She is the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
The epithet Aphrodite Acidalia was occasionally added to her name, after the spring she used to bathe in, located in Boeotia (Virgil I, 720).
She was also called Kypris or Cytherea after her alleged birth-places in Cyprus and Cythera, respectively.
The island of Cythera was a center of her cult. She was associated with Hesperia and frequently accompanied by the Oreads, nymphs of the mountains.
Aphrodite had a festival of her own, Aphrodisiac, which was celebrated all over Greece but particularly in Athens and Corinth. In Corinth, intercourse with her priestesses was considered a method of worshipping Aphrodite.
Aphrodite was associated with, and often depicted with dolphins, doves, swans, pomegranates and lime trees.
Her Roman analogue is Venus. Her Mesopotamian counterpart was Ishtar and her Syro-Palestinian counterpart was ‘Ashtart (in standard Greek spelling Astarte); her Etruscan equivalent was Turan.
Venus was often referred to with epithet Venus Erycina ("of the heather") after Mt. Eryx, Sicily, one of the centers of her cult.
Birth
Aphrodite rising from the sea foam in birth, crowned with luxuriant tresses, as depicted in the 19th century by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in his 1879 Birth of Venus (the Roman name for Aphrodite)."Foam-arisen" Aphrodite was born of the sea foam near Paphos, Cyprus after Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and the elder god's blood and semen dropped on the sea, where they began to foam. Aphrodite was born fully grown out of the foam. Thus Aphrodite is of an older generation than Zeus. Iliad (Book V) expresses another version of her origin, by which she was considered a daughter of Dione, who was the original oracular goddess ("Dione" being simply "the goddess," etymologically an equivalent of "Diana") at Dodona. In Homer, Aphrodite, venturing into battle to protect her favorite Aeneas, has been wounded by Diomedes and returns to her mother, to sink down at her knee and be comforted. "Dione" seems to be an equivalent of Rhea, the Earth Mother, whom Homer has relocated to Olympus. After this story, Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dione". Once Zeus had usurped the oak-grove oracle at Dodona, some poets made him out to be the father of Aphrodite.
Aphrodite's chief center of worship remained at Paphos, on the south-western coast of Cyprus, where the goddess of desire had long been worshipped as Ishtar and Ashtaroth. It is said that she first tentatively came ashore at Cytherea, a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus. Thus perhaps we have hints of the track of Aphrodite's original cult from the Levant to mainland Greece.
Plato considered that Aphrodite had two manifestations, reflecting both stories, Aphrodite Ourania ("heavenly" Aphrodite), and Aphrodite Pandemos ("Common" Aphrodite). According to Plato these two manifestations represented her role in homosexuality and heterosexuality, respectively (homosexuality being more divine for Plato).
Alternatively, Aphrodite was a daughter of Thalassa (for she was born of the Sea) and Zeus.
Adulthood
Aphrodite, in many of the myths involving her, is characterized as vain, ill-tempered and easily offended. Though she is one of the few gods of the Greek Pantheon to be actually married, she is frequently unfaithful to her husband. Hephaestus, of course, is one of the most even-tempered of the Hellenic deities; Aphrodite seems to prefer Ares, the volatile god of war. In Homer's Iliad she surges into battle to save her son, but abandons him (in fact, drops him as she flies through the air) when she herself is hurt (Ares does much the same thing). And she is the original cause of the Trojan War itself: not only did she start the whole affair by offering Helen of Troy to Paris, but the abduction was accomplished when Paris, seeing Helen for the first time, was inflamed with desire to have her—which is Aphrodite's realm. Her domain may involve love, but it does not involve romance; rather, it tends more towards lust, the human irrational longing.
Marriage with Hephaestus
Due to her immense beauty, Zeus was frightened she would be the cause of violence between the other gods. He married her off to Hephaestus, the dour, humorless god of smithing. Hephaestus was overjoyed at being married to the goddess of beauty and forged her beautiful jewellery, including the cestus, a girdle that made her even more irresistible to men. Her unhappiness with her marriage caused Aphrodite to seek out companionship from others, most frequently Ares, but also Adonis, Anchises and more. Hephaestus once cleverly caught Ares and Aphrodite in bed with a net, and brought all the other Olympian gods together to mock them. Hephaestus would not free them until they promised to end their affair, but both escaped as soon as the net was lifted and their promise was not kept.
Aphrodite and Psyche
Aphrodite was jealous of the beauty of a mortal woman named Psyche. She asked Eros to use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man on earth. Eros agreed but then fell in love with Psyche on his own, or by accidentally pricking himself with a golden arrow. Meanwhile, Psyche's parents were anxious that their daughter remained unmarried. They consulted an oracle who told them she was destined for no mortal lover, but a monster who lived on top of a particular mountain. Psyche was resigned to her fate and climbed to the top of the mountain. There, Zephyrus, the west wind, gently floated her downwards. She entered a cave on the appointed mountain, surprised to find it full of jewellery and finery. Eros visited her every night in the cave and they made love; he demanded only that she never light any lamps because he did not want her to know who he was (having wings made him distinctive). Her two sisters, jealous of Psyche, convinced her to do so one night and she lit a lamp, recognizing him instantly. A drop of hot lamp oil fell on Eros' chest and he awoke, then fled.
When Psyche told her two jealous elder sisters what had happened; they rejoiced secretly and each separately walked to the top of the mountain and did as Psyche described her entry to the cave, hoping Eros would pick them instead. Zephyrus did not pick them and they fell to their deaths at the base of the mountain.
Psyche searched for her lover across much of Greece, finally stumbling into a temple to Demeter, where the floor was covered with piles of mixed grains. She started sorting the grains into organized piles and, when she finished, Demeter spoke to her, telling her that the best way to find Eros was to find his mother, Aphrodite, and earn her blessing. Psyche found a temple to Aphrodite and entered it. Aphrodite assigned her a similar task to Demeter's temple, but gave her an impossible deadline to finish it by. Eros intervened, for he still loved her, and caused some ants to organize the grains for her. Aphrodite was outraged at her success and told her to go to a field where golden sheep grazed and get some golden wool. Psyche went to the field and saw the sheep but was stopped by a river-god, whose river she had to cross to enter the field.
He told her the sheep were mean and vicious and would kill her, but if she waited until noontime, the sheep would go the shade on the other side of the field and sleep; she could pick the wool that stuck to the branches and bark of the trees.
Psyche did so and Aphrodite was even more outraged at her survival and success. Finally, Aphrodite claimed that the stress of caring for her son, depressed and ill as a result of Psyche's unfaithfulness, had caused her to lose some of her beauty. Psyche was to go to Hades and ask Persephone, the queen of the underworld, for a bit of her beauty in a black box that Aphrodite gave to Psyche. Psyche walked to a tower, deciding that the quickest way to the underworld would be to die.
A voice stopped her at the last moment and told her a route that would allow her to enter and return still living, as well as telling her how to pass Cerberus, Charon and the other dangers of the route. She pacified Cerberus, the three-headed dog, with a sweet honey-cake and paid Charon an obolus to take her into Hades. Once there, Persephone offered her a feast but Psyche refused, knowing it would keep her in the underworld forever.
Psyche left the underworld and decided to open the box and take a little bit of the beauty for herself. Inside was a "Stygian sleep" which overtook her. Eros, who had forgiven her, flew to her body and healed her, then begged Zeus and Aphrodite for their consent to his wedding of Psyche. They agreed and Zeus made her immortal. Aphrodite danced at the wedding of Eros and Psyche and their subsequent child was named (in the Roman mythology) Volupta.
Adonis
Aphrodite was Adonis' lover and had a part in his birth. She urged Myrrha or Smyrna to commit incest with her father, Theias, the King of Assyria. Another version says Myrrha's father was Cinyras of Cyprus. Myrrha's nurse helped with the scheme. When Theias discovered this, he flew into a rage, chasing his daughter with a knife. The gods turned her into a myrrh tree and Adonis eventually sprang from this tree. Alternatively, Aphrodite turned her into a tree and Adonis was born when Theias shot the tree with an arrow or when a boar used its tusks to tear the tree's bark off.
Once Adonis was born, Aphrodite took him under her wing, seducing him with the help of Helene, her friend, and was entranced by his unearthly beauty. She gave him to Persephone to watch over, but Persephone was also amazed at his beauty and refused to give him back. The argument between the two goddesses was settled either by Zeus or Calliope, with Adonis spending four months with Aphrodite, four months with Persephone and four months of the years with whomever he chose. He always chose Aphrodite because Persephone was the cold, unfeeling goddess of the underworld.
Adonis was eventually killed by a jealous Ares. Aphrodite was warned of this jealousy and was told that Adonis would be killed by a bull that Ares transformed into. She tried to persuade Adonis to stay with her at all times, but his love of hunting was his downfall. While Adonis was hunting, Ares found him and gored him to death. Aphrodite arrived just in time to hear his last breath.
