The war for Troy and the Trojan horse

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The organization of the Greek army was different from that of the Trojans; Troy was a great city led by a powerful king and helped in war by various independent allies. We have already seen that Helen's suitors had sworn to help Menelaus if he called for their help, and they assembled for war under the leadership of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. While Agamemnon's position as leader was unquestioned, each of the Greek princes led his contingent independently and could at any time withdraw, as Achilles did. Agamemnon was without doubt the "lord of men," greatest in prestige among the Greeks, although not the greatest warrior nor the wisest in council.

Three other princes from the Peloponnese were prominent; these were Menelaus, king of Sparta, Diomedes, king of Argos, and Nestor, king of Pylos. We have already seen how involved Menelaus was in the origin of the war; he does not play a very distinguished part in the war, his finest hour being the single combat against his archenemy, Paris; he had Paris at his mercy, but was thwarted by Aphrodite in his attempts to kill him. Diomedes was a much greater warrior and wiser in council; he was the son of Tydeus and second only to Agamemnon in power and prestige. He was a favorite of Athena and with her help could oppose even the gods in battle-he wounded both Ares and Aphrodite. He was especially associated with Odysseus; with him he had fetched Achilles from Scyros, and later was to fetch Philoctetes from Lemnos.

He was his companion in the night patrol, where Dolon and Rhesus were killed, and in the theft of the Palladium from Troy. His meeting with Glaucus has already been described; his adventures after the war will be discussed later. Nestor, son of Neleus, was the oldest of the Greek leaders; his experience as a child had been similar to that of Priam, for he had become king of Pylos after Heracles had sacked the city and killed Neleus and all his sons except Nestor. At Troy he is among the most respected counselors; his speeches, full of reminiscences, contrast with the impetuosity of the younger princes. He h i ~ s e lsfu rvived the war, although his son, Antilochus, was killed by Memnon; strangely enough, for one who was already seventy when the war began, there is no tradition of his death. The leading princes from central Greece and the islands were Odysseus, the two Ajaxes, Idomeneus, and Achilles. Although the contingents supplied by Odysseus, prince of Ithaca, and Ajax, prince of Salamis, were among the smallest (only twelve ships each), their personal prowess gave them preeminent distinction; Ajax, son of Telamon, was second only to Achilles as a warrior, while Odysseus was the craftiest and wisest of all, as well as a brave fighter. We have seen already that he was involved in a number of missions requiring resourcefulness and courage; his adventures after the fall of Troy are virtually a separate saga.

Ajax the Less (as Homer calls him) and Idomeneus figure prominently in the fighting; each is the leader of a large contingent and therefore important among the leaders. Ajax, prince of the Locrians and son of Oileus, is a less attractive character than his namesake; his sacrilegious violation of Cassandra during the sack led to his death on the voyage back to Greece. Idomeneus, son of Deucalion and leader of the Cretans, stood in a different relationship to Agamemnon from most of the other leaders in that he came as a voluntary ally rather than in any way as owing service. He had long been a friend of Menelaus, and Agamemnon showed him great respect. Good as he was as fighter and counselor at Troy, his legend is chiefly concerned with his return. Greatest of the champions on either side was Achilles, whose early life we have already discussed. He was the strongest and swiftest of the Greeks, the greatest fighter on either side, and a man of enormous passions, the embodiment of heroic arete (virtue). Important in the concept of arete is one's standing in the eyes of others, which is gained not only by words and deeds, but also by gifts and spoils relative to those of others. Therefore Achilles' honor was slighted when Agamemnon took away Briseis, and he had good cause to withdraw from the fighting, even though the Greeks suffered terribly as a result. On the same principle, however, Achilles should have relented when Agamemnon offered to restore Briseis with many valuable gifts, and it is a measure of his passionate nature that he refused the offer, which was made in the ninth book of the Iliad by three envoys, Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax, son of Telamon.

As Ajax says (Iliad 9. 628-38): "Achilles has made savage the proud spirit within his breast. Obdurate, he does not care for the love of his friends, with which we honored him above all men beside the ships, unpitying as he is. Yet others have accepted payment for the death of a brother or a son . . . but the gods have put in your breast a spirit unforgiving and harsh, because of one girl." Without Achilles, the Greeks were driven back by the Trojans until Hector began to set fire to the ships. All this was done, says Homer, in fulfillment of the will of Zeus (Iliad 1. 5), for Zeus had agreed to honor Achilles in this way after Thetis had prayed to him to avenge the insult done to Achilles by Agamemnon. Thetis is a sea-goddess, the wife of Peleus, and the mother of Achilles. In the Iliad she comforts her son at the times of his greatest distress (after the seizing of Briseis and after the death of Patroclus). She intercedes with Zeus on Achilles' behalf, as we have seen, and with Hephaestus, to persuade him to make a new set of divine armor for her son. She advises Achilles to give up his anger against Agamemnon. Finally, Zeus sends her to persuade Achilles to give up the corpse of Hector for ransom. Yet with all this divine intervention Achilles is the supreme Greek hero, a mortal man. He allowed Patroclus to take his armor and fight Hector and the Trojans. For a while Patroclus carried all before him, even killing a son of Zeus, Sarpedon; but in the end he was killed by Hector, with the aid of Apollo. This is the turning point of the Iliad.

