The Trojans & Their Neighbours

Trevor Bryce

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134272051
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: Ancient History

A central figure in both classical and ancient near Eastern fields, Trevor Bryce presents the first publication to focus on Troy's neighbours and contemporaries as much as Troy itself. With the help of maps, charts and photographs, he unearths the secrets of this iconic ancient city.

Beginning with an account of Troy's involvement in The Iliad and the question of the historicity of the Trojan War, Trevor Bryce reveals how the recently discovered Hittite texts illuminate this question which has fascinated scholars and travellers since the Renaissance.

Encompassing the very latest research, the city and its inhabitants are placed in historical context - and with its neighbours and contemporaries – to form a complete and vivid view of life within the Trojan walls and beyond from its beginning in c.3000 BC to its decline and obscurity in the Byzantine period.

Documented here are the archaeological watershed discoveries from the Victorian era to the present that reveal, through Troy's nine levels, the story of a metropolis punctuated by signs of economic prosperity, natural disaster, public revolt and war.

1
THE POET AND THE TRADITION

IN THE BEGINNING

The trouble all began with a wedding. Thetis, a sea nymph, had rejected the amorous advances of Zeus and, as punishment, the father of the gods condemned her to marry a mere mortal, a prince called Peleus from the island of Aegina. To show himself worthy of his divine bride, Peleus had first to defeat her in a wrestling contest, a task which she made more difficult by changing into different shapes during the contest, including fire, water, wind, a lion, a tiger, a snake and various other members of the animal kingdom. Peleus eventually triumphed, plans for the wedding proceeded, and invitations were sent out. It was a distinguished guest list, headed by the gods themselves. Unfortunately the goddess Eris, a name meaning ‘Strife’, was also present at the celebrations. According to a late tradition, she was not an invited guest but a gatecrasher, and either out of pique at being left off the official guest list, or simply because it was her nature to behave in this way, she sought to disrupt the festivities. With the object of provoking a squabble amongst the female guests, she threw into their midst a golden apple inscribed ‘To the Fairest’. Immediately, three goddesses stepped forward to claim the prize: Hera, wife of Zeus; Athena, goddess of war and wisdom (amongst other things); and Aphrodite, goddess of love.

To their credit, none of the trio wished to spoil the happy couple’s special day. They agreed to resolve the matter with a beauty contest–but at another time and in another place. Mount Ida in northwestern Anatolia and not far from Troy was chosen as the venue for the contest, and Alexander Paris, second son of the Trojan king Priam was appointed as its judge. Sadly, notions of fair play were not conspicuous amongst the goddesses’ qualities and, prior to the judging, each of them secretly approached Paris and attempted to suborn him: Hera promised him rule over all Asia and great wealth if he awarded the contest to her; Athena declared she would endow him with great wisdom and military prowess; Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. Paris found the third of these offers by far the most appealing (a typical example, some later Greek commentators would say, of Trojan decadence), and so he declared Aphrodite the winner.

The problem with Aphrodite’s offer was that the world’s most beautiful woman, Helen, was already married–to Menelaus, King of Sparta. But this, the goddess assured Paris, was a mere technicality and would prove no major obstacle. With her help and guidance, the Trojan prince secured an invitation to Sparta where he was regally entertained by Menelaus, and then repaid his host’s hospitality by seducing his wife and persuading her to elope with him back to Troy. That created a furore in the Greek world. Prior to her marriage, Helen had been courted by a number of royal suitors, including Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon. The suitors made a pact that irrespective of where Helen’s choice finally settled, the others would protect her for the rest of their lives. They were now honour-bound to seek her out and restore her to her home in Sparta, whether or not she had left it willingly in the first place. (There was a later tradition that she had been raped and forcibly abducted by Paris.) Hence the genesis of the Greek expedition against Troy.

Agamemnon, King of Mycenae and indisputably the most powerful Greek ruler of the time, sent out a call for support through the whole of Greece. Some 164 kingdoms and communities responded, and an armada of 1,186 ships was mustered under Agamemnon’s overall command. The assembly point for this vast fleet was the harbour of Aulis on the coast of Boeotia. But right from the outset there was a problem, for Agamemnon had provoked the wrath of the goddess Artemis, who becalmed the fleet and refused winds to take it to Troy until its commander had sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia. The sacrifice was duly carried out, and fresh winds carried the fleet across the wine-dark sea to Troy on Anatolia’s north-west coast. For Agamemnon there would be a day of reckoning for the killing of his daughter. But that was some years in the future.

