Helen of Troy

  24 On Linear B, see, for example, Ae 303: Ventris and Chadwick (1973), 166. See also Ventris and Chadwick (1973), 409–10 on the subject of foreign women captives and slaves. On Hittite sources, see Bryce (2002), 51–5, referencing, for example, KUB XIII 4, on appropriate punishments for slaves in the Hittite world.

  25 Once again, only fragments of Stesichorus exist. His ideas and poetry resurface in the works of Plato and Euripides among others.

  26 Isocrates, Encomium of Helen 64; Plato, Phaedrus 243a; Pausanias 3.19.11.

  27 See West (1975); 7 and n. 10.

  28 Herodotus, 2.112.

  29 See Visser (1938) for further discussion of Helen’s cult in Egypt.

  30 A fragment of Hekataios also has Helen in Egypt: FrGrH1, F308, 309.

  31 Herodotus 2.113–20. Trans. A. de Sélincourt.

  32 Minoan-style frescoes have recently been identified in Egypt.

  33 Minoan hegemony had allowed for close trade relations between Eastern Mediterranean countries but it is in the 13th century BC that we find strong, regular trade links across a comprehensive sweep of the Eastern Mediterranean.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  East Is East and West Is West

  1 Catullus 68.87ff. Trans. F.W. Cornish.

  2 In the Roman period, a lump of stone was shaped to represent the omphalos and displayed at Delphi. It is still in the Delphi Museum.

  3 Helen was present at Delphi on a frieze decorating the Siphnian treasury (carved perhaps in the 6th century BC). In Greek folklore Menelaus and Odysseus visited Delphi to ask if they should travel to Troy. The oracle advised that they first had to offer to Athena Pronaia a necklace which Aphrodite had once given to Helen. There does seem to have been Late Bronze Age cultic activity at Delphi – 175 Mycenaean terracotta female figurines were found there at the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia.

  4 Pausanias 10.12.2. Trans. W.H.S. Jones.

  5 Thank you to Phiroze Vasunia for assistance on this point.

  6 Hall (1996) in her introduction to her edition of Aeschylus’ play The Persians, outlines how the performance of this play has been deployed for political ends on many other occasions.

  7 P.Oxy.3965.

  8 See Erskine (2001), 61–92, on the conflation of Persians and Trojans in fifth-century Athenian thought.

  9 Herodotus 1.5 and 1.4. Trans. A.D. Godley.

  10 Herodotus 6.32 and 6.31.

  11 In the geographical area of Caria.

  12 See McQueen (2000), vii.

  13 Herodotus clearly had a showman’s instinct. The historian is supposed to have given public recitations of his work – a good performance would merit a donation. He was one of the intellectual buskers of the ancient world. The story goes that Thucydides went to one of his recitals at Olympia and was moved to tears. But if there was a schoolboy crush, it did not last long, and the younger historian later denounced the elder (by implication) as a pedlar of tall tales.

  14 The 5th-century BC Hippocratic treatise Airs, Waters, Places claims of the balmy conditions of Asia Minor that: ‘Courage, endurance, industry and high spirit could not arise in such conditions either among the natives or among immigrants’(12).

  15 Euripides, Trojan Women 993–7. Trans. M. Hadas and J.H. McLean.

  16 Euripides, Helen 926ff. Trans R. Lattimore.

  17 See Hall (1996), 10, and for a slightly alternative view, Erskine (2001), 70–2 and 79–92 on Trojans and Persians in fifth-century iconography.

  18 Isocrates, Encomium of Helen 67–9. Trans. L. van Hook.

  19 Seneca, Troade 892–8. Trans. A.J. Boyle.

  20 Describing the Carians (the historian Herodotus’ geographical and perhaps genetic ancestors), Hellenistic and Byzantine commentators chose to see as ‘typical’ of the Iliad passages where Greek ‘brain’ wins over Trojan ‘brawn’ and so they proudly promoted Homer as a chauvinist in its original sense of the word, a fanatical supporter of (in this case, Greek) national interests.

  21 The story of Troy was continually used for political ends, Byzantine writers promoted it as a demonstration of Greek supremacy and in 1580–1581 the romance poet Torquato Tasso published his Gerusalemme liberata (‘Jerusalem Delivered’), which described Christian crusaders storming Jerusalem. The Scottish classical scholar Thomas Blackwell, in his work An Inquiry Into the Life and Writings of Homer (1735), describes the Greek invasion of Troy as ‘a prodigious Rendezvous of the bravest Inhabitants, and Sons of the noblest Families of a free Country, wide and warlike; and engaged in a violent struggle of Passions and Arms, with another of more effeminate Manners’(301): quoted in Williams (1993), 93ff.