The Judgement of Paris
The gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles). Only the goddess Eris (Discord) was not invited, but she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the words "to the most beautiful," which she threw among the goddesses. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed the apple, and the matter was put before Paris, the most handsome mortal. Hera tried to bribe Paris with an earthly kingdom, while Athena offered great military skill, but Aphrodite was judged most beautiful when she offered Paris the most beautiful mortal woman as a wife. This woman was Helen, and her abduction by Paris led to the Trojan War.
Pygmalion and Galatea
Pygmalion was a sculptor who had never found a woman worthy of his love. Aphrodite took pity on him and decided to show him the wonders of love. One day, Pygmalion was inspired by a dream of Aphrodite to make a woman out of ivory resembling her image, and he called her Galatea. He fell in love with the statue and decided he could not live without her. He prayed to Aphrodite, who carried out the final phase of her plan and brought the exquisite sculpture to life. Pygmalion loved Galatea and they were soon married.
Other Stories
In one version of the story of Hippolytus, Aphrodite was the catalyst for his death. He scorned the worship of Aphrodite for Artemis and, in revenge, Aphrodite caused his step-mother, Phaedra, to fall in love with him, knowing Hippolytus would reject her. In the most popular version of the story, Phaedra seeks revenge against Hippolytus by killing herself and, in her suicide note, telling Theseus, her husband and Hippolytus' father, that Hippolytus had raped her. Theseus then murdered his own son before Artemis told him the truth.
King Glaucus of Corinth angered Aphrodite and she made her horses angry during the funeral games of King Pelias. They tore him apart. His ghost supposedly frightened horses during the Isthmian Games.
Aphrodite was often accompanied by the Charites.
In book III of Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite saves Paris when he is about to be killed by Menelaos.
Aphrodite was very protective of her son, Aeneas, who fought in the Trojan War. Diomedes almost killed Aeneas in battle but Aphrodite saved him. Diomedes wounded Aphrodite and she dropped her son, fleeing to Mt. Olympus. Aeneas was then enveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who took him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy. Artemis healed Aeneas there.
She turned Abas to stone for his pride.
She turned Anaxarete to stone for reacting so dispassionately to Iphis' pleas to love him, even after his suicide.
Aphrodite helps Hippomenes to win a footrace against Atalanta to win Atalanta's hand in marriage, giving him three golden apples to distract her with. However, when the couple fails to thank Aphrodite, she has them turned into lions.
Consorts and children
Deities
Ares
Anteros
Eros
Harmonia
Himeros
Deimos
Phobos
Dionysus
Charites
Aglaea
Euphrosyne
Thalia
Hymenaios
Priapus
Hephaestus
Hermes
Eunomia
Hermaphroditus
Peitho
Rhodos
Tyche
Mortals
Adonis
Anchises
Aeneas
Butes
Eryx
Other names
Acidalia
Anadyomene - the emerging as in Aphrodite Anadyomene, a painting by Apelles
Cytherea
Despina
Kypris
How Diomedes and Odysseus slew Dolon, a spy of the Trojans, and themselves spied on the Trojan camp, and took the horses of Rhesos, the Thracian king.
Now beside the ships the other leaders of the whole Achaian host were sleeping all night long, by soft Sleep overcome, but Agamemnon son of Atreus, shepherd of the host, sweet Sleep held not, so many things he debated in his mind.
And even as when the lord of fair-tressed Hera lighteneth, fashioning either a mighty rain unspeakable, or hail, or snow, when the flakes sprinkle all the ploughed lands, or fashioning perchance the wide mouth of bitter war, even so oft in his breast groaned Agamemnon, from the very deep of his heart, and his spirits trembled within him.
And whensoever he looked toward that Trojan plain, he marvelled at the many fires that blazed in front of Ilios, and at the sound of flutes and pipes, and the noise of men; but whensoever to the ships he glanced and the host of the Achaians, then rent he many a lock clean forth from his head, to Zeus that is above, and greatly groaned his noble heart.
And this in his soul seemed to him the best counsel, to go first of all to Nestor son of Neleus, if perchance he might contrive with him some right device that should be for the warding off of evil from all the Danaans.
Then he rose, and did on his doublet about his breast, and beneath his shining feet he bound on fair sandals, and thereafter clad him in the tawny skin of a lion fiery and great, a skin that reached to the feet, and he grasped his spear.
And even in like wise did trembling fear take hold on Menelaos, (for neither on his eyelids did Sleep settle down,) lest somewhat should befall the Argives, who verily for his sake over wide waters were come to Troy-land, with fierce war in their thoughts.
With a dappled pard's akin first he covered his broad shoulders, and he raised and set on his head a casque of bronze, and took a spear in his strong hand. Then went he on his way to rouse his brother, that mightily ruled over all the Argives, and as a god was honoured by the people. Him found he harnessing his goodly gear about his shoulders, by the stern of the ship, and glad to his brother was his coming. Then Menelaos of the loud war-cry first accosted him: "Wherefore thus, dear brother, art thou arming? Wilt thou speed forth any of thy comrades to spy on the Trojans? Nay, terribly I fear lest none should undertake for thee this deed, even to go and spy out the foeman alone through the ambrosial night; needs must he be a man right hardy of heart."
Then the lord Agamemnon answered him and spake: "Need of good counsel have I and thou, Menelaos fosterling of Zeus, of counsel that will help and save the Argives and the ships, since the heart of Zeus hath turned again. Surely on the sacrifices of Hector hath he set his heart rather than on ours. For never did I see, nor heard any tell, that one man devised so many terrible deeds in one day, as Hector, dear to Zeus, hath wrought on the sons of the Achaians, unaided; though no dear son of a goddess is he, nor of a god.
He hath done deeds that methinks will be a sorrow to the Argives, lasting and long, such evils hath he devised against the Achaians. But go now, run swiftly by the ships, and summon Aias and Idomeneus, but I will betake me to noble Nestor, and bid him arise, if perchance he will be fain to go to the sacred company of the sentinels and lay on them his command. For to him above others would they listen, for his own son is chief among the sentinels, he and the brother in arms of Idomeneus, even Meriones, for to them above all we entrusted this charge."
Then Menelaos of the loud war-cry answered him: "How meanest thou this word wherewith thou dost command and exhort me? Am I to abide there with them, waiting till thou comest, or run back again to thee when I have well delivered to them thy commandment?"
Then the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him again: "There do thou abide lest we miss each other as we go, for many are the paths through the camp. But call aloud, wheresoever thou goest, and bid men awake, naming each man by his lineage, and his father's name, and giving all their dues of honour, nor be thou proud of heart. Nay rather let us ourselves be labouring, for even thus did Zeus from our very birth dispense to us the heaviness of toil."
So he spake, and sent his brother away, having clearly laid on him his commandment. Then went he himself after Nestor, the shepherd of the host, whom he found by his hut and black ship, in his soft bed: beside him lay his arms, a shield, and two spears, and a shining helmet. Beside him lay his glittering girdle wherewith the old man was wont to gird himself when he harnessed him for war, the bane of men, and led on the host, for he yielded not to grievous old age.
Then he raised him on his elbow, lifting his head, and spake to the son of Atreus, inquiring of him with this word: "Who art thou that farest alone by the ships, through the camp in the dark night, when other mortals are sleeping? Seekest thou one of thy mules, or of thy comrades? speak, and come not silently upon me. What need hast thou?"
Then the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him: "O Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaians, thou shalt know Agamemnon, son of Atreus, whom above all men Zeus hath planted for ever among labours, while my breath abides within my breast, and my knees move. I wander thus, for that sweet sleep rests not on mine eyes, but war is my care, and the troubles of the Achaians.
Yea, greatly I fear for the sake of the Danaans, nor is my heart firm, but I am tossed to and fro, and my heart is leaping from my breast, and my good knees tremble beneath me. But if thou wilt do aught, since neither on thee cometh sleep, let us go thither to the sentinels, that we may see them, lest they be fordone with toil, and so are slumbering, and have quite forgotten to keep watch. And hostile men camp hard by, nor know we at all but that they are keen to do battle in the night."
Then knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: "Verily will I follow after thee, but let us also rouse others again, both the son of Tydeus, spearman renowned, and Odysseus, and swift Aias, and the strong son of Phyleus. But well it would be if one were to go and call those also, the godlike Aias, and Idomeneus the prince; for their ships are furthest of all, and nowise close at hand. But Menelaos will I blame, dear as he is and worshipful, yea, even if thou be angry with me, nor will I hide my thought, for that he slumbereth, and to thee alone hath left the toil; now should he be toiling among all the chiefs and beseeching them, for need no longer tolerable is coming upon us."