The Greeks anchored their fleet in a large bay and set up their camp on the edge of the plain outside Troy’s massively fortified citadel. Thereupon began a ten-year investment of the city. It was punctuated by many sorties of Trojan warriors against the Greek besiegers and much waxing and waning of the military fortunes of both sides in the contests fought by the heroes on Troy’s increasingly blood-drenched plain. The Greeks’ repeated attempts to breach the city’s defences ended in failure until finally one of them, Odysseus, hit upon the ruse of the wooden horse, which he persuaded his comrades-in-arms to build. Upon completing it, they tricked the Trojans into thinking that they were abandoning the siege and returning to their own lands. The massive equine edifice which they were leaving behind was, they claimed, intended to expiate a crime they had committed in removing a sacred statue called the Palladium from the citadel of Troy. But instead of returning home, the Greeks merely withdrew their fleet to the nearby island of Tenedos, anchoring well out of sight of Troy.

The Trojans streamed forth onto the plain, and by one means or another were induced to drag the horse up into their citadel as a thank-offering to Athena, breaking down part of the fortifications to do so. Then they abandoned themselves to drunken revelry to celebrate their apparent victory. In the midst of the festivities, the Greeks who had been concealed in the horse’s belly quietly let themselves out through a trapdoor and lit pre-arranged signal fires to summon back the fleet. This was the last act in the saga. The Greek forces poured through the breach in the fortifications and created mayhem in the now defenceless city. All its inhabitants were slaughtered or taken prisoner for selling into slavery, and the city itself was plundered and put to the torch.

THE STORY OF THE ILIAD

So much for the tale of Troy, a tale forever associated with the name of one man above all others–an epic poet called Homer who lived on or close by Anatolia’s western coast, in the region called Ionia in the first millennium BC. The poetic narrative, which he composed and which we know as the Iliad, was first recited to audiences at the very dawn of Greek literature, probably in the second half of the eighth century BC. The Iliad is in fact our chief source for the most widely known narrative tradition in the whole of Western literature. From the time of its composition, it has served as a major source of inspiration for successive generations of artists, poets, playwrights, composers of operas and novelists, to say nothing of an ever-increasing cohort of film producers for both television and cinema.

Yet how much of all this can we really attribute to Homer? A great deal of the story we have outlined above makes no appearance at all in the Iliad, or at best is referred to only in passing. And far from covering the entire ten-year period of the war, the Iliad extends over no more than a few weeks–fifty-one days to be precise–at the very end of the war. Indeed, most of the account, from Books 2 to 22, is confined to just six days (four days of fighting separated by two days of truce). Occasionally the poet inserts references to earlier episodes, as far back as the seduction which sparked the whole thing off (though he mentions this only obliquely), and subsequently the mustering of the Greek fleet in preparation for the assault upon the seducer’s homeland. But these are mere passing reminders of the overall context in which the Iliad is set. What is more, Homer’s story stops short of the climactic event, the actual sack of Troy. To be sure, there are a number of times throughout the poem, especially as it approaches its end, when Troy’s destruction is clearly foreshadowed. We are left in no doubt that the city’s fate is irrevocably sealed. But the Iliad itself is not about the fall of Troy. And for that matter there is not even one mention, in almost 16,000 lines of verse, of what has long and widely been regarded as the war’s defining symbol–the Trojan horse.

The narrative of the poem arises out of a dispute that erupted between Agamemnon, Commander-in-Chief of the Greek forces, and Achilles, son of Peleus and Thetis. Of all the Greek heroes at Troy, Achilles is by far the most accomplished and the most feared by the Trojans. The cause of his dispute with Agamemnon seems on the surface a trivial one. During a raiding expedition, the Greeks have seized Chryseis, daughter of a priest of Apollo called Chryses, and have presented her to Agamemnon as his share of the spoils brought back from the raid. When Chryses approaches Agamemnon to buy back his daughter, the Greek commander rudely rejects him. Apollo is outraged and responds by inflicting a devastating plague upon the Greek camp. The plague rages unabated until the prophet Calchas informs an assembly of the Greek forces summoned by Achilles that the god’s anger will only be appeased if Agamemnon gives up his prize.