  22 KUB XIV 3 (CTH 181): see Bryce (1998): 321–4.

  23 For full discussion of the designation Ahhiyawa, see Latacz (2004), 121–8.

  24 Strabo, Geography 4.169.

  25 Tablet KUB 26.91 (Bo 1485).

  26 This text, discovered in 1924, has – so some claim – yielded new information; although the author was probably the Greek-speaking king of Ahhiyawa, it can be interpreted as being written in Hittite cuneiform. A king on the Greek mainland may have been sufficiently embroiled in Anatolian affairs to have to communicate in the same language. Material unpublished at time of writing.

  27 The conflation of Helen’s story with a natural disaster, the knock-on effect of dust-clouds from an asteroid, is one explanation offered for its drama. Some academics prefer more prosaic reasoning – there are well-researched arguments that the Trojan War was a conflict over fishing rights. But dendrochronological evidence from tree-rings buttresses the natural disaster theory. It is possible that a scandal involving Mycenaean and Trojan royalty was an inflammatory act in a period of increasing instability. Since recorded time, seismic climate changes and ecological disasters have been accompanied by human wars. Changes in food quantity and supply, the annihilation or creation of new paths of communication, and the destruction of settlements are all outcomes that frequently project human groups into states of conflict. There is little reason to think that this period in pre-history was any different. The ancients chose to pin the blame for the war, not onto storms and dust-clouds sent from the heavens, but on Helen. For discussion of cosmic activity in the period, see M. Baillie (2000) Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters with Comets. London: Batsford.

  28 Aristotle, History of Animals 551a (24).

  29 Iliad 9.412.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Fair Troad

  1 The poet Rupert Brooke writes one of his last letters home, to Violet Asquith, during the Great War of 1914–18. Keynes (1968), 662.

  2 Site visit in 1988.

  3 Margaret Adelaide Wilson, ‘Gervais (Killed at the Dardanelles)’, in Reilly (1981) 129.

  4 Latacz (2004), 41.

  5 Bryce (2005) points out that the three kingdoms of prime importance in western Anatolia were Mira, the Seha River Land and then Wilusa – what we now call Troy.

  6 Textual evidence bears witness to curious imports such as a cult-image of a god sent from Ahhiyawa to one of the kings of the Hittites. KUB v. 6 (CTH 570) ii.57–64.

  7 Bryce (2002), 5.

  8 Greek words and names appear to have been absorbed into the Hittite language, and so were many from Luwian, the language possibly spoken in the Troad. Note, for instance, that the Luwian compound priiamuua means ‘exceptionally courageous’ – are we looking at the root of King Priam’s name? A name thought suitable for great kings? See F. Starke (1997) ‘Troia im Kontext des historisch-politischen und sprachlichen Umfeldes Kleinasiens im 2. Jahrtausend’, in Studia Troica 7: 447–87, esp. 456–8.

  9 In Iliad 6.138–282 [LCL 6.119–238] a story is told of the Trojan Glaucus and the Greek Diomedes who meet on the battlefield. Glaucus reveals that his ancestors originally came from Corinth on the Greek mainland, but were then exiled to Anatolia. The reason for this humiliating expulsion from the homeland was the overblown sexual appetite and then rage of a lustful queen called Antea. Antea – originally from the region of Lycia – was infatuat
ed with a beautiful prince of Corinth called Bellerophon, but her advances had been rejected: ‘mad for Bellerophon, the lovely Antea lusted to couple with him, all in secret … she could never seduce the man’s strong will, his seasoned, firm resolve.’ Iliad6.188–90 [LCL 6.160–2]. Antea, addled with frustration, swore that Bellerophon had in fact tried to seduce her and her furious husband engineered Bellerophon’s exile – packing into his luggage secret messages that demanded his execution. Homer’s reference here to folded writing tablets – which have since been found preserved in the anaerobic conditions of the Uluburun shipwreck – is another indication that a number of the stories he tells come not from the illiterate ‘Dark Ages’ but from the Late Bronze Age. The Uluburun examples were made of wood, one still preserving scraps of wax and its ivory hinges. Exiled to Lycia in south-west Anatolia, Bellerophon in fact proves himself a true hero, killing, among other things, the monster the Chimaera and siring a new dynasty on Anatolian soil. Iliad 6.181–252 [LCL 6.154–211]. On ‘dynasty’, see Iliad 6.244–52 [LCL 6.206–11]. One of Bellerophon’s descendants was the Lycian hero fighting for Glaucus. When the two warriors, Lycian and Greek, find their common roots they decide not to fight but to honour each other instead. They seal their newfound relationship in that way so beloved of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Greeks with an exchange of gifts: xenia in action. The two men are not brothers in arms, but find themselves to be brothers in blood. ‘Both fighters sprang from their chariots, clasped each other’s hands and traded pacts of friendship.’ Iliad 6.278–9 [LCL 6.232–3]. The little story of Glaucus and Diomedes is a useful one. It buttresses a stereotype of women as dangerous and untrustworthy. But it also commemorates the fact that the ‘Heroic Age’ was a time and a place of racial exchange – when peoples and individuals moved in both directions across the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, a time when natural harbours such as Be¸sik Bay would have regularly hosted Mycenaean Greeks.

  10 Some argue that Homer’s epic derives partly from eastern sources as a result of this kind of interchange. Wandering minstrels in the Troad would have recited cycles, surprisingly similar to those that then turn up 500-odd years later in Homer. Homer’s story itself could owe much to Hittite sources – or at least to Babylonian and Hurrian sources via the Hittite world. One literary work, The Gilgamesh Epic (originally Sumerian), has passages which, if you substituted Homeric for Gilgameshi names, would read like an echo of the other. There are female temptresses – pretty similar to Circe and the Sirens – and Ishtar, whom some equate with Aphrodite and even Helen herself. The Kumarbi Epic Cycle could be understood as having strong parallels with Hesiod.

  11 102 were excavated, 35 contained skeletal remains representing 95 individuals. Thanks to Dr Hans Jansen for his help with this matter.

  12 A decade after Mehmet the Conqueror sacked Constantinople in AD 1453, the sultan visited Troy. The trip was a piece of well-staged PR. Here the Ottoman ruler declared that by defeating the Greeks he had avenged his Trojan ancestors. See Rose (1998), 411.

  13 Herodotus 7.43.

  14 Cicero, Pro Archia 24. Trans. N.H. Watts.

  15 In 48 BC, Julius Caesar toured the vicinity while in pursuit of his arch-rival Pompey, declaring that: ‘Pergamum [Troy] will rise Roman’. His visit was vividly immortalised by the Roman author Lucan: ‘He walks around a memorable name – burnt-out Troy … now barren woods and trunks with rotting timber have submerged Assaracus’ houses, and, with roots now weary, occupy the temples of the gods, and all of Pergamum is veiled by thickets: even the ruins suffered oblivion.’ Lucan, Civil War 9.964–99. Trans. S.M. Braund.

  16 The distance between the city gate and the fortress gate is only about 80 metres.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Topless Towers of Ilium

  1 H.D., Helen in Egypt 2.6, in H. Gregory (1961), 242. Reproduced by kind permission of New Directions Publishing, New York. Note that this is Helen in Egypt, not Helen in Troy.

  2 See Latacz (2004), 216, n. 4, citing M. Korfmann (1997), ‘TROIA’ – Ausgrabungen 1996, Studia Troica, 7; 1–71.

  3 The Archaic Greeks called it Ilion; it then became known as Ilium Novum.

  4 See Fitton (1995), 48. This graffito was recorded in the late 17th century.

  5 Clarke’s notion was published in London by William Gell in 1804 in a volume called The Troad or The Topography of Troy.

  6 Fitton (1995), 59.

  7 Schliemann’s archaeological methods might have verged on the vandalistic, but he was in fact the last in a long line of improvident visitors to the site. Others had already, albeit inadvertently, done their best to destroy the Bronze Age remains buried in Hisarlik. Because Troy was such a strategic and (thanks to Homer and the epic cycle) culturally and emotionally significant site, it had been regularly levelled and then re-occupied down the centuries. Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine settlers all cannibalised building materials and spliced through the surviving archaeology while they constructed their own lives.

  8 Fitton (1995), 68.

  9 Although Schliemann’s conclusions (and excavation technique) were in part flawed, current excavations at the site support his basic assumption that the site of Troy on Hisarlik is both Homer’s Ilios and the Late Bronze Age settlement of Wilusa – a wealthy town and a trading-post at the centre of a number of disputes in the 13th century BC. Developments in current excavations can be tracked on the Project Troia website or in the periodical Studia Troica.

  10 Schliemann (1870) ‘Les fouilles de Troie’ in the Levant Herald, 3 June 1870; and see Allen (1999), 131.

  11 For debate on the exact conditions of the discovery see Easton (1981) and Traill (1984).

  12 For an account of the rediscovery of this hoard in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, see M. Siebler (1994) ‘Eine andere Odyssee: Vom Flak-Bunker zum Puschkin Museum’, in Troia-Geschichte-Grabungen-Kontroversen. Mainz: Antike Welt. See also Easton (1994).

  13 Moorehead (1994), 229.

  14 Moorehead (1994), 92–5. Schliemann’s diaries and letters are held by the Gennadius Library, Athens.

  15 Moorehead (1994), 35.

  16 H. Schmidt (1902) Heinrich Schliemann’s Sammlung Trojanischer Altertuemer (Berlin), 232–3.

  17 Hoards in Troy such as these do attest the continuous and exceptional wealth of the town – surely garnered through international trade.

  18 Work started on the building in 1878.

  19 Iliou Melathron itself is a menagerie of styles from across antiquity. Schliemann dug deep into his pockets to realise his domestic dreams and the project cost 439,650 drachmas. On the walls are copies of Pompeiian frescoes painted by a Slovenian artist, Yuri Subic. The mosaic floor incorporates motifs from Troy and Mycenae and the house is protected by solid gates and railings along which a series of stern sphinxes process. It is all a far cry from the mossy half-timbered cottage where Schliemann’s life began. Now the Iliou Melathron is Greece’s leading numismatic museum; how appropriate that the man who worshipped Mammon should inadvertently build the god one of his finest shrines.

  20 Digs took place in 1932–8 under the supervision of Carl W. Blegen of the University of Cincinnati, and then were resumed in 1981 at Beşik Tepe by an international team under the supervision of Manfred Korfmann. The work continues to this day, and finds are stored in the Canakkale Museum. Details in A Guide to Troia (1999) by the Director and Staff of the Excavations (Istanbul: Ege Press).

  21 Wilusa refers to the kingdom of Troy and would, almost certainly, also have been the name given to the city.

  22 Detailed arguments around the issue of the identification of Wilusa as Troy, and of Hisarlik Hill with historical elements within Homer’s epic can be found passim in Latacz (2004); for the designation Wilusa, see particularly 82–3.

  23 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 13.186.

  24 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional no. 17805: Guido MS, fol. 46; (date c. 1350).

  25 Chronique Universelle, dite la Bouquechardière (Universal Chronicle) of Jehan de Courcy. New York,
Pierpont Morgan Library, M214, fol. 84.

  26 Scherer (1963), 37, Fig. 37.

  27 There is a wonderfully poised painting of Helen by the artist Guido Reni. The huge Reni canvas, painted in the 17th century, hangs in one of the long corridors of the Louvre. The Reni painting has its own, complicated symbolism (much of the composition seems to have been planned with European politics in mind) but it is a good example of an appreciation of Helen’s narrative without the need for a rape at its heart. See Colantuono (1997).

  28 Despite the fact that Homer, among others, tells us that chief among Helen’s attendants was the matron Aethra (the aged mother of Theseus, herself abducted by Castor and Pollux when they rescued Helen as a girl from Aphidna).

  29 A subject brilliantly discussed by Ruth Bernard Yeazell (2000) Harems of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

  30 ‘… which Philaenis and Elephantine later imitated, who carried out further similar licentious acts’. Trans. H. Parker (1992), 92. Philaenis and Elephantine were two of nine writers whose names we have as authors of sex manuals. Philaenis is thought to have lived c. 370 BC, and Elephantine c. 1st century BC: see Parker (1992), 94.

  31 S.v. Astyanassa, 4. 261 in Suidae Lexicon, ed. A. Adler, Vol. 1, 393.

  32 See Parker (1992) for further discussion of ancient sex manuals.

  33 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 403–8.

  34 LIMC, no. 191.

  35 Manuscript details all from Baswell and Taylor (1988) with backup from Buchthal (1971).

  36 Iliad 6.576 [LCL 6.483–5].

  37 II Kings 7:6.

  38 H.P. and M. Uerpmann (2001) Leben in Troia – Pflanzen und Tierwelt, in: Archiaölogis-ches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg et al (eds), Troia – Traum und Wirklichkeit (Stuttgart: Theiss), 315, especially Fig. 325.

  39 CTH 284.

  40 For further information, see S. Penner (1998) Schliemanns SchachtgrÄberund und der europÄische Nordosten Studien zur Herkunft der frühmykenischen Streitwagenausstattung [Saarbrücker BeitrÄge zur Altertumskunde 60] (Bonn).