And the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him again: "Old man, another day I even bid thee blame him, for often is he slack, and willeth not to labour, yielding neither to unreadiness nor heedlessness of heart, but looking toward me, and expecting mine instance. But now he awoke far before me, and came to me, and him I sent forward to call those concerning whom thou inquirest. But let us be gone, and them shall we find before the gates, among the sentinels, for there I bade them gather."
Then knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: "So will none of the Argives be wroth with him or disobey him, when soever he doth urge any one, and give him his commands."
So spake he, and did on his doublet about his breast, and beneath his bright feet he bound goodly shoon, and all around him buckled a purple cloak, with double folds and wide, and thick down all over it.
And he took a strong spear, pointed with sharp bronze, and he went among the ships of the mail-clad Achaians. Then Odysseus first, the peer of Zeus in counsel, did knightly Gerenian Nestor arouse out of sleep, with his voice, and quickly the cry came all about his heart, and he came forth from the hut and spake to them saying: "Wherefore thus among the ships and through the camp do ye wander alone, in the ambrosial night; what so great need cometh upon you?"
Then knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: "Laertes' son, be not wroth, for great trouble besetteth the Achaians. Nay follow, that we may arouse others too, even all that it behoveth to take counsel, whether we should fly, or fight."
So spake he, and Odysseus of the many counsels came to the hut, and cast a shield about his shoulders, and went after them.
And they went to seek Diomedes, son of Tydeus, and him they found outside his hut, with his arms, and around him his comrades were sleeping with their shields beneath their heads, but their spears were driven into the ground erect on the spikes of the butts, and afar shone the bronze, like the lightning of father Zeus.
Now that hero was asleep, and under him was strewn the hide of an ox of the field, but beneath his head was stretched a shining carpet. Beside him went and stood knightly Nestor of Gerenia and stirred him with a touch of his foot, and aroused him, chiding him to his face, saying: "Wake, son of Tydeus, why all night long dost thou sleep? Knowest thou not that the Trojans on the high place of the plain are camped near the ships, and but a little space holdeth them apart?"
So spake he, and Diomedes sprang swiftly up out of sleep, and spake to him winged words: "Hard art thou, old man, and from toil thou never ceasest. Now are there not other younger sons of the Achaians, who might rouse when there is need each of the kings, going all around the host? but thou, old man, art indomitable."
And him knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered again, "Nay verily, my son, all this that thou sayest is according unto right. Noble sons have I, and there be many of the host, of whom each man might go and call the others. But a right great need hath assailed the Achaians. For now to all of us it standeth on a razor's edge, either pitiful ruin for the Achaians, or life. But come now, if indeed thou dost pity me, rouse swift Aias, and the son of Phyleus, for thou art younger than I."
So spake he, and Diomedes cast round his shoulders the skin of a great fiery lion, that reached to his feet, and he grasped his spear, and started on his way, and roused the others from their place and led them on.
Now when they had come among the assembled sentinels, they found not the leaders of the sentinels asleep, but they all sat wide awake with their arms.
And even as hounds keep difficult guard round the sheep in a fold, having heard a hardy wild beast that cometh through the wood among the hills, and much clamour riseth round him of hounds and men, and sleep perisheth from them, even so sweet sleep did perish from their eyes, as they watched through the wicked night, for ever were they turning toward the plains, when they heard the Trojans moving.
And that old man was glad when he saw them, and heartened them with his saying, and calling out to them he spake winged words: "Even so now, dear children, do ye keep watch, nor let sleep take any man, lest we become a cause of rejoicing to them that hate us."
So saying he sped through the moat, and they followed with him, the kings of the Argives, who had been called to the council. And with them went Meriones, and the glorious son of Nestor, for they called them to share their counsel.
So they went clean out of the delved foss, and sat down in the open, where the mid-space was clear of dead men fallen, where fierce Hector had turned again from destroying the Argives, when night covered all.
There sat they down, and declared their saying each to the other, and to them knightly Nestor of Gerenia began discourse: "O friends, is there then no man that would trust to his own daring spirit, to go among the great-hearted Trojans, if perchance he might take some straggler of the enemy, yea, or hear perchance some rumour among the Trojans, and what things they devise among themselves, whether they are fain to abide there by the ships, away from the city, or will retreat again to the city, now that they have conquered the Achaians?
All this might such an one learn, and back to us come scathless: great would be his fame under heaven among all men, and a goodly gift will be given him. For all the best men that bear sway by the ships, each and all of them will give him a black ewe, with her lamb at her foot, and ever will he be present at feasts and clan-drinkings."
So spake he, and thereon were they all silent, holding their peace, but to them spake Diomedes of the loud war-cry: "Nestor, my heart and manful spirit urge me to enter the camp of the foemen hard by, even of the Trojans: and if some other man will follow with me, more comfort and more courage will there be. If two go together, one before another perceiveth a matter, how there may be gain therein; but if one alone perceive aught, even so his wit is shorter, and weak his device."
So spake he, and many were they that wished to follow Diomedes. The two Aiantes were willing, men of Ares' company, and Meriones was willing, and right willing the son of Nestor, and the son of Atreus, Menelaos, spearman renowned, yea and the hardy Odysseus was willing to steal into the throng of Trojans, for always daring was his heart within him. But among them spake the king of men, Agamemnon: "Diomedes son of Tydeus, joy of mine heart, thy comrade verily shalt thou choose, whomsoever thou wilt, the best of them that be here, for many are eager. But do not thou, out of reverent heart, leave the better man behind, and give thyself the worse companion, yielding to regard for any, and looking to their lineage, even if one be more kingly born."
So spake he, but was in fear for the sake of fair-haired Menelaos. But to them again answered Diomedes of the loud war-cry: "If indeed ye bid me choose myself a comrade, how then could I be unmindful of godlike Odysseus, whose heart is passing eager, and his spirit so manful in all manner of toils; and Athene loveth him. But while he cometh with me, even out of burning fire might we both return, for he excelleth in understanding."
Then him again answered the steadfast noble Odysseus: "Son of Tydeus, praise me not overmuch, neither blame me aught, for thou speakest thus among the Argives that themselves know all. But let us be going, for truly the night is waning, and near is the dawn, and the stars have gone onward, and the night has advanced more than two watches, but the third watch is yet left."
So spake they, and harnessed them in their dread armour. To the son of Tydeus did Thrasymedes steadfast in war give a two-edged sword (for his own was left by his ship) and a shield, and about his head set a helm of bull's hide, without cone or crest, that is called a skull-cap, and keeps the heads of stalwart youths.
And Meriones gave Odysseus a bow and a quiver, and a sword, and on his head set a helm made of leather, and with many a thong was it stiffly wrought within, while without the white teeth of a boar of flashing tusks were arrayed thick set on either side, well and cunningly, and in the midst was fixed a cap of felt.
So when these twain had harnessed them in their dread armour, they set forth to go, and left there all the best of the host.
And to them did Pallas Athene send forth an omen on the right, a heron hard by the way, and they beheld it not with their eyes, through the dark night, but they heard its shrill cry.
And Odysseus was glad in the omen of the bird, and prayed to Athene: "Listen to me, thou child of aegis-bearing Zeus, that ever in all toils dost stand by me, nor doth any motion of mine escape thee: but now again above all be thou friendly to me, Athene, and grant that we come back with renown to the ships, having wrought a great work, that shall be sorrow to the Trojans."
Next again prayed Diomedes of the loud war-cry: "Listen now likewise to me, thou child of Zeus, unwearied maiden, and follow with me as when with my father thou didst follow, even noble Tydeus, into Thebes, when he went forth as a messenger from the Achaians.
Even so now stand thou by me willingly, and protect me. And to thee will I sacrifice a yearling heifer, broad of brow, unbroken, that never yet hath man led below the yoke. Her will I sacrifice to thee, and gild her horns with gold."
So spake they in their prayer, and Pallas Athene heard them. And when they had prayed to the daughter of mighty Zeus, they went forth on their way, like two lions, through the dark night, amid the slaughter, amid the slain men, through the arms and the black blood.
Nay, nor the stout-hearted Trojans did Hector
suffer to sleep, but he called together all the best of them, all that were chiefs and leaders of the Trojans, them did he call together, and contrived a crafty counsel: "Who is there that would promise and perform for me this deed, for a great gift? yea his reward shall be sufficient. For I will give him a chariot, and two horses of arching neck, the best that be at the swift ships of the Achaians, to whosoever shall dare the deed, and for himself shall win glory. And the deed is this; to go near the swift-faring ships, and seek out whether the swift ships are guarded, as of old, or whether already, being subdued beneath our hands, the foes are devising of flight among themselves, and have no care to watch through the night, being fordone with dread weariness."
So spake he, but they were all silent and held their peace. Now there was among the Trojans one Dolon, the son of Eumedes the godlike herald, and he was rich in gold, and rich in bronze: and verily he was ill favoured to look upon, but swift of foot. So he spake then a word to the Trojans and to Hector: "Hector, my heart and manful spirit urge me to go near the swift-faring ships, and spy out all. But come, I pray thee, hold up the staff, and swear to me, that verily thou wilt give me the horses and the chariots bedight with bronze that bear the noble son of Peleus. But to thee I will prove no vain spy, nor disappoint thy hope. For I will go straight to the camp, until I may come to the ship of Agamemnon, where surely the chiefs are like to hold council, whether to fight or flee."
So spake he, and Hector took the staff in his hand, and sware to him: "Now let Zeus himself be witness, the loud-thundering lord of Hera, that no other man of the Trojans shall mount those horses, but thou, I declare, shalt rejoice in them for ever."
So spake he, and sware a bootless oath thereto, and aroused Dolon to go. And straightway he cast on his shoulders his crooked bow, and did on thereover the skin of a grey wolf, and on his head a helm of ferret-skin, and took a sharp javelin, and went on his way to the ships from the host. But he was not like to come back from the ships and bring word to Hector.
But when he had left the throng of men and horses, he went forth eagerly on the way, and Odysseus of the seed of Zeus was ware of him as he approached, and said unto Diomedes: "Lo, here is some man, Diomedes, coming from the camp, I know not whether as a spy to our ships, or to strip certain of the dead men fallen. But let us suffer him to pass by us a little way on the plain, and thereafter may we rush on him and take him speedily, and if it chance that he outrun us by speed of foot, ever do thou hem him in towards the ships and away from the camp, rushing on him with thy spear, lest in any wise he escape towards the city."
So they spake, and turning out of the path they lay down among the bodies of the dead; and swiftly Dolon ran past them in his witlessness. But when he was as far off as is the length of the furrow made by mules, these twain ran after him, and he stood still when he heard the sound, supposing in his heart that they were friends come from among the Trojans to turn him back, at the countermand of Hector. But when they were about a spear-cast off, or even less, he knew them for foe-men, and stirred his swift limbs to fly, and speedily they started in pursuit.
And as when two sharp-toothed hounds, well skilled in the chase, press ever hard on a doe or a hare through a wooded land, and it runs screaming before them, even so Tydeus' son and Odysseus the sacker of cities cut Dolon off from the host, and ever pursued hard after him. But when he was just about to come among the sentinels, in his flight towards the ships, then Athene poured strength into the son of Tydeus, that none of the mail-clad Achaians might boast himself the first to smite, and he come second. And strong Diomedes leaped upon him with the spear, and said: "Stand, or I shall overtake thee with the spear, and methinks that thou shalt not long avoid sheer destruction at my hand."
So spake he, and threw his spear, but of his own will he missed the man, and passing over his right shoulder the point of the polished spear stuck fast in the ground: and Dolon stood still, in great dread and trembling, and the teeth chattered in his mouth, and he was green with fear. Then the twain came up with him, panting, and gripped his hands, and weeping he spake: "Take me alive, and I will ransom myself, for within our house there is bronze, and gold, and smithied iron, wherefrom my father would do you grace with ransom untold, if he should learn that I am alive among the ships of the Achaians."
Then Odysseus of the many counsels answered him and said: "Take courage, let not death be in thy mind, but come speak and tell me truly all the tale, why thus from the host lost thou come all alone among the ships, through the black night, when other mortals are sleeping? Comest thou to strip certain of the dead men fallen, or did Hector send thee forth to spy out everything at the hollow ships, or did thine own spirit urge thee on?"
Then Dolon answered him, his limbs trembling beneath him: "With many a blind hope did Hector lead my wits astray, who vowed to give me the whole-hooved horses of the proud son of Peleus, and his car bedight with bronze: and he bade me fare through the swift black night, and draw nigh the foemen, and seek out whether the swift ships are guarded, as of old, or whether, already, being subdued beneath our hands, they are devising of flight among themselves, and have no care to watch through the night, being fordone with dread weariness."
And smiling thereat did Odysseus of the many counsels make him answer: "Verily now thy soul was set on great rewards, even the horses of the wise son of Aiakos, but hard are they for mortal men to master, and hard to drive, for any but Achilles only, whom a deathless mother bare. But come, tell me all this truly, all the tale: where when thou camest hither didst thou leave Hector, shepherd of the host, and where lie his warlike gear, and where his horses? And how are disposed the watches, and the beds of the other Trojans? And what counsel take they among themselves; are they fain to abide there nigh the ships afar from the city, or will they return to the city again, seeing that they have subdued unto them the Achaiana?"
Then Dolon son of Eumedes made him answer again: "Lo, now all these things will I recount to thee most truly. Hector with them that are counsellors holdeth council by the barrow of godlike Ilos, apart from the din, but as for the guards whereof thou askest, oh hero, no chosen watch nor guard keepeth the host. As for all the watch fires of the Trojans--on them is necessity, so that they watch and encourage each other to keep guard; but, for the allies called from many lands, they are sleeping and to the Trojans they leave it to keep watch, for no wise near dwell the children and wives of the allies." Then Odysseus of the many counsels answered him and said: "How stands it now, do they sleep amidst the horse-taming Trojans, or apart? tell me clearly, that I may know."
Then answered him Dolon son of Eumedes: "Verily all this likewise will I recount to thee truly. Towards the sea lie the Karians, and Paionians of the bended bow, and the Leleges and Kaukones, and noble Pelasgoi. And towards Thymbre the Lykians have their place, and the haughty Mysians, and the Phrygians that fight from chariots, and Maionians lords of chariots. But wherefore do ye inquire of me throughly concerning all these things? for if ye desire to steal into the throng of Trojans, lo, there be those Thracians, new comers, at the furthest point apart from the rest, and among them their king Rhesos, son of Eioneus. His be the fairest horses that ever I beheld, and the greatest, whiter than snow, and for speed like the winds. And his chariot is fashioned well with gold and silver, and golden is his armour that he brought with him, marvellous, a wonder to behold; such as it is in no wise fit for mortal men to bear, but for the deathless gods. But bring me now to the swift ships, or leave me here, when ye have bound me with a ruthless bond, that ye may go and make trial of me whether I have spoken to you truth, or lies."
Then strong Diomedes, looking grimly on him, said: "Put no thought of escape, Dolon, in thy heart, for all the good tidings thou hast brought, since once thou halt come into our hands. For if now we release thee or let thee go, on some later day wilt thou come to the swift ships of the Achaians, either to play the spy, or to fight in open war, but if subdued beneath my hands thou lose thy life, never again wilt thou prove a bane to the Argives."
He spake, and that other with strong hand was about to touch his chin, and implore his mercy, but Diomedes smote him on the midst of the neck, rushing on him with the sword, and cut through both the sinews, and the head of him still speaking was mingled with the dust. And they stripped him of the casque of ferret's skin from off his head, and of his wolf-skin, and his bended bow, and his long spear, and these to Athene the Giver of Spoil did noble Odysseus hold aloft in his hand, and he prayed and spake a word: "Rejoice, O goddess, in these, for to thee first of all the immortals in Olympus will we call for aid; nay, but yet again send us on against the horses and the sleeping places of the Thracian men."
So spake he aloud, and lifted from him the spoils on high, and set them on a tamarisk bush, and raised thereon a mark right plain to see, gathering together reeds, and luxuriant shoots of tamarisk, lest they should miss the place as they returned again through the swift dark night.
So the twain went forward through the arms, and the black blood, and quickly they came to the company of Thracian men. Now they were slumbering, fordone with toil, but their goodly weapons lay by them on the ground, all orderly, in three rows, and by each man his pair of steeds. And Rhesos slept in the midst, and beside him his swift horses were bound with thongs to the topmost rim of the chariot. Him Odysseus spied from afar, and showed him unto Diomedes: "Lo, Diomedes, this is the man, and these are the horses whereof Dolon that we slew did give us tidings. But come now, put forth thy great strength; it doth not behove thee to stand idle with thy weapons: nay, loose the horses; or do thou slay the men, and of the horses will I take heed."
So spake he, and into that other bright-eyed Athene breathed might, and he began slaying on this side and on that, and hideously went up their groaning, as they were smitten with the sword, and the earth was reddened with blood. And like as a lion cometh on flocks without a herdsman, on goats or sheep, and leaps upon them with evil will, so set the son of Tydeus on the men of Thrace, till he had slain twelve. But whomsoever the son of Tydeus drew near and smote with the sword, him did Odysseus of the many counsels seize by the foot from behind, and drag him out of the way, with this design in his heart, that the fair-maned horses might lightly issue forth, and not tremble in spirit, when they trod over the dead; for they were not yet used to dead men. But when the son of Tydeus came upon the king, he was the thirteenth from whom he took sweet life away, as he was breathing hard, for an evil dream stood above his head that night through the device of Athens. Meanwhile the hardy Odysseus loosed the whole-hooved horses, and bound them together with thongs, and drave them out of the press, smiting them with his bow, since he had not taken thought to lift the shining whip with his hands from the chariot; then he whistled for a sign to noble Diomedes.
But Diomedes stood and pondered what most daring deed he might do, whether he should take the chariot, where lay the armour, and drag it out by the pole, or lift it upon high, and so bear it forth, or whether he should take the life away from yet more of the Thracians. And while he was pondering this in his heart, then Athene drew near, and stood, and spake to noble Diomedes: "Bethink thee of returning, O son of great-hearted Tydeus, to the hollow ships, lest perchance thou come thither in flight, and perchance another god rouse up the Trojans likewise."
So spake she, and he observed the voice of the utterance of the goddess, and swiftly he sprang upon the steeds, and Odysseus smote them with his bow, and they sped to the swift ships of the Achaians.
Nay, nor a vain watch kept Apollo of the silver bow, when he beheld Athene caring for the son of Tydeus; in wrath against her he stole among the crowded press of Trojans, and aroused a counsellor of the Thracians, Hippokoon, the noble kinsman of Rhesos. And he started out of sleep, when he beheld the place desolate where the swift horses had stood, and beheld the men gasping in the death struggle; then he groaned aloud, and called out by name to his comrade dear. And a clamour arose and din unspeakable of the Trojans hasting together, and they marvelled at the terrible deeds, even all that the heroes had wrought, and had gone thereafter to the hollow ships.
But when those others came to the place where they had slain the spy of Hector, there Odysseus, dear to Zeus, checked the swift horses, and Tydeus' son, leaping to the ground, set the bloody spoil in the hands of Odysseus, and again mounted, and lashed the horses, and they sped onward nothing loth. But Nestor first heard the sound, and said: "O friends, leaders and counsellors of the Argives, shall I be wrong or speak sooth? for my heart bids me speak. The sound of swift-footed horses strikes upon mine ears. Would to god that Odysseus and that strong Diomedes may even instantly be driving the whole-hooved horses from among the Trojans; but terribly I fear in mine heart lest the bravest of the Argives suffer aught through the Trojans' battle din."
Not yet was his whole word spoken, when they came themselves, and leaped down to earth, but gladly the others welcomed them with hand-clasping, and with honeyed words. And first did knightly Nestor of Gerenia make question: "Come, tell me now, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians, how ye twain took those horses? Was it by stealing into the press of Trojans? Or did some god meet you, and give you them? Wondrous like are they to rays of the sun. Ever with the Trojans do I mix in fight, nor methinks do I tarry by the ships, old warrior as I am. But never yet saw I such horses, nor deemed of such. Nay, methinks some god must have encountered you and given you these. For both of you doth Zeus the cloud-gatherer love, and the maiden of aegis-bearing Zeus, bright-eyed Athene."
And him answered Odysseus of the many counsels: "O Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaians, lightly could a god, if so he would, give even better steeds than these, for the gods are far stronger than we. But as for these new-come horses, whereof, old man, thou askest me, they are Thracian, but their lord did brave Diomedes slay, and beside him all the twelve best men of his company. The thirteenth man was a spy we took near the ships, one that Hector and the other haughty Trojans sent forth to pry upon our camp."
So spake he, and drave the whole-hooved horses through the foss, laughing; and the other Achaians went with him joyfully. But when they had come to the well-built hut of the son of Tydeus, they bound the horses with well-cut thongs, at the mangers where the swift horses of Diomedes stood eating honey-sweet barley.
And Odysseus placed the bloody spoils of Dolon in the stern of the ship, that they might make ready a sacred offering to Athene. But for themselves, they went into the sea, and washed off the thick sweat from shins, and neck, and thighs. But when the wave of the sea had washed the thick sweat from their skin, and their hearts revived again, they went into polished baths, and were cleansed.
And when they had washed, and anointed them with olive oil, they sat down at supper, and from the full mixing bowl they drew off the honey-sweet wine, and poured it forth to Athene.
Aeneas
Aeneas (or Aineias) was a Trojan hero, the son of prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus in Roman sources). The journey of Aeneas from Troy, which led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, is recounted in Vergil's Aeneid. He is considered an important figure in Greek and Roman legend and history. Aeneas is a character in Homer's Iliad and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.
Legend
In the Iliad, Aeneas is the leader of the Dardans (allies of the Trojans), and a principal lieutenant of Hector, son of the Trojan king Priam. In the poem, Aeneas's mother Aphrodite frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield: he is also a favorite of Apollo. Even Poseidon, who normally favors the Greeks, comes to Aeneas's rescue when the latter falls under the assault of Achilles, noting that Aeneas, though from a junior branch of the royal family, is destined to become king of the Trojan people. (Iliad, xx. 308). Homer thereafter has nothing more to say about Aeneas, but Poseidon's statement may be the basis for the later legends that were synthesized by Vergil in the Aeneid.
When Troy was sacked by the Greeks, Aeneas gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, traveled to Italy and became a progenitor of the Romans.
The Aeneads included his trumpeter Misenus, his father Anchises, his friends Achates, Sergestus and Acmon, the healer Iapyx, his son Ascanius, and their guide Mimas. He carried with him the Lares and Penates, the statues of the household gods of Troy, and transplanted them to Italy.
During his journey, Aeneas and his fleet made landfall at Carthage. It is at this point that the poem of the Aeneid begins. Aeneas had a brief affair with the Carthaginian queen Elissa, also known as Dido, who proposed that the Trojans settle in her land and that she and Aeneas reign jointly over their peoples. However, the messenger god Mercury was sent by Juno and Venus to remind Aeneas of his journey and his purpose, thus compelling him to leave secretly and continue on his way.
When Dido learned of this, she ordered a funeral pyre to be constructed for herself; and standing on it, she uttered a famous curse that forever would pit Carthage against the Trojans. She then committed suicide by stabbing herself in the chest. When Aeneas later traveled to Hades, he called to her ghost but she neither spoke or acknowledged him.
The company stopped on the island of Sicily during the course of their journey. There Aeneas was welcomed by Acestes, king of the region and son of the river Crinisus by a Dardanian woman. When the ship left, Achaemenides, one of Odysseus' crew who had been left behind, traveled with them.
Soon after arriving in Italy, Aeneas made war against the city of Falerii. Latinus, king of the Latins, welcomed Aeneas's army of exiled Trojans and let them reorganize their life in Latium. His daughter Lavinia had been promised to Turnus, king of the Rutuli, but Latinus received a prophecy that Lavinia would be betrothed to one from another land — namely, Aeneas. Latinus heeded the prophecy, and Turnus consequently declared war on Aeneas at the urging of Hera, who was aligned with King Tarchon of the Etruscans and Queen Amata of the Latins. Aeneas' forces prevailed, and Turnus was killed. Aeneas founded the of city Lavinium, named after his wife. He later welcomed Dido's sister, Anna Perenna, who then committed suicide after learning of Lavinia's jealousy.
After his death, Aeneas was recognized as the god Indiges. Inspired by the work of James Frazer, some have posited that Aeneas was originally a life-death-rebirth deity.
Family and legendary descendants
Aeneas had an extensive family tree. Aeneas' wet-nurse was named Caieta. He was the father of Ascanius with Creusa, and of Silvius with Lavinia. Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, also known as Iulus (or Julius), founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings.
According to the mythology outlined by Vergil in the Aeneid, Romulus and Remus were both descendants of Aeneas through their mother, and thus Aeneas was responsible for founding the Roman people. Some early sources call him their father or grandfather [1], but, considering the commonly accepted dates of the fall of Troy (1184 BC) and the founding of Rome (753 BC), this seems unlikely.
The Julian family (Gens Julia) of Rome, whose most famous member was Julius Caesar, traced their lineage to Aeneas's son Ascanius and, in turn, to the goddess Venus.
The legendary kings of Britain also trace their family through a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus.
During the Trojan War, Aeneas was wounded by Diomedes 2 and, having fainted, would have died if his mother had not come to his rescue. Aphrodite herself was wounded by Diomedes 2 on this occasion, but Apollo took over the protection of the wounded Aeneas, removing him from the battle to the citadel of Pergamus where his temple stood. In the sanctuary, Leto and Artemis healed Aeneas and made him even stronger.
But for those fighting, Apollo fashioned a phantom of Aeneas, so that Achaeans and Trojans killed each other round it, until the real Aeneas, having recovered, returned to the field.
Poseidon's Prophecy
In another occasion, at a time when the gods had become more involved in the fighting, Apollo urged Aeneas to challenge Achilles and to fight with him in single combat. Aeneas was very close to die, but Poseidon rescued him, explaining to the other gods: "Even Zeus might be angry if Achilles killed Aeneas, who after all is destined to survive and to save the House of Dardanus from extinction ... Priam's line has fallen out of favour with Zeus, and now Aeneas shall be King of Troy and shall be followed by his children's children in the time to come." [Poseidon to the gods. Homer, Iliad 20.300]
In Greek mythology, Diomêdês ("god-like cunning") was the son of Tydeus and Deipyle and a favored hero of Athena. He was one of the Epigoni and later became King of Argos, succeeding his grandfather, Adrastus.
In the Iliad, Diomedes is one of the most attractive figures among the Greek generals. Along with Sthenelus, he leads the Argive armies. He has a horse named Lampos. One of his companions, a brother-in-arms, is named Euryalus.
Book V of the Iliad centers around the battlefield valor of Diomedes. He duels with Aeneas and nearly kills him, but Aphrodite, Aeneas' mother, comes to his aid and tries to cover him up. Diomedes wounds Aphrodite and she drops her son, fleeing to Mount Olympus. Aeneas is then enveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who takes him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy. Artemis heals Aeneas there.
Later in the same melee, Diomedes fights with Hector and sees Ares, the war-god, fighting on the Trojans' side. Diomedes calls for his soldiers to fall back slowly. Hera, Ares' mother, sees Ares' interference and asks Zeus, Ares' father, for permission to drive Ares away from the battlefield.
Hera encourages Diomedes to attack Ares and he threw his spear at the god. Athena drives the spear into Ares' belly: bellowing in pain, the wounded god ascends to Olympus in a column of smoke, forcing the Trojans to fall back.
Subsequently, in a night raid on the Trojan camp, Diomedes and Odysseus steal King Rhesus's team of fine horses. This does not have an impact on the outcome of the battle, but it demonstrates the two kings' courage and guile.
Like the other major Greek characters, Diomedes is alive and well as the Iliad comes to a close. In the Odyssey the reader is told that when the Trojan War was over, Diomedes returned home.
Other stories of his exploits come from later classical sources.
Diomedes and Odysseus stole the Palladium and took it to Argos. Diomedes also killed Merops' two sons.
After his return home, his wife, Aegiale had been unfaithful to him and Diomedes left for Italy, where he founded the cities of Brindisium and Arpus Hippium.
At some point, Diomedes restored Oeneus to the throne of Calydon after his brother's (Agrius) sons had overthrown him.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees Diomedes in the eighth circle of Hell, where he is condemned together with Ulysses to be imprisoned for eternity in a sheet of flame. The specific sin which Dante has in mind as to Diomedes appears to be the theft of the Palladium.
The Trojan and Achaean sides have declared a cease-fire with each other, but now the Trojans breach the treaty and Zeus comes to their aid. With Zeus supporting the Trojans and Achilles refusing to fight, the Achaeans suffer great losses. Several days of fierce conflict ensue, including duels between Paris and Menelaus and between Hector and Ajax.
The Achaeans make no progress; even the heroism of the great Achaean warrior Diomedes proves fruitless. The Trojans push the Achaeans back, forcing them to take refuge behind the ramparts that protect their ships. The Achaeans begin to nurture some hope for the future when a nighttime reconnaissance mission by Diomedes and Odysseus yields information about the Trojans’ plans, but the next day brings disaster.
Several Achaean commanders become wounded, and the Trojans break through the Achaean ramparts. They advance all the way up to the boundary of the Achaean camp and set fire to one of the ships. Defeat seems imminent, because without the ships, the army will be stranded at Troy and almost certainly destroyed.
When Achilles had a quarrel with his commander, Agamemnon, and her son withdrew his support and men from the fighting, he appealed to his mother, to make Agamemnon regret his action against him. Thetis went to Zeus and asked him to make the Greeks to suffer for the insult to her son. Achilles only returned to the fighting when his companion and lover, Patroclus was killed by the Trojan hero, Hector.
Furious at this insult, Achilles returns to his tent in the army camp and refuses to fight in the war any longer. He vengefully yearns to see the Achaeans destroyed and asks his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, to enlist the services of Zeus, king of the gods, toward this end.
Briseis was the daughter of Briseus and lived in Lyrnessus. Her husband was Mynes, son of Euenus.
Achilles defeated Lyrnessus (and killed Mynes) during the Trojan War and took Briseis as a prisoner.
Soon, however, Agamemnon demanded Briseis from Achilles because he himself had been forced to give up his female captive, Chryseis.
Achilles reluctantly gave up Briseis (some say at the bidding of Athena).
However, Achilles was angry at Agamemnon and refused to fight in the war. This tipped the war in the Trojans' favor.
Because the Greeks suffered heavy defeats as a result of Achilles not fighting, Agamemnon promised to give Briseis back to Achilles. Achilles was also promised a large sum of money.
In the Heroides, Briseis entreats Achilles to return to battle so that she can be returned to him.
Achilles refused Agamemnon's entreaty and only after the death of his friend, Patroclus, did Achilles return to the war.
Briseis was then returned to Achilles. In the Trojan War, captive women like Briseis were little more than objects to be traded amongst the warriors.
They had no real standing, and were, in fact, spoils of war. Interestingly, in the funeral games Achilles organizes for Patroclus, one of the prizes is a woman who is said in the Iliad to be "skilled in much work of her hands, and they rated her at four oxen".
In the Iliad Homer invokes a muse to aid him in telling the story of the rage of Achilles, the greatest Greek hero to fight in the Trojan War. The narrative begins nine years after the start of the war, as the Achaeans sack a Trojan-allied town and capture two beautiful maidens, Chryseis and Briseis.
Agamemnon, commander-in-chief of the Achaean army, takes Chryseis as his prize. Achilles, one of the Achaeans’ most valuable warriors, claims Briseis. Chryseis’s father, a man named Chryses who serves as a priest of the god Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return his daughter and offers to pay an enormous ransom.
When Agamemnon refuses, Chryses prays to Apollo for help. Apollo sends a plague upon the Greek camp, causing the death of many soldiers. After ten days of suffering, Achilles calls an assembly of the Achaean army and asks for a soothsayer to reveal the cause of the plague.
Calchas, a powerful seer, stands up and offers his services.
Though he fears retribution from Agamemnon, Calchas reveals the plague as a vengeful and strategic move by Chryses and Apollo. Agamemnon flies into a rage and says that he will return Chryseis only if Achilles gives him Briseis as compensation.
Agamemnon’s demand humiliates and infuriates the proud Achilles. The men argue, and Achilles threatens to withdraw from battle and take his people, the Myrmidons, back home to Phthia. Agamemnon threatens to go to Achilles’ tent in the army’s camp and take Briseis himself. Achilles stands poised to draw his sword and kill the Achaean commander when the goddess Athena, sent by Hera, the queen of the gods, appears to him and checks his anger. Athena’s guidance, along with a speech by the wise advisor Nestor, finally succeeds in preventing the duel.
That night, Agamemnon puts Chryseis on a ship back to her father and sends heralds to have Briseis escorted from Achilles’ tent. Achilles prays to his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, to ask Zeus, king of the gods, to punish the Achaeans. He relates to her the tale of his quarrel with Agamemnon, and she promises to take the matter up with Zeus—who owes her a favor—as soon as he returns from a thirteen-day period of feasting with the Aethiopians. Meanwhile, the Achaean commander Odysseus is navigating the ship that Chryseis has boarded. When he lands, he returns the maiden and makes sacrifices to Apollo.
Chryses, overjoyed to see his daughter, prays to the god to lift the plague from the Achaean camp. Apollo acknowledges his prayer, and Odysseus returns to his comrades.
But the end of the plague on the Achaeans only marks the beginning of worse suffering. Ever since his quarrel with Agamemnon, Achilles has refused to participate in battle, and, after twelve days, Thetis makes her appeal to Zeus, as promised. Zeus is reluctant to help the Trojans, for his wife, Hera, favors the Greeks, but he finally agrees. Hera becomes livid when she discovers that Zeus is helping the Trojans, but her son Hephaestus persuades her not to plunge the gods into conflict over the mortals.
He was a Trojan prince, son of King Priam, who falls in love with Briseida, they were cousin.
Achilles falls in love with Troilo and Achilles rapes and kills him in the Apollo Temple. Also, Achilles took as slave to Briseid and took a strong interest by Polixena, sister of Troilo.
Eos takes the Memnon death body from the Battle Field
Eos ("dawn") was, in Greek mythology, the Titan Goddess of the dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the sun.
As the dawn goddess, she opened the gates of heaven (with "rosy fingers") so that Helios could ride his chariot across the sky every day. In Homer (Iliad viii.1; xxiv.695), her yellow robe is embroidered or woven with flowers (Odyssey vi:48 etc); rosy-fingered and with golden arms, she is pictured on Attic vases as a supernaturally beautiful woman, crowned with a tiara or diadem and with the large white-feathered wings of a bird.
Eos is the iconic original from which Christian angels were imagined, for no images were available from the Hebrew tradition, and the Persian angels were unknown in the West. The worship of the dawn as a goddess is inherited from Indo-European times; Eos is cognate to latin Aurora and to vedic Ushas.
Quintus Smyrnaeus pictured her exulting in her heart over the radiant horses (Lampos and Phaithon) that drew her chariot, amidst the bright-haired Horai, the feminine Hours, climbing the arc of heaven and scattering sparks of fire (1.48).
She is most often associated with her Homeric epithet "rosy-fingered" (rhododactylos), but Homer also calls her Eos Erigeneia:
"That brightest of stars appeared, Eosphoros, that most often heralds the light of early-rising Dawn (Eos Erigeneia)."
—Odyssey 13.93
And Hesiod: "And after these Erigeneia ["Early-born"] bore the star Eosphorus ("Dawn-bringer"), and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned."
—Theogony 378-382
Thus Eos, preceded by the Morning Star, is seen as the genetrix of all the stars.
Eos was the daughter of Hyperion and Theia (or Pallas and Styx) and sister of Helios the sun and Selene the moon, "who shine upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless Gods who live in the wide heaven" Hesiod told in Theogony (371-374). The generation of Titans preceded all the familiar deities of Olympus, who supplanted them.
Eos was free with her favors and had many consorts, both among the generation of Titans and among the handsomest mortals. With Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, she bore all the winds and stars. Her passion for the Titan Orion was unrequited. Eos kidnapped Cephalus, Clitus and Tithonus to be her lovers. Eos' most faithful consort was Tithonus, from whose couch the poets imagine her arising. She asked for Tithonus to be made immortal, but forgot to ask for eternal youth. Tithonus indeed lived forever but grew more and more ancient, eventually turning into a cricket.
Tithonus and Eos had two sons, Memnon and Emathion.
Memnon fought among the Trojans in the Trojan War and was slain. Her image with the dead Memnon across her knees, like Thetis with the dead Achilles, are icons that inspired the Christian Pietà.
Eos kidnapped Cephalus when he was hunting. Some sources say he refused to be unfaithful to Procris, his wife; others that he had a relationship with Eos for some time and that she bore him three sons, but that he then began pining for Procris, causing a disgruntled Eos to return him to her - and put a curse on them. Cephalus accidentally killed Procris some time later after he mistook her for an animal while hunting; Procris, a jealous wife, was spying on him.
In the more restrictive Hellenic world, Apollodorus, a later Greek poet, claimed, in an anecdote rather than a myth, that her disgraceful abandon was a torment from Aphrodite, who found her on the couch with Ares. (Apollodorus, Library 1.27).
Her Roman equivalent was Aurora, her Etruscan equivalent was Thesan. The Dawn became associated in Roman cult with Matuta; later known as Mater Matuta she was also associated with the sea harbors and ports. She had a temple of the Forum Boarium. On June 11, the Matralia was celebrated at that temple in honor of Mater Matuta; this festival was only for women in their first marriage.
With Zeus, Eos had a daughter named Ersa.
Consorts/Children
With Aeolus
Boreas
Eurus
Heosphorus
Notus
All the stars
Zephyrus
Tithonus
Emathion
Memnon
Cephalus
Phaethon
Tithonos
Hesperos
With Zeus
Ersa
In Greek mythology, Memnon was an Ethiopian king and son of Tithonus and Eos. At the Trojan War, he brought an army to Troy's defense and was killed by Achilles. However, he first killed Antilochus. After his death, Zeus was moved by Eos' tears and granted him immortality.
In Greek mythology, Penthesilea (also spelled "Penthesilia") was an Amazonian queen, daughter of Ares and Otrera, sister of Hippolyte, Antiope and Melanippe. Penthesilea killed Hippolyte with a spear when they were hunting deer.
According to many accounts, this accident caused Penthesilea so much grief that she wished only to die, but, as a warrior and an Amazon, she must do so honorably and in battle. She therefore was easily convinced to join in the Trojan War, fighting on the side of the city's defenders. She is said to have been killed by Achilles (or vice-versa, in rarer accounts) in battle. After her death, Achilles found himself awe-struck by her beauty, and when one of the Greek soldiers, Thersites, laughed at him for this, Achilles killed him. After that, more Greeks wanted Achilles to throw Penthesilea's remains into a river, and he eventually had to give way.
Alongside Penthesilea were twelve other Amazons, including Antibrote, Ainia, and Cleite. However Cleite's ship was blown off course and she never reached Troy. She was succeeded as Queen of the Amazons by Antianara.
In Greek mythology, the Amazons were either an ancient legendary nation of female warriors or a contemporary land of women at the outer edges of the world. The legends appear to have a nugget of factual basis in warrior women among the Scythians, but classical Greeks never ceased to be astounded at such unheard-of role-reversals.
In early modern usage, the word was often used to refer to strong and independent women, in contrast to conventional stereotypes of women as weak and passive (see "damsel in distress"), but now "amazon" in such contexts has self-ironic overtones. (Compare "Valkyrie".)
Etymology
The name is probably derived from an Iranian ethnonym, ha-mazan-, originally meaning "warriors". A connected word is probably the Hesychius gloss ("to make war", containing the Indo-Iranian root kar- "make" also in kar-ma).
The Greek variant of the name was connected by popular etymology to privative a + mazos, "without breast", connected with an aetiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out, in order that they might be able to use the bow more freely; there is no indication of this practice in works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the right is frequently covered. Other suggested derivations were: a- (intensive) + mazos, breast, "full-breasted"; a (privative) and masso, touch, "not touching" (men); maza, a Circassian word said to signify "moon", has suggested their connection with the worship of a moon-goddess, perhaps the Asiatic representative of Artemis.
Amazons of Greek mythology
Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus near the shore of the Euxine Sea, where they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen, often named Hippolyta ("she lets her horses loose"). According to Herodotus (Historiesiv. 110–117) the Amazon capital was Themiscyra on the banks of the river Thermodon. From this centre they made numerous warlike excursions — to Scythia, Thrace, the coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean Sea, even penetrating to Arabia, Syria and Egypt. They were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, Paphos. According to another account, they originally came to the Thermodon from the Palus Maeotis ("Lake Maeotis", the Sea of Azov).
In some versions, no men were permitted to reside in Amazon country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe. The male children who were the result of these visits were either put to death or sent back to their fathers; the females were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war (Strabo xi. p. 503).
In the Iliad, the Amazons were referred to as Antianeira ("those who fight like men"). Herodotus called them Androktones ("killers of men").
The Amazons appear in connection with several Greek legends. They invaded Lycia, but were defeated by Bellerophon, who was sent out against them by Iobates, the king of that country, in the hope that he might meet his death at their hands (Iliad, vi. 186). According to Diodorus, Queen Myrine led them to victory against the Atlanteans, Libya and much of Gorgon.
They attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, then a young man (Iliad, iii. 189). Although in his later years, towards the end of the Trojan War, his old opponents took his side again against the Greeks under their queen Penthesilea, who was slain by Achilles (Quint. Smyr. i.; Justin ii. 4; Virgil, Aen. i. 490).
Amazon Preparing for BattleOne of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte (Apollodorus ii. 5). He was accompanied by his friend Theseus, who carried off the princess Antiope, sister of Hippolyte, an incident which led to a retaliatory invasion of Attica, in which Antiope perished fighting by the side of Theseus. In some versions, however, Theseus marries Hippolyte and in others, he marries Antiope and she does not die. The battle between the Athenians and Amazonians is often commemorated in an entire genre of art, amazonomachy, marble carvings such as from the Parthenon.
The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles had been deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so terrified the horses, that they threw and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retire.
They are heard of in the time of Alexander the Great, when their queen Thalestris visited him and became a mother by him, and Pompey is said to have found them in the army of Mithradates.
Scythian origins
Before modern archaeology uncovered some of the Scythian burials of warrior-maidens entombed under kurgans in the Altai region of Siberia, giving concrete form at last to the Greek tales of mounted Amazons, the origin of the story of the Amazons has been the subject of speculation among classics scholars. In the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica speculation ranged along the following lines.
While some regard the Amazons as a purely mythical people, others assume an historical foundation for them. The deities worshipped by them were Ares (who is consistently assigned to them as a god of war, and as a god of Thracian and generally northern origin) and Artemis, not the usual Greek goddess of that name, but an Asiatic deity in some respects her equivalent. It is conjectured that the Amazons were originally the temple-servants and priestesses (hierodulae) of this goddess; and that the removal of the breast corresponded with the self-mutilation of the god Attis and the galli, Roman priests of Cybele.
