Chapter Nineteen Lecture One The Trojan War
The Trojan War
• A great legendary event about which many stories are told
• Set in about 1200 BC
• The two great stories, among others, are The Iliad and The Odyssey
• The Iliad, the first we’ll read, is not about the Trojan War, but about something that happens during it
The Myths of the Trojan War
• The causes of the war and aftermath are elaborated in the Epic Cycles (epitomes)
• These are attached to legends of different areas of Greece, particularly that of the area known as the Argolid and Elis
Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia
• Elis• Oenomaüs• Hippodamia• Either . . . a premonition that his son-in-law
would kill him• or passion for Hippodamia
Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia
• Set up a race that no one could win
• His horses were sired by the wind
• Losers were decapitated
• The hero Pelops of Lydia hears of the contest and determines to enter
Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia
• Son of the evil Tantalus, king of Lydia – in Asia Minor.
• Tantalus was impious toward the gods, with whom he used to associate
• Tried to feed them his own son, Pelops
Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia
• The gods, except Demeter, detected the “trick” and punished Tantalus
• “tantalize”
• Demeter ate part of Pelop’s shoulder – Hephaestus made a replacement of ivory
Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia
• Poseidon gives Pelops horses that can never tire
• Pelops also bribes Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaüs to sabotage the king’s chariot– the first night with Hippodameia
• But Pelops reneges and kills Myrtilus when he tries force
Pelops, Oenomaüs, and Hippodamia
• Myrtilus's dying curse
• Pelops becomes king in Pisa and lives happily with Hippodameia . . . but the curse will follow his family
• Much later . . .
The Banquet of Thyestes
• An oracle requires that the next king of Mycenae be a descendant of Pelops
• The two available were Atreus and Thyestes
• To decide which, Thyestes proposed a test
The Banquet of Thyestes
• Thyestes: “whoever could produce a golden fleece” to prove the gods were with him
• Atreus agreed, for he knew he had a golden fleece
• But his wife, Aëropê, had been having an affair with Thyestes and smuggled the fleece to him
The Rising Sun
• Atreus was wroth and proposed another test – whoever could make the sun rise in the west and set in the east
• Thyestes agreed, and when Zeus made it happen, Thyestes withdrew his claim, and Atreus became king in Mycenae
In Mycenae
• Atreus is king
• But he is angry with his bother, Thyestes, because he had had an affair with his wife
The Banquet of Thyestes
• Atreus invites him and his children to a banquet to bury the hatchet
• Serves him his own children – the Feast of Thyestes
• Thyestes curses Atreus
The Banquet of Thyestes
• Delphi tells him he must have a son with his daughter, Pelopeia, who will avenge him
• But Pelopia’s whereabouts is not known
• By chance, he rapes a girl in the woods near Sicyon, who turns out to be Pelopia
The Banquet of Thyestes
• He accidentally left his sword behind and Pelopia keeps it
• Meanwhile, Atreus is again hunting for Thyestes
• In his search, he goes to Sicyon, sees, falls in love with and marries Pelopia
The Banquet of Thyestes
• Pelopia soon has a son – Thyestes’s son – and Atreus, thinking it is his own son, names him Aegisthus
• Later, Atreus’s real sons, Agamemnon and Menelaüs, are still looking for Thyestes; they find him at Delphi
• He’s brought back to Mycenae
The Banquet of Thyestes
• Atreus orders Aegisthus to go into the prison and kill Thyestes
• He gives him the sword that Pelopia had kept from the day of the rape
• Thyestes recognizes the sword as his own – Pelopia confirms the fact that Thyestes is Aegisthus’s true father
The Banquet of Thyestes
• Horrified by what has happened, Pelopia kills herself with the sword
• Aegithus takes the bloody sword to Atreus and kills him with it.
• Thyestes becomes king in Mycenae
• Agamemnon and Menelaüs flee to Sparta, where Tyndareüs was king
The House of Tyndareüs
• Leda: Wife of the King of Sparta
• Children of Zeus– Clytemnestra– Castor– Pollux (Polydeuces)– Helen
Oath of Tyndareus
• The heroes:–Odysseus, Diomedes, Ajax, Philoctetes,
Patroclus, Menelaus
• The Oath (concocted by Odysseus)• Helen of Troy• Menelaus wins her hand• Agamemnon marries Clytemnestra
Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
• Meanwhile, Peleus, an exiled son of Aeacus, the king of Aegina, is living in Phthia (in Thessaly)
Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
• Peleus, one day, saw and captured the nymph Thetis– the one from whom Prometheus told Zeus
a son greater than the father would be born.
• Zeus requires her to marry him
The Judgment of Paris
• All the gods and goddesses are invited, except for Eris
• She rolls in the golden apple, engraved “for the fairest”
• Zeus declines to decide who among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite is the fairest
• Paris chooses Aphrodite and “gets” Helen . . .