon (CTH 172); and the letter from Uhri-Teshshup (?) of Hatti to Adadnirari I of Assyria (CTH 171). All examples, with translations, in Beckman (1996).
12 See Latacz (2004), 145.
13 Some of these earthquakes, it is estimated, must have measured up to 6.2 on the Richter scale. For 13th-century BC ‘storms’ see Nur (1998), 140. For comet impact, see Masse (1998), 53.
14 See Sampson (1996), 114.
15 In one potter’s workshop at Gouves, close to the palatial complex of Knossos on Crete, a potter’s tools have all been flung in the same direction, and the floor covered in sedimentary material. See Vallianou (1996).
16 Papadopoulos (1996).
CHAPTER TWO
A Rape, a Birth
1 The Cypria, fragment 8, has Nemesis as Helen’s mother.
2 Euripides, Helen 212–18. Trans. R. Lattimore.
3 This mosaic can now be found in the Kuklia Museum in Paphos, from where it was stolen in 1980. It dates from the 2nd/3rd centuries AD. See LIMC, no. 42.
4 The stele in the Argos Museum is a Roman copy of a Greek original from the 6th or 5th century BC. This design was much copied; one version is on display in the British Museum: GR 2199.
5 Painted for Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara and then sent to the French court – the original is now lost.
6 When the painting was given to the National Gallery by the Duke of Northumber-land in 1838 the duke wrote a letter stating that it should not be displayed publicly. It is now on view: G1868.
7 Leonardo started a painting in 1505, but although many copies of it were made, the original is now lost.
8 c. 1598–1600.
9 Research trip 2003.
10 On the few Late Bronze Age frescoes that have survived, birds, particularly doves and swallows, flit across the painted surface alongside religious iconography.
11 On the ‘egg’ tradition of Helen’s birth, see, for example, Euripides, Helen 257–9 and Pausanias 3.16.1; also Gantz (1993), 320–1. The First Vatican Mythographer (VM I 204) introduces a notion that two eggs were hatched, one containing Castor and Pollux, one with Helen and Clytemnestra.
12 Who, despite their mixed paternity, all came to be born in egg-shells.
13 Ancient sources come up with all possible permutations of paternity in relation to Clytemnestra, Castor, Helen and Pollux. For a summary see Deacy and Pierce (1997), 85.
14 Apollodorus, The Library 3.117.
15 Thanks to Peter Warren for his help with LBA plant identification.
16 Lucian, Judgement of the Goddesses 14 (2nd century AD). Trans. A.M. Harmon.
17 Hera’s typical epithet is ‘white-armed’: see, for example, Homer, Iliad 24.66 [LCL 24.55]. In the Louvre papyrus of Alcman’s Partheneion (PMGF 1), Hagesichora’s face is described as ‘silver’: on the use of this term to denote whiteness, see Hutchinson (2001), 89, n. 55.
18 See B.M. Thomas (2002) ‘Constraints and Contradictions: Whiteness and Femininity in Ancient Greece’, in L. Llewellyn-Jones, ed., Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World (Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales), 5, on the dried remains of white-lead carbonate found in women’s graves. Xenophon and Aristophanes, writing in the 4th century BC, also mention the use of white lead, or psimythion, as make-up. See Aristo-phanes, Ecclesiazusae 878; Xenophon, Household Management 10.2.
19 German school, b. 1704, d. 1761.
20 J.G. Platzer, The Rape of Helen. The Wallace Collection: P634.
21 Joseph of Exeter, Trojan War 4.175–9. Translated by and reproduced with kind permission of Dr Neil Wright.
22 Pausanias lived and worked c. AD 120–180.
23 Pausanias 3.16.1. Trans. W.H.S. Jones and H.A. Ormerod.
24 J. Boardman (2002) The Archaeology of Nostalgia (Thames & Hudson).
25 Ten rolls of parchment or papyrus – a volumen is a roll in Latin.
26 Peter Brown as quoted in Freeman (1999), 148.
27 West (1975), 13, suggests that Helen’s association with eggs may have a connection with our ‘egg-honouring’ at Easter time.