Grief over the death of Patroclus drove Achilles to end his quarrel with Agamemnon and to return to the fighting with one goal, to kill Hector. So Briseis was returned with costly gifts, and Thetis brought the new armor, made by Hephaestus, to her son. Homer describes the shield of Achilles in detail, with its portrayal of the human world-cities at war and at peace, scenes of farming and other peaceful activities (a lawsuit, for example, marriage, dancing, and music), in contrast to the actual fighting around the ships in which Achilles is shortly to engage. Meanwhile Hector has spoiled Patroclus' corpse of the armor of Achilles, which he put on. As he changes his armor, Zeus watches and foretells his doom (Iliad 17. 194-208): He put on the immortal armor of Achilles, son of Peleus, which the gods had given to his father and he in turn in his old age gave to Achilles, his son. But the son did not grow old in the armor. And when Zeus the cloud-gatherer saw Hector from afar arming himself with the arms of the godlike son of Peleus, he moved his head and spoke to his own heart: "Ah, wretched man! You do not now think of death that will come close to you. You are putting on the immortal arms of the best of men, before whom others also tremble. That man's friend you have killed, gentle and strong, and you have taken the arms from his head and shoulders, as you should not have done. For now I will give you great strength. In return, Andromache will never take the noble arms of the son of Peleus from you when you return from battle." Achilles returned to the battle and drove the Trojans back to the city, in his rage fighting even the river-god Scamander and filling the river with Trojan corpses. Eventually the Trojans were driven into the city, and only Hector remained outside the wall. The single combat between Hector and Achilles is the climax of the Iliad.

Hector is chased by Achilles three times around the walls, "as in a dream the pursuer cannot catch him who is running away, nor can he who runs escape nor the other catch him" (Iliad 22. 199-200). Finally Zeus agrees to the death of Hector (Iliad 22. 209-13): Then indeed the Father held up the golden scales, and in them he put two lots of grievous death, the one for Achilles, and the other for Hector, tamer of horses, and he held the scales by the middle. And the fatal day of Hector sank down toward the house of Hades. Then Phoebus Apollo left Hector, and Athena, the grey-eyed goddess, came to the son of Peleus. Deserted by the gods and deceived by Athena, Hector was killed by Achilles, who refused to show any mercy and dragged the corpse back to his hut behind his chariot. Next Achilles celebrated the funeral of Patroclus, on whose pyre he sacrificed twelve Trojan prisoners. The corpse of Patroclus had been recovered by Ajax (son of Telamon) in the battle after the hero's death. Achilles also held athletic games in honor of Patroclus, at which he presided and gave valuable prizes for the winners. Yet his anger against Hector was still unassuaged, and daily for twelve days he dragged Hector's body round the city behind his chariot. Only when Thetis brought him the message of Zeus was Achilles ready to relent. Priam himself, helped by Hermes, came to Achilles' hut and ransomed the corpse of his son. The scene where the old man kneels before the killer of so many of his sons is one of the most moving of all Greek saga (Iliad 24. 477-84): Great Priam entered unseen by Achilles' companions, and stood near Achilles. With his hands he took hold of Achilles' knees and kissed his hands, hands terrible and man-killing, which had killed many of Priam's sons. Achilles was full of wonder as he looked at godlike Priam, and the others also wondered and they looked at each other. So Priam ransomed Hector and returned to Troy with the corpse. The Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector.