Another theory is that, as the knowledge of geography extended, travellers brought back reports of tribes ruled entirely by women, who carried out the duties which elsewhere were regarded as peculiar to man, in whom alone the rights of nobility and inheritance were vested, and who had the supreme control of affairs. Hence arose the belief in the Amazons as a nation of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by women. According to J. Vurtheim (De Ajacis origine, 1907), the Amazons were of Greek origin: "all the Amazons were Dianas, as Diana herself was an Amazon".
It has been suggested that the fact of the conquest of the Amazons being assigned to the two famous heroes of Greek mythology, Heracles and Theseus – who in the tasks assigned to them were generally opposed to monsters and beings impossible in themselves, but possible as illustrations of permanent danger and damage – shows that they were mythical illustrations of the dangers which beset the Greeks on the coasts of Asia Minor; rather perhaps, it may be intended to represent the conflict between the Greek culture of the colonies on the Black Sea and the barbarism of the native inhabitants.
Herodotus reported that the Sarmatians/Sauromatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians. Their Scythian/Saka/Cimmerian/Gomerian/Celtic origins are further proved by their origins from Thermodon's Scythians who invaded there coming from around the Sea of Azov and their use of the bow-and-arrow as their primary weapon as well as fighting on horseback.
Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle-axe. This is probably related to the Sagaris, an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes Aventinus.
Amazons in Greek art
In works of art, combats between Amazons and Greeks are placed on the same level as and often associated with combats of Greeks and centaurs. The belief in their existence, however, having been once accepted and introduced into the national poetry and art, it became necessary to surround them as far as possible with the appearance of not unnatural beings. Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the bow, spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a crescent, called pelta, and in early art a helmet, the model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess Athena.
In later art they approach the model of Artemis, wearing a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian – that is, close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. They were usually on horseback but sometimes on foot. The battle between Theseus and the Amazons is a favourite subject on the friezes of temples (e.g. the reliefs from the frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae, now in the British Museum), vases and sarcophagus reliefs; at Athens it was represented on the shield of the statue of Athena Parthenos, on wall-paintings in the Theseum and in the Poikile Stoa. Many of the sculptors of antiquity, including Pheidias, Polyclitus, Cresilas and Phradmon, executed statues of Amazons; and there are many existing reproductions of these.
Legendary Amazons from Greek myth
Ainia
Antianara
Antibrote
Antiope
Asteria
Cleite
Helene
Hippolyte
Melanippe
Otrera
Penthesilea
Thalestris
Thebe
Amazon-like cultures in history
The shieldmaiden Hervor dying after a battle with the Huns in Hervarar sagaArmed women have often acted as royal bodyguards throughout history. Chandragupta Maurya (322–298 BC), the first emperor to develop a centralized state in India, had a personal guard composed of giant Greek women. Female royal guards re-appear 2000 years later in the history of India as guards for the Nizams of Deccan and Hyderabad. And on the island of Sri Lanka, the Kandy royal family had a royal guard of female archers. In Europe, Celtic and Germanic tribes often had women fighting with their husbands. Tacitus tells us that Boadicea had more women than men in her army.
In Scandinavia, women who did not yet have the responsibility for raising a family could take up arms and live like warriors. They were called shieldmaidens and many of them figure in Norse mythology. One of the most famous shieldmaidens was Hervor and she figures in the cycle of the magic sword Tyrfing. The Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus relates that when the Swedish king Sigurd Ring and the Danish king Harald Wartooth met at the Battle of Bråvalla, 300 shieldmaidens fought on the Danish side led by Visna. Saxo relates that the shieldmaidens fought with small shields and long swords.
Dahomey Amazons holding muskets. The horns are indicators of rankA legend which may be based on the Greek Amazons appears in the history of Bohemia. As the story goes, a large band of women, lead by a certain Vlasta, carried on war against the duke of Bohemia, and enslaved or put to death all men who fell into their hands; eventually, they were mercilessly defeated by the duke. In the 16th century the Spanish explorer Orellana asserted that he had come into conflict with fighting women in South America on the river Maranon, which was named after them the Amazon or river of the Amazons, although others derive its name from the Indian amassona (boat-destroyer), applied to the tidal phenomenon known as the "bore".
The Dahomey Amazons were a 6000 strong military unit of Dahomey (now Benin) in West Africa who were active from the 16th to the late 19th century. They were largely successful in their battles with neighboring kingdoms, and were finally defeated by the French. Libya has a long history of Amazon women, which probably pre-dates the Greek Amazons. Even today, Gadaffi is guarded by female soldiers. Other African ethnic groups who used fighting women were the Igbo and Fulani, who integrated the women into their armies.
In the kingdom of Siam in the 19th century, the king had a personal battalion of 400 spear-wielding women.
They were chosen from the most beautiful women of the country, and were said to be excellent spear-throwers, though they were regarded as too valuable to be sent to war. Other peoples who had female fighters include the Arabs, Australian Aborigines, Berbers, Chinese, Kurds, Filipinos, Maori, Micronesians, Papua New Guinea and Rajputs.
Around 400 women took part as soldiers in the American Civil War. For notable cases of women who have become soldiers, reference may be made to Mary Anne Talbot and Hannah Snell.
He was the king of Troy during the Trojan War, and son of Laomedon. Priam had a number of wives (his first was Arisbe); his chief wife, Hecuba, bore him twenty children. Another wife, Laothoe, was the mother of Lycaon. He also fathered Cebriones with a slave. Priam was originally called Podarge (or Podarces) and he kept himself from being killed by Heracles by giving him a golden veil embroidered by his sister, Hesione. After this, Podarge changed his name to Priam, meaning "ransomed".
Polydorus, Priam's youngest son, was sent with gifts of jewelry and gold to the court of King Polymestor to keep him safe during the Trojan War. The fighting grew vicious and Priam was frightened for the child's safety. After Troy fell, Polymestor threw Polydorus to his death to take the treasure for himself. Hecuba eventually avenged her son.
When Hector was killed by Achilles, Priam walked into the Greek encampment and begged for Hector's body so he could be buried. Achilles agreed, though he had already dragged the body around Troy three times. In the sack of Troy, Priam was brutally murdered by Achilles's son Neoptolemus, in a scene memorialized both in Virgil's Aeneid and Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Priam's Children
By Arisbe:
By Hecuba: Hector, Ilione, Creusa, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antiphus, Polites, Laodice, Paris, Cassandra, Polydorus, Polyxena, Tróáin.
Troilus (fathered by Apollo)
By Laothoe: Lycaon
Other: Cebriones
Menelaus (also transliterated as Meneláos), in Greek mythology, was a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope.
Atreus was murdered by his nephew, Aegisthus, who took possession of the throne of Mycenae and ruled jointly with his father Thyestes. During this period Menelaus and his brother, Agamemnon, took refuge with Tyndareus, king of Sparta, whose daughters Helen and Clytemnestra they respectively married. Helen and Menelaus had one daughter, Hermione.
Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus (whose only sons, Castor and Polydeuces became gods), and Agamemnon, with his brother's assistance, drove out Aegisthus and Thyestes, and recovered his father's kingdom. He extended his dominion by conquest and became the most powerful prince in Greece.
When it was time for Helen, Tyndareus's daughter, to marry, many Greek kings and princes came to seek her hand or sent emissaries to do so on their behalf. Among the contenders were Odysseus, Menestheus, Ajax the great, Patroclus, and Idomeneus, but Menelaus was the favorite, though, according to some sources, he did not come in person but was represented by his brother Agamemnon. All but Odysseus brought many rich gifts with them.
Tyndareus would accept none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the suitors away for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. Odysseus promised to solve the problem in a satisfactory manner if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Penelope, the daughter of Icarius.
Tyndareus readily agreed and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband against whoever should quarrel with the chosen one.
This stratagem succeeded and Helen and Menelaus were married. Following Tyndareus's death, Menelaus became king of Sparta because the only male heirs, Castor and Polydeuces had died and ascended to Mount Olympus.
Some years later, Paris, a Trojan prince, came to Sparta to marry Helen, whom he had been promised by Aphrodite.
Helen fell in love with him and left willingly, under the infulence of Aphrodite, leaving behind Menelaus and Hermione, their nine-year-old daughter.
Menelaus called upon all the other suitors to fulfill their oaths, thus beginning the Trojan War. Virtually all of Greece took part, either attacking Troy with Menelaus or defending it from them.
In the Iliad Menelaus fights bravely and well, even when wounded, and distinguishes himself particularly by recovering the body of Patroclus after the latter is killed by Hector.
Although he is depicted as a reasonably wise and just leader, he has a tendency to rattle off fatuous bromides in the most inappropriate circumstances.
During the war, Menelaus' weapon-carrier was Eteoneus. (Odyssey IV, 22, 31.)
After the Greeks won the Trojan War, Helen returned to Sparta with Menelaus