28 Aphrodite was said to have cursed the Tyndareid women with serial sexual encounters, ‘twice-married and thrice-married and abandoners of their husbands’, because King Tyndareus failed to honour the goddess with sacrifices. See Stesichorus 23 (PMG), and Gantz (1993), 321.
29 Ostrich eggs were in fact a feature of the Late Bronze Age; with their surprisingly durable shells, they were used as deluxe packaging for international trade. The most exquisite of goods would be tucked into the empty shells, and then the eggs sent off on long, dangerous voyages in flimsy boats to tempt other traders across the waters. They were also turned into rhytons, lavish vessels used in religious ritual. Thirteen ostrich-egg rhytons have been discovered in total (there is one on display in the Mycenae Museum, MM 1684). One particularly fine example from a shaft grave at Mycenae started off life in Nubia; it is richly decorated, with applied dolphins made of faience (an early form of glass): the dolphins’ eyes and the curve of their bodies, arcing as they swim, are picked out in green and brown glaze. Faience decorations are also firmly stuck around the neck of the rhyton. Other eggs are beautified with silver or gilded bronze. In the ‘Room of the Artists’ at Mycenae, a tiny gobbet of yellowish material has been analysed and shown to be a mixture of resin and sulphur, which, when heated, becomes a browny-black glue. Creating these fragile works of art – sticking on the delicate, precious little details – would have been a stinking business. All details from Sakellarakis (1990); also see Karo (1930–3), 238–9.
30 For further discussion see chapter 11.
31 The city’s consortium of businesswomen call themselves the ‘Daughters of Penelope’ (Penelope in Ho
mer’s Odyssey being Odysseus’ loyal and loving wife). These high achievers choose not to be Daughters of Helen.
32 See Wright (2004), 123, 160 and passim.
CHAPTER THREE
The Lost Citadel
1 Homer, Odyssey 4.79–85 [LCL 4.71–5].
2 New tablets were excavated at Thebes between 1993 and 1995 by Italian and French teams and published by Vassilis L. Aravantinos, Louis Godart and Anna Sacconi.
3 One new Linear B tablet from the Theban royal archive makes the first, tantalising Bronze Age reference to a ‘son of Lakedaimon’: Gp 227.2. See Aravantinos, Godart and Sacconi (2000) for the first publication of the tablets: reviewed by Palaima (2003).
4 See Catling (1977).
5 See Wright (2004), 123, 160 and passim.
6 Thompson (1908/9), 116.
7 The likely date of the foundation of the Menelaion is 700 BC: see Cartledge (1992), 55.
8 Herodotus 6.61.
9 Pausanias 13.9.9; Pindar’s Nemean Ode 10.56 and Pythian Ode 11.62–3 report that the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, were buried at Therapne too; cf. Pomeroy (2002), 114.
10 The poet Alcman evokes the ‘holy sanctuary of well-fortified Therapnai’. See Calame (1997), 201, n. 346, and Alcman, fragment 14(b).
11 Tryphiodorus, The Taking of Troy 520.
12 See Catling (1977), 37–8.
13 Or kreagra.
14 Isocrates, Encomium of Helen 10.63.
15 Catling (1976), 14.
16 All inscriptions are being re-studied by Professor Tony Spawforth of Newcastle University at the time of writing.
17 See Thompson (1908/9), 124.
18 Thanks to Richard Catling for this suggestion.
19 It is possible that virgins descended, ready, thanks to the perceived support of the spirit of Helen, to engage with Spartan men. See Chapter 11.
20 See Odyssey 4, passim, and Chapter 32, p. 234.
21 Figures from French (2002), 62 and Wardle and Wardle (1997), 17. As French points out, Knossos dwarfs all of the above, however, covering an area of c. 120,000 square feet [11,150 square m].
22 At the time of writing the excavation report for Therapne was still forthcoming. My thanks to Richard Catling and Dr Hector Catling for their help with this material.
23 Catling (1977), 33 and personal correspondence.
24 ibid.