Yet Achilles is not only subject to the violent passions of anger, shame, and grief. Alone of the Greek heroes he sees clearly the fate that soon will overtake him: to Odysseus' speech in the embassy he replies (Iliad 9. 410-16): "My mother, Thetis of the silver feet, has told me that two fates are carrying me to the goal of my death. If I stay here and fight before the city of the Trojans, then I lose my homecoming, but my glory will never fade. But if I return home to my own dear land, then gone is my noble glory, and my life will be long." The character of Achilles is perfectly expressed in these words. When his horse, Xanthus, prophesies his death (Iliad 19. 404-17), Achilles replies: "Well do I know that my destiny is to die here, far from my dear father and mother. Even so, I shall keep on. I shall not stop until I have harried the Trojans enough with my warfare." Again, when the dying Hector foretells Achilles' death, Achilles knows and accepts his fate. Nor is Achilles always violent. At the funeral games for Patroclus he presides with princely dignity and even makes peace between the hot-tempered competitors. We have also seen how he gave up his anger against Hector and treated Priam with dignity and generosity. Achilles is a splendid and complex hero, incomparably the greatest figure in the Trojan saga. The brilliance of the Iliad makes the rest of the saga of the Trojan War pale by comparison. Episodes are recorded in summaries of lost epics, in drama, and in many Greek vase-paintings, so that we can tell the story of the rest of the war. After the funeral of Hector the fighting resumed, and Achilles killed the leaders of two contingents that came from the ends of the earth to help the Trojans. From the north came the Amazons-the legendary warrior women-led by Penthesilea; Achilles killed her, yet mourned over her beauty, and killed a Greek, Thersites, who taunted him for this. For this murder Achilles had to withdraw for a time to Lesbos, where he was purified by Odysseus.

The second foreign contingent to come to Troy was that of the Ethiopians, from the south; they were led by Memnon, son of Eos (Aurora), goddess of the dawn, and of Tithonus (a brother of Priam); after Memnon's death, his followers were turned into birds that fought around his' tomb. Achilles did not long survive these victories. As he pursued the Trojans toward the city he was fatally wounded in the heel by an arrow shot by Paris with the help of Apollo; after a fierce fight his corpse was recovered by Ajax, son of Telamon, and buried at Sigeum, the promontory near Troy. The funeral was a magnificent affair, and among the mourners were Thetis herself and the seanymphs; in one version she is said to have removed the corpse to the island of Leuce (in the Black Sea) where she restored it to life and immortality, but Homer sends Achilles to the Underworld, where his ghost later met Odysseus and complained bitterly of his fate. Achilles' death had two direct consequences; his armor was claimed by both Odysseus and Ajax, son of Telamon, as being the leading warriors surviving on the Greek side. Each made a speech before an assembly of the Greeks, presided over by Athena; Trojan prisoners gave evidence that Odysseus had done them more harm than Ajax, and as a result the arms were awarded to Odysseus. The disgrace of losing sent A J ~ Xma d; he slaughtered a flock of sheep (which he believed were his enemies) and on becoming sane again killed himself for shame by falling on his sword. From his blood sprang a flower (perhaps a type of hyacinth) with the initials of his name (AI-AI) on its petals. This legend is the subject of Sophocles' tragedy Ajax, and it is told at length by Ovid, who describes its end as follows (Metamorphoses 13. 382-98): The Greek leaders were impressed [i.e., by the two speeches], and the power of eloquence was made clear in the consequences. The eloquent man took away the armor of the brave warrior. [Ajax], who alone so many times had resisted Hector, who had opposed iron missiles, and fire, and the will of Jupiter, could not resist one thing, anger. Shame conquered the unconquered hero. He seized the sword and …… thrust the lethal blade into his breast, never before wounded….The ground reddened with his blood and put forth a purple flower from the green grass, the flower which earlier bad sprung from the wound of Hyacinthus. The same letters were written on the petals for hero and youth-for the one signifying his name, for the other the mourning cry. A second legend consequent on the death of Achilles concerns the sacrifice of Polyxena, which has already been mentioned.

THE FALL OF TROY

After Achilles' death Odysseus took Helenus prisoner; he told the Greeks of a number of conditions that must be fulfilled before they could capture the city. Among these was the summoning of two absent heroes, Neoptolemus and Philoctetes. We have already discussed Philoctetes' part in the war; Neoptolemus killed Priam during the sack of Troy and his share of the spoil included Andromache, Hector's widow, with whom he went after the war to Epirus in northwestern Greece. The Greeks finally took the city by craft; one of them, Epeus, built an enormous hollow wooden horse, in which the leading warriors were concealed.  The horse was then left outside the city walls, while the other Greeks sailed off to the island of Tenedos, leaving behind one man, Sinon. The Trojans, thinking that their troubles were over, came out of the city and captured Sinon; he pretended that he was the bitter enemy of Odysseus and the other Greeks and told the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athena, purposely made too big to pass through the city walls; if it was brought inside, the city would never be captured. Not all the Trojans believed him;

Cassandra, the prophetic daughter of Priam, foretold the truth, and Laocoon, son of Antenor and priest of Apollo, hurled his spear into the horse's flank and said that it should be destroyed. Yet the Trojans ignored Cassandra and did not hear the clash of armor as Laocoon's spear struck the horse. Their judgment appeared to be vindicated when two huge serpents swam over the sea from Tenedos, while Laocoon was sacrificing to Apollo, and throttled him and his two sons. The Trojans pulled down part of the. city walls and dragged the horse in; Helen walked round it calling to the Greek leaders, imitating the voice of each one's wife, but they were restrained from answering by Odysseus. So the horse achieved its purpose; that night, as the Trojans slept after celebrating the end of the war, Sinon opened the horse and released the Greeks. The other Greeks sailed back from Tenedos and were let into the city; the Trojans were put to the sword and the city burned. Antenor was spared, and of the other Trojan leaders only Aeneas escaped, along with his son, Ascanius, and his father, Anchises. Priam and the others were killed; Hector's infant son, Astyanax, was thrown from the walls, and his widow, Andromache, along with Hecuba and the other Trojan women, were made slaves of the Greek leaders. Cassandra became the slave and concubine of Agamemnon and was taken by him back to Mycenae, where she was murdered with him by Clytemnestra. In Aeschylus' play Agamemnon, she foresees her own death in a moving and famous scene; yet her audience, the Chorus in the play, do not believe her. The curse of Apollo remained with her to the end.

The principal source for the fall of Troy is the second book of Vergil's Aeneid, in which Aeneas is the narrator. The story is therefore told from the Trojan point of view. In Euripides' play the Trojan Women, the results of the fall are seen through the eyes of Hecuba, Cassandra, and Andromache, and the death of Astyanax is a central part of the action. These works are dramatic and intense, and it is hard to take excerpts from them to illustrate the events to which we have referred in the brief summary given here. In the Trojan Women (515-40), the chorus of Trojan captives recalls the entry of the wooden horse: Now I shall sing of Troy, how I was destroyed by the four-wheeled contrivance of the Greeks and made their prisoner, when they left the horse at the gates, echoing to the skies with the clash of armor and caparisoned with gold.. And the Trojan people shouted as it stood on the rock of Troy: "Come, the labor of war is over! Bring in this wooden horse as a holy offering to the daughter of Zeus, guardian of Troy!'' Who of the young women did not go, who of the old men stayed at home? Charmed by music, they took hold of the treacherous means of their destruction. All the Phrygian people gathered at the gates . . . and with ropes of flax they dragged it, like the dark hull of a ship, to the stone temple's floor, bringing death to their city-the temple of the goddess Pallas. Euripides goes on to describe the feasting and joy of the Trojans that night, and the horrors of the sack that followed. Perhaps Vergil, however, has best caught the horror of the sack and the end of a city deserted by its divine protectors in Aeneas' vision at the climactic moment of the sack, as his mother, Venus, allows him a moment of divine insight (Aeneid 2. 602-03, 610-25): [Aeneas recalls the words of Venus:] "It is the pitiless gods, the gods who are destroying the wealth of Troy and laying the city low from top to bottom. Look-for I will remove the cloud that now dulls your mortal sight. . . . Here, where you see the shattered towers and huge stones tom up, where dust and smoke are billowing, Neptune is convulsing the walls, shaking the foundations with his trident as he uproots the city. Here Juno, most cruel, leads the others in seizing the Scaean gates: raging and clad in iron armor she calls the Greeks from the ships. Look over here-even now Tritonian Pallas has taken up her place upon the height of Troy's citadel: see how she is lit with the lurid storm-cloud and the ferocious Gorgon! The Father of the gods himself renews the courage and violence of the Greeks, himself he urges them on to fight. . . ." I saw the fatal vision and the mighty power of the gods, hostile to Troy.

Then, indeed, I saw all Ilium collapse into the flames and Troy, built by Neptune, overturned from its foundations. Yet Aeneas escaped, taking with him his father, Anchises (who carried the images of the city's gods in his hands), and Ascanius (also called Iulus), his son. His wife, Creusa, started with him and was lost to Aeneas7 sight. Only her ghost appeared to him, foretelling his destiny and encouraging him to travel to a new world. The scene of Aeneas leaving Troy is heavy with symbolism, and it is with hope for the future that Aeneas, burdened with the past, leaves the doomed city (Aeneid 2. 707-11, 721-25): "Then come, dear father, sit on my shoulders; I will carry you, the load will not weigh me down. Whatever chance may fall, we will share a common danger and a common salvation. Let little Iulus walk beside me and let my wife follow."….. With these words I spread a cloak and the skin of a tawny lion across my shoulders and neck and lifted the burden. Little Iulus took my right hand and, hardly able to keep up, walked beside his father.