Helen of Troy

by Bettany Hughes

  41 For example, the stone grave stele from Shaft Grave V, Grave Circle A, Mycenae, now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, NMA 1428.

  42 See, for example, Tiryns frescoes; deep bowl krater at Nauplion 14336; vase painting on amphoroid krater, London, BM C357.

  43 Thanks to Mike Loades for researching, leading and coordinating the operation and to Robert Hurford, chariot builder and Jonathan Warterer, horse-trainer.

  44 See Bryce (2005), chapter 4: ‘The Aegean Neighbours’.

  45 Sometimes four; a driver, an archer and two mobile infantry.

  46 Iliad 8.76–7 [LCL 8.64–5].

  47 Iliad 24.944 [LCL 24.804].

  48 There were severe malaria epidemics across the Eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze Age.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Golden Houses of the East

  1 Iliad 2.912–14 [LCL 2.803–4].

  2 The picture that emerges from the tablets of the Hittite civilisation is of a powerful entity, made up of a number of states or kingdoms – most of them with a ruling king and queen. Some were controlled directly from Hattusa, some had their own local rulers, others were ‘buffer zones’ – dividing, for example, the Hittite world and the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni (which covered much of northern Mesopotamia, northern Syria and parts of Eastern Anatolia).

  3 I have relied heavily here on Bryce (2002) – an essential starting point for an under-standing of the Hittite world.

  4 Discussed at length by A. Ünal (1994) ‘The Textual Illustration of the “Jester Scene” on the Sculptures of Alaca Höyük’, in Anatolian Studies 44: 207–18.

  5 See A. Goetze (1957) Kulturgeschichte Kleinasiens (Munich: Beck), 94.

  6 We also hear some royal women referred to as the SAL LUGAL.GAL (the Great Queen, legal queen).

  7 CTH 76.

  8 See Latacz (2004), 118.

  9 At the very least it should not escape notice that Homer is using names for his characters which are perfectly appropriate to their time and place. On Linear B tablets, 58 names have been found which also appear in Homer, including an Achilles, whose name is inscribed on a tablet from Pylos in a rations list for workers at a festival (Fn 79), and a Hector, who is a ‘slave of the god’ in the Pylos land tenure tablets (for example, Eb 913 and En 74).

  10 The ‘Milawata Letter’: CTH 182 (KUB 19.55 and KUB 48.90). The ‘Milawata Letter’ points to intrigue at the Trojan court, detailing a king of Troy (Walmu) who had been deposed and was then to be restored thanks to the agency of the Hittites.

  11 Edict of Telipinu: CTH 19.

  12 Apology of Hattusili III.9.3.3 (CTH 81).

  13 Aphrodite does not appear on Linear B tablets – an absence that some scholars apply to the suggestion that Helen is a proto-Aphrodite figure.

  14 Hurrian Hymn to Ishtar, KUB XXIV (CTH 717) i.38–40, adapted by G. Beckman (2000) in ‘Goddess Worship – Ancient and Modern’, in A Wise and Discerning Mind: Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long, ed. S.M. Olyan and R.C. Culley (Providence), 11, from a translation by H. Güterbock (1983) ‘A Hurro-Hittite Hymn to Ishtar’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 103: 156.

  15 Stamps still survive: e.g. Stamp Seal of Hittite Queen Puduhepa, in the Corum Museum 1.973.90.

  16 RS 17.133.

  17 There are no recorded dates for this event – which possibly fell in Urhi-Teshub’s reign c. 1272–1267 BC during the civil war with Hattusili.

  18 The daughter of Puduhepa, in the autumn of 1246, was finally dispatched on a journey organised and monitored by her mother to Egypt to marry Rameses II. But here the story peters out: like so many women who formed part of the human traffic between aristocratic courts, Puduhepa’s tardy daughter seems to become just another member of the harem at Fayum. See Bryce (2002), 125.

  19 See Bryce (2002), chapter 2: ‘The People and the Law’.

  20 Clause 28a, ‘The Laws’.

  21 Clause 197, ‘The Laws’.

  22 ‘If he brings them to the palace gate [the royal court] and says: “My wife shall not die,” he can spare his wife’s life, but must also spare the lover. Then he may veil her [his wife]. But if he says, “Both of them shall die”, and they “roll the wheel”, the king may have them both killed or he may spare them.’ (Clause 198, ‘The Laws’).

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  A Fleet Sets Sail

  1 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 414–19. Trans. A. Carson.

  2 See Cypria, fragment 1.

  3 In Dictys’ version of the story, Menelaus sends a diplomatic mission from Crete as soon as he hears the news of Helen’s infidelity in Sparta.

  4 Iliad 3.247–69 [LCL 3.205–24] and Apollodorus, Epitome 3.28–9. According to the Cypria, the Greeks send an embassy after an initial attempt at landing and a skirmish on the Trojan shore. According to Herodotus 2.118, envoys were sent after the Greek army landed at Troy, but were met with the intelligence that Helen and the treasure were actually in Egypt, not Troy.

  5 Iliad 11.143–65 [LCL 11.122–42].

  6 Trans. Beckman (1996), 91–2.

  7 Extracted from KBo I 10 + KUB III 72 (CTH 172). Trans. A.L. Oppenheim (1967), Letters from Mesopotamia (Chicago and London), 139–40. Quotation taken from Bryce (1998), 293.

  8 See paragraph 1 of the Alakšandu tablet.

  9 See Beal (1995), 547.

  10 See Gantz (1993), 576–82.

  11 In some versions of the story, the fleet has already set sail, and the diplomatic embassy is sent once the Greeks have landed on Trojan soil. This might be the suggestion in the Iliad: see Iliad 3.247–69 [LCL 3.205–24].

  12 Iliad 2.265 [LCL 2.227].

  13 Iliad 8.331–2 [LCL 8.291–2].

  14 Generally presumed to be Clytemnestra’s daughter, although in variant myths she is Helen’s child. In the imagination of some it was Helen’s overpowering allure that brought Iphigeneia her life and that dragged her towards an early death. See also Gantz (1993), 582–8, for a summary of ancient sources for this story.

  15 It is in Euripides’ Iphigeneia among the Taurians and Iphigeneia at Aulis that we first find mention of the Achilles ploy. See Gantz (1993) for Euripidean variations.

  16 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 259–78 [LCL 225–43]. Trans. A. Shapiro and P. Burian (2003).

  17 Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1166–70. Trans. P. Vellacott. Production seen at The Gate. J.W. von Goethe, Under the Curse; a new version by Dan Farrelly.

  18 Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1264–5. Trans. R.E. Meagher.

  19 Although in Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Iphigeneia embraces her death as an honour.

  20 Iliad 2.573ff [LCL 2.484ff].

  21 See E. Visser (1997) Homers Katalog der Schiffe (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner), 746.

  22 Summary of discovery in Latacz (2004), 240ff.

  23 Godart and Sacconi (2001), 542.

  24 Latacz (2004), Fig. 24.

  25 See Latacz (2004), 92–100, for fuller discussion.

  26 Latacz (2004), 154ff. and 260ff.

  27 Letter from the King of Ugarit to the King of Alashia (part of Cyprus): RS 20.238, lines 27–31, from the archive of Ugarit. Published in Ugaritica 5 as no. 24.

  28 Thanks to Michael Wedde for his detailed help with this passage and for the intelligence that around 1200 BC Ugarit had a fleet of 150 ships.

  29 For a fine, fuller picture, see Morgan (1988), chapters 9–10 and Colour Plate C.

  30 Although, as I have pointed out, Troy is in fact very close to Sparta by sea, in the epic imagination this had become a vast distance, as Achilles says (Iliad 1.184–5 [LCL 1.156–7]), when observing he has no personal quarrel with the Trojans and that this is a pre-emptive strike. ‘Look at the endless miles that lie between us … shadowy mountain ranges, seas that surge and thunder.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Helen – Destroyer of Cities

  1 Iliad 2.420–3 [LCL 2.354–6].

  2 (to loathe, shrink from) and (causing a chilling fear) are also used in association with Helen; see Clader (1976) for
further discussion.

  3 Iliad 2, passim.

  4 Iliad 1.1–2 [LCL 1.1–2].

  5 Iliad 1.33–6 [LCL 1.29–31].

  6 Iliad 13.830 Trans. J.–P. Vernant (1991), 100.

  7 Iliad 13. 959–60 [LCL 13.829–31].

  8 For an excellent summary of the aggressive/sexual incarnations of the eastern goddess Ishtar (Aphrodite’s equivalent) see Bryce (2002), 147.

  9 And just as desire and death, sex and violence, were, in the minds of the Greeks, two sides to the same coin, two different ways of expressing the same primordial urge, so one could lead to the other. As Plato neatly summed up, ‘there is no cause of battles and wars and civil strifes other than the lusts of the body’. Plato, Phaedrus 66c.

  10 Iliad 2.183–90 [LCL 2.157–62].

  11 Iliad 3.196ff. [LCL 3.162ff.].

  12 Iliad 3.179ff. [LCL 3.149ff.].

  13 Iliad 3.185–90 [LCL 3.145–8].

  14 See R. Naumann (1971) Architektur Kleinasiens von ihren AnfÄngen bis zum Ende der hethitischen Zeit (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth), 252. Homer describes Troy as boasting ‘eudmetos purgos’ (a well-built tower).

  15 Marlowe, Dr Faustus (B-Text) V.i.95.

  16 See Korfmann et al. (2004) ‘Was There a Trojan War?’ For detraction of Korfmann’s claims, see D. Hertel and F. Kolb (2003) ‘Troy in Clearer Perspective’, in Anatolian Studies 53: 71–88 and F. Kolb (2004) ‘Troy VI: a Trading Centre and a Commercial City?’, in American Journal of Archaeology 108: 577–614.

  17 Korfmann (1993), 27ff.

  18 Iliad 16.816ff. [LCL 16.698ff.].

  19 See Latacz (2004), 40 and n. 47, and Korfmann (1998).

  20 Site visit in 1995.

  21 Manchester Museum 1977.1048. In many versions of this popular vase design, the men are so absorbed that Athena has to appear to remind them that a battle has started to rage around them.

  22 The campaigning season was typically April to September.

  23 Alakšandu Treaty, 20.

  24 1997–8.

  25 Latacz (2004), 83.

  26 Iliad 22.183 [LCL 22.153].

  27 For a useful overview, see Korfmann et al. (2004).

  28 For alternative dates for Troy VI, see Mountjoy (1999).

  29 The use of an earth ‘cushion’ above the bedrock when rebuilding Troy VII after Troy VI may suggest that the Trojans, having experienced severe earthquake damage, attempted to accommodate further seismic activity within their architecture. For further discussion see Mountjoy (1999), 254–6, and Rapp and Gifford (1982), chapter 2.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Death’s Dark Cloud

  1 Iliad 16.407–13 [LCL 16.344–50].

  2 Iliad 3.516–28 [LCL 3.441–50].

  3 Iliad 6.68–70 [LCL 3.58–60].

  4 As is shown in Chapter 42, in the medieval period Homer’s wild, muddy blood-bath becomes a tale of morality, prudence and statecraft.

  5 Iliad 5.161–4 [LCL 5.145–7] and 5.321–5 [LCL 5.290–3].

  6 See Korfmann (1996), 34.

  7 Iliad 2.650 [LCL 2.560].

  8 A skeleton found in Grave Gamma at Mycenae, indicates that another warrior also survived a cranial investigation.

  9 All information from Arnott (1999). Many thanks to Robert Arnott for his help with this project.

  10 See Mayor (2003), 41–62 for a discussion of biological warfare in the Heroic Age.

  11 Iliad 1.60 [LCL 1.52].

  12 Bryce (2005). Text from KBo IV 6 (CTH 380), obv. 10’–15’. Trans. O. Gurney.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A Beautiful Death – Kalos Thanatos

  1 Sorley (1922), 82. In the same work are found the lines: ‘The tales, after the port went round! The wondrous wiles of old Odysseus, old Agamemnon and his misuse of his command, and that young chit Paris – who didn’t care a bit for Helen – only to annoy her he did it really …’

  2 Ideas discussed elegantly and comprehensively in Vernant (1991).

  3 The Spartans were taught to welcome death on the battlefield.

  4 In a world in which the life of the community was lived, almost exclusively, in a series of public spaces, public recognition was a raison d’être. As Vernant elucidates: ‘the same words – agathos, esthlos, aretē and timē– can denote high birth, wealth, success, martial courage, and fame. There is no clear distinction among the concepts.’ Vernant (1991), 56.

  5 For neolithic examples from Britain see R. Mercer and F. Healy, eds (forthcoming), Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and Survey of a Neolithic Monument Complex and its Surrounding Landscape. English Heritage Archaeological Reports.

  6 Sorley (1922), 85.

  7 Pelly (2002), 10.

  8 Patrick Shaw-Stewart, ‘Untitled’, in B. Gardner, ed. (1986) Up the Line to Death: The War Poets 1914–18 (London: Methuen), 59–60. Shaw-Stewart was killed in action in 1917. See also Chapter 37 n22.

  9 Iliad 18.623–6 [LCL 18.535–8].

  10 J.-K. Huysmans wrote of the painting, ‘She stands out against a sinister horizon, drenched in blood, and clad in a dress encrusted with gems like a shrine. Her eyes are wide-open in a catatonic stare. At her feet lie a pile of corpses. She is like an evil goddess who poisons all that approach her.’

  11 First site visit February 1995.

  12 On all Moreau’s canvases the Spartan queen is strong and sinewy. Preserved in swinging racks along the walls of his old home there are scores of pencil, pen-and-ink and conté sketches of life-models. One woman, long-legged and fit, is the prototype for Helen. Along with the Helens she modelled for, this woman is not like most of the other female figures in the room – limp, naked and available – she is hard-cored.

  13 In one painting on the third floor, Helen’s smooth empty oval face is echoed by the pale globe of the moon above her. Inv. No. 58.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The Fall of Troy

  1 Euripides, Helen 256ff. Trans. D. Kovacs.

  2 Iliad 6.407 [LCL 6.344].

  3 See Iliad 3.218 [LCL 3.180]; 6.408 [LCL 6.344]; 6.421 [LCL 6.356]; and Odyssey 4.162.

  4 Iliad 6.415–16 [LCL 6.351–2].

  5 Here is another hero who has died for her, and yet, in his dying, achieves kleos. See Clader (1976) for further discussion.

  6 Iliad 24.909–13 [LCL 24.773–5].

  7 When Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar and steals into the city to assess the Trojan fortifications, Helen has the wits to recognise him but does not hand him over to her new allies. Instead she bathes the lord of Ithaca and anoints him with oil, swearing that she has had a change of heart and longs to go home. Years later this story is being told back in the Spartan palace, but is trumped by Helen’s attempted betrayal of the Greeks in the Trojan horse.

  8 Particularly in Virgil’s version of the story in Aeneid 6.

  9 Virgil, Aeneid 6.515–19.

  10 This story is told in Odyssey 4.310–24 [LCL 4.277–89].

  11 Lesches, via Apollodorus, apparently suggested it was 3,000, but the figure is disputed by scholars: see Gantz (1993), 649 and n. 86.

  12 Little Iliad, Fragment 20.

  13 BM 1899.2–19.1.

  14 From KUB XIII 4, see Bryce (2002), 52.

  15 431 –404 BC.

  16 Thucydides, 3.67.

  17 Thucydides, 5.116.

  18 Paraphrase from Tyrone Guthrie’s New York production. Thanks to Michael Wood for his help.

  19 Thebes reference TH Gp 164: Godart and Sacconi (2001), 541.

  20 Bryce (2002), 105.

  21 Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.607–8, pictures Achilles’ disgust at being felled by an arrow – wielded by Paris’ ‘feminine hand’.

  22 Paris’ character is reformed, though, by the European dynasties of the medieval and Renaissance periods who traced their ancestry back to the Trojans. Thus we find Proctor in his Gallery of Gallant Inventions remarking how ‘If Hellen had not bin so light; Sir Paris had not died in fight’; see Rollins, ed. (1926).

  23 Both Hittite and Judaic texts refer to the practice of a w
idow marrying her husband’s brother; it is known in the Old Testament as levirate marriage.

  24 Hyginus, Fables 240 has Helen killing Deiphobus herself.

  25 Virgil, Aeneid 6.494–512. Trans. D. West.

  26 Stesichorus, 201 PMG. See Gantz (1993), 651.

  27 Little Iliad, fragment 19, EGF.

  28 Euripides, Orestes 1286. Trans. M.L. West.

  29 The double entendre was certainly not lost on the ancients; come the Roman period, a woman’s genitals are given the name of a sword-sheath, ‘vagina’.

  30 Mykonos Museum 2240 (c. 675 BC). LIMC no. 225; see E.C. Keuls (1985) The Reign of the Phallus: sexual politics in ancient Athens (Berkeley and London: University of California Press), 397–9.

  31 For a fuller discussion of all examples, see Hedreen (1996).

  32 Translation after Clement (1958), 49.

  33 Euripides, Andromache 629–30. Trans J.F. Nims in Grene and Lattimore (1958).

  34 British Museum, GR 1865.7–12.4.

  35 See Pipili (1992), 179–84, esp. 183–4, on 6th-century bronze shield-bands from the Peloponnese seeming to show the recovery of Helen by Menelaus, or else perhaps her abduction by Paris.

  36 See French (2002), 16.

  37 The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke (New York: John Lane, 1915).

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Home to Sparta

  1 Gladstone (1858), Vol. 2, 488.

  2 Odyssey 4.631–41 [LCL 4.561–9].

  3 So far, from the Mycenaean tombs analysed, this seems to be a population with terrible teeth from the early twenties onwards. A forty-year-old weaver (admittedly in dental terms a hazardous occupation), buried at the Armenoi cemetery on Crete some time between 1340 and 1190 BC, has lost twenty-three out of his thirty-two teeth.

  4 Euripides, Trojan Women 1046–50. Trans. K. McLeish.

  5 Euripides, Trojan Women. Trans. K. McLeish.

  6 Agamemnon’s murder is referred to from the 7th century BC onwards. The first certain attestation to its taking place in a bath is to be found in Aeschylus, Oresteia. It is Aeschylus who puts the knife in Clytemnestra’s hand.