25 Odyssey 4.80–1 [LCL 4.73–4].
CHAPTER FOUR
The Mycenaeans
1 Odyssey 3.344 [LCL 3.305]; Iliad 7.207 [LCL 7.180] and 11.52 [LCL 11.46].
2 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 909–11.
3 Thanks to Nicola Wardle. See Inscriptiones Graecae iv.4.9.7.
4 In fact Schliemann wrote a telegram to the Greek press saying: ‘This corpse very much resembles the image which my imagination formed long ago of wide-ruling Agamemnon.’
5 The Bloomsbury group clump together, Sartre breaks convention by signing diagonally, Ginsberg leaves a short poem.
6 Current excavations at Thebes may show that this was in fact one of the most significant and powerful of the Mycenaean territories.
7 Mounts Agios Elias, Zara and Aëtovouno (‘Eagle Mount’).
8 There are other Mycenaean settlements across the Peloponnese at Argos, Sparta, Pylos, Tiryns, Asine, Kleonai, Midea, Pellana, Orchomenos and Ephyra (Corinth).
9 Tablet 714.1–2.
10 Military, religious and secular affairs alike were all controlled from the citadels. Food and supplies and luxury goods were brought into the palace-centres and then redistributed for subsistence or profit. Here records were kept, written in Linear B script onto soft clay tablets, recording people and possessions down to the last goat, the last jar of olives, the last cup of grain, the last fig. The native population and imported slaves would produce food for the palace and deliver it to the centralised storerooms. Those within the palatial economy would then be given their supplies in return. Villagers in the outlying settlements might be subjected to corvée labour – a hefty tax on human resources. The bean-counters, the scribes of Linear B – a literate elite that some argue were the rulers themselves – by insisting on extra deliveries of food or pressing farmers into military service could control whether or not a family had enough food to survive the winter.
11 See Odyssey 4, passim.
12 Those on display at Mycenae are replicas; the originals are in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
13 Found at the cult centre in Mycenae: MM 2084.
14 From shaft graves, finds dating between 1600 and 1300 BC.
15 Mycenae lady fresco fragment from the House of the High Priest, in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (NMA 11670).
16 For a discussion of the historicity of Homer, see Latacz (2004), 216–49.
17 Hesiod, Works and Days 159.
18 Excavations by the German Archaeological Institute.
19 Iakovidis and French (2003), 22, n. 45.
20 Tablets Aa 701 and 515 from Pylos: see Chadwick (1988), 79. Chadwick also identifies groups of women from other parts of Asia Minor, including Milesians, Knidians, Chians and Lemnians (91).
21 We cannot tell for certain what kind of liberties, if any, the subject population enjoyed. Some from the bottom rung appear to have lived more like medieval bondsmen and women – free, with their own patches of land, but with fixed stringent duties owed to their overlords. In the Near East in the Late Bronze Age, women and children are recorded as serving a period of indentured service – working in bondage to pay back family debts, or to raise a dowry.
22 Lawiaiai at Pylos seem to be ‘captives’ or ‘women taken as booty’: Chadwick (1988), 83.
23 c. 1352 BC.
24 On this discovery, see A.B. Knapp (1992) ‘Bronze Age Mediterranean Island Cultures and the Near East, Part 1’, Biblical Archaeologist 55.2 (June 1992), 52–72, esp. 65–7.
25 A small temple was found at the site in 1955 when the airport was being built, three miles from Amman. Amongst other items, a quantity of Mycenaean pottery was discovered, and when the site was re-excavated in 1966, by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, more Mycenaean artefacts were found. One example, recovered in 1955, is now in the museum in Amman (Amman 6261). It is a krater, restored from sherds, featuring a charioteer, and dated to LHIIIA2. Details from Hankey (1967), 128 and 131ff.
26 Details on the Mycenaean trade-horizon taken from Dickinson (1994); French (2002); Harding (1984); Wardle (2001).
27 The Mycenaeans happily appropriated Minoan cultural innovations – writing and inlaid pottery. See Appendix One.
28 Across Mycenaean Greece there were striking affinities. Rigidly efficient bureaucracies ran to the same systems. Administrative records from Pylos, Thebes, Mycenae and Tiryns, for instance, follow an identical pattern – there are the same systems of weights and measures, the same sealings used on casks of olive oil and jars of wine, the same language spoken, the same gods worshipped. Kings, queens and officials, priestesses and priests are distinguished in the same way. Those in power walk through corridors, archives, antechambers and storerooms whose architecture is strikingly isomorphic. Frescoes describing religious ritual and state occasions strongly resemble one another. There are corresponding shrines and sanctuaries, aristocrats across Greece are buried in the same way with the same funerary rituals. Commonalities such as these would have allowed for cultural and political liaison, and, when the time called for it, for consolidated military action.
29 Buried in Grave Circle B at Mycenae.
30 All ‘war-wound’ references in this paragraph from Arnott (1999), 500–1.
31 Goodison (1989), 106–7.
32 The Mycenaean Warrior Goddess perhaps evolves into Athena, the protecting goddess of Athens. For further discussion see Rehak (1999).
33 Linear B tablets provide close detail of the rigid social categories in Mycenaean society. The wanax is the king, or overlord – on occasions wanax appears to be used as a divine title: French (2002), 127. A basileus was only a chi
ef of craft-groups. A more important figure is the lawagetas. His title seems to mean ‘leader of the host’ although his exact function is unclear. The ‘mayor’ is the koreter, and the deputy mayor the prokoreter, followers are hequetai and then there is the telestas whose name could mean ‘one who brings to fulfilment’ in a religious context. Women are also given clear-cut designations, particularly in the religious sphere. There was a strict hierarchy, and it is worth remembering that the word comes from the ancient Greek hieros, ‘sacred’, and arche, ‘rule’. Religious business is accounted for within palace archives – there is no distinction between ‘church’ and ‘state’. Perhaps ruling in the citadel – particularly if you were a woman – was also thought to bring with it some kind of religious power. Thanks to Lisa Bendall for help with Linear B terminology in this paragraph.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Pre-historic Princess
1 The samples that produce these statistics are, by necessity, small. But for a good summary of latest figures see Arnott (2005a), 21–7.
2 Flowers were such an important harvest that one of the months in the Mycenaean calendar was called wordewios – ‘the Month of Roses’.
3 Murex trunculus seems to have been the species most commonly used in Lakonia. Many thanks to Deborah Ruscillo for her help with murex queries.
4 Homeric examples of ‘shining cloth’ references: see Iliad 3.170 [LCL 3.141] and 3.487 [LCL 3.419]; for Linear B reference, see Pylos tablet Fr 1225: Ventris and Chadwick (1973), 482. Clader (1976), 58–9. See also Shelmerdine (1998), 109.
5 Divinities are also often described as shining or radiant. There are two possibilities here: the first is that Helen is being remembered as ‘quasi-divine’ because she was illustrious in life; the second that she was a mortal character being used as a foil for an idea about divinity. Time and again when we read about Helen, we are told that she glows with a white, bright luminosity. ‘And Helen the radiance of women answered Priam’, says Homer: Iliad 3.207 [LCL 3.171]. She wears cloaks that shimmer. It has been suggested that her name derives from an Indo-European root, svaranā, meaning ‘the starry one’ or ‘the shining one’, which gives us the Greek word elene that can mean a torch or light. See Skutsch (1987), 188–93. Homer often talks about Helen as ‘Argive Helen’. The obvious interpretation is that she was a representative of the Greeks (also known as the Argives) or a woman whose influence resonated through the Argive plain, but there is also the possibility that the bard is playing on words. In the Greek language arguros first appears as a word in Homer’s Iliad, where it means silver/silvery. For a further discussion of the ‘shining’ nature of Helen see Clader (1976), 56–64. Internal light was the mark of a goddess, but it was also the mark of one touched by divinity – of a mortal who has experienced or is experiencing an epiphany.
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