Grudgingly Agamemnon agrees and demands that Achilles’ favourite slave-girl Briseis, awarded to Achilles as a booty-prize, be surrendered to him by way of compensation. Achilles has no option but to hand her over, but he is furious at losing her to Agamemnon and promptly withdraws his services from the Greek forces, retires into his tent and refuses to take any further part in the action until his honour is satisfied. He also begs his mother Thetis to persuade Zeus (who owes her a favour) to turn the conflict the Trojans’ way so that his fellow Greeks will realize how essential he is to their victory and will make every effort to give him the satisfaction he demands. Zeus does as he is asked. Things go very badly for the Greeks. Under the leadership of King Priam’s eldest son, Hector, the Trojans drive the enemy back to their beached ships, repeatedly inflicting heavy casualties upon them. Desperate attempts are made to bring Achilles back into the battle line. To no avail. Agamemnon’s offers of rich gifts and even the offer of the hand of his daughter in marriage are spurned by the sulking hero. Patroclus too, Achilles’ closest and dearest companion, fails to make any significant impact on his friend, though Achilles relents so far as to allow Patroclus to lead his troops and wear his armour into battle.

Figure 1.1 Hector, son of Priam.

Ironically and tragically, this provides the catalyst for the return of Achilles. After inflicting much devastation on the Trojan ranks, Patroclus is finally brought down by Hector, with the assistance of Apollo, and killed and stripped of Achilles’ armour. In his grief and with his fury now directed against Hector, Achilles is reconciled with Agamemnon and returns to the fray, wearing a new set of armour wrought by the god Hephaestus. Many Trojans fall victim to Achilles, before the Greek superwarrior finally comes face to face with his arch-enemy Hector. Fate has decreed that Hector should die at Achilles’ hands, and so it comes to pass. After slaughtering the Trojan prince, Achilles ties his body to his chariot and drags it to his tent. He then turns his attention to the burial of his beloved Patroclus and organizes funeral games in his honour. Following these games, Achilles receives a visit from King Priam who begs for the return of his son’s body. Realizing that he himself must soon die and conscious that he too will leave behind a father who will grieve for him, Achilles takes pity on his aged adversary and hands back to him his son’s body. With the burial of Hector, the Iliad comes to an end. The fall of Troy is imminent. But it has yet to occur.

As the Iliad’s opening words make clear, the Wrath of Achilles is Homer’s major theme: ‘Sing, o goddess, of the wrath of Achilles, Peleus’ son’. Given the poem’s monumental length and relatively narrow compass, its author has much scope for presenting detailed pictures of the chief participants in the conflict; on the Greek side: Achilles, Agamemnon, Patroclus, the two Ajaxes, Diomedes; on the Trojan side: Hector, Priam, Paris, Aeneas, Sarpedon; as well as brief sketches of a host of minor participants.There is a particular focus on heroic behaviour in the face of death, on the question of how the hero so passionately devoted to life reacts to the certainty and often the imminence of his own death. This is a prospect of which Achilles is particularly conscious, given the sure knowledge that his life will, of his own choosing, be a short and glorious rather than a long and undistinguished one.

An eighth-century poet could draw on a vast store of oral tradition in composing an account of the Trojan War, and there must have been many bards in the Greek world at this time who preserved, presented and handed on stories that had arisen out of the tradition. Homer himself consciously sought to avoid yet another retelling of already widely known tales. The brief allusions he makes to the events that preceded and followed his narrative make quite clear that the prequels and sequels to his tale were firmly established in the repertoire of stories sung and recited to audiences in the early centuries of the first millennium.

THE EPIC CYCLE

Traces of this repertoire are preserved in fragmentary remains of a group of poems which post-date the Iliad’s composition (though some of them are mistakenly attributed to Homer in ancient sources) but are probably no later than the seventh or early sixth century. The group belonged to what is commonly referred to as the epic cycle, which dealt with the legendary wars fought against both Thebes and Troy. Those dealing with the former (considered the earlier) are now completely lost. Fragments of the latter have, however, survived, and include:

• the Cypria, a poem originally in eleven books, that begins with the lead-up to the war–including the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the beauty contest judged by Paris and the seduction of Helen–and then narrates the first part of the war, perhaps up to the point where the Iliad begins;
• the Little Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan horse and the breach of Troy’s defences by the Greeks;
• the Iliu Persis (‘Sack of Troy’) which tells of the Trojan priest Laocoon’s unheeded warnings to his fellow Trojans about the horse, and then describes the sack of the city by the Greeks and their departure after Troy’s fall;
• the Nostoi (‘Homecomings’) which narrates the journeys home by several of the Greek leaders, including Agamemnon and Menelaus, and what happens when they arrive there.

The various poems making up the epic cycle were eventually organized into a continuous narrative of myth and legend, seasoned here and there with a dash of genuine history, from the world’s beginning to the end of the heroic age. Undoubtedly they reflect surviving elements of the large body of folk tradition and oral narrative poetry in circulation in Homer’s own time and probably for many generations before it. From the remains of the epic cycle as well as from the Homeric compositions and other sources, we can reconstruct more or less completely the Trojan War tradition as represented in Greek and Roman art and literature from its alleged first causes, through the various stages of the conflict itself, to the subsequent travels and homecomings of several of its main participants. The post-war adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus as told in the Odyssey, the second great epic attributed to Homer, belong to this last category. So too does the homecoming of the ill-fated Agamemnon, whose assassination by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus furnished Greek art and literature with one of its favourite themes.

All this serves to emphasize how highly selective Homer was in his treatment of the tradition. One might have supposed that in limiting his narrative to the very last days of an alleged ten-year conflict, the Greek poet’s intention was to focus specifically on the conflict’s final stage–the triumph of the Greek forces and the destruction of Troy. After all, was not Homer a Greek poet singing his tale to a Greek audience, whose ancestors were the sworn enemies of Troy? For such an audience would not the destruction of Troy have been a fitting climax to the poet’s story? Yet Homer stops short of the expected climax. Though Achilles has triumphed over his arch-enemy, and Troy’s fall is now imminent, the poem does not describe its fall. In fact it ends on a sad and solemn note. After venting his rage for a time on Hector’s corpse, Achilles’ wrath fades. Aware that he too must soon die, aware that his father, like Hector’s father, will be consumed with grief at his death, his wrath gives way to pity for the aged Priam who has come to him to beg for the return of Hector’s body. Achilles agrees, and with this gesture the poem draws to a close: ‘Thus they went about the burial of Hector, tamer of horses.’ Artistically, this is an appropriate ending. We have come full circle. The poem begins with an act of pitilessness: a king, Agamemnon, rejects the plea of an old man, Chryses, for the return of his daughter. It is this which sets in motion the sequence of events that leads ultimately to the final contest between the story’s protagonists: Greek Achilles and Trojan Hector. The poem ends with an act of pity: the victor, Achilles, accedes to the plea of an old man, Priam, for the return of his son, in this case for burial.

Was this really the ending that the poet’s audience would have expected, or appreciated? That raises the question of who Homer’s audience was. Which also raises the question of who Homer himself was.

THE COMPOSER AND THE COMPOSITION

To deal with the second question first, the most widely held view is that our poet lived in the eighth or early seventh century, on or near Asia Minor’s western coast in the region first settled by Ionian Greek colonists in the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC. The island of Chios and the city of Smyrna (modern Izmir) are favoured locations for his birthplace. (They are in fact only two of the seven places proposed by the ancient Greeks themselves.¹) But scholarly conclusions about this are purely assumption and inference, based on a range of climatological, topographical, linguistic and chronological considerations. The oft-quoted Homeric simile that refers to storm winds blowing in a southerly and easterly direction across the Aegean Sea from Thrace, the poet’s apparently first-hand knowledge of western Anatolia’s coastal fringe, especially around Miletus and the Troad region in the north-west, and the predominantly Ionic dialect of the epic compositions are held to be significant pointers to Homer’s place of origin. Further, what appear to be contemporary allusions within the poems suggest a date of composition no earlier than the second half of the eighth century and no later than the first decades of the seventh.²

But none of this tells us anything about the poet himself. There is just one possible piece of personal information about him: he was allegedly b...

Indice dei contenuti

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• MAPS AND FIGURES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1: THE POET AND THE TRADITION
• 2: THE EARLY CITIES OF TROY (LEVELS I TO V)
• 3: THE KINGDOM OF PRIAM (LEVELS VI TO VII)
• 4: THE AEGEAN NEIGHBOURS
• 5: TROY’S ROLE AND STATUS IN THE NEAR EASTERN WORLD
• 6: TROY’S ALLIES
• 7: THE NEW CITY (LEVELS VIII TO IX)
• 8: THE FINAL WORD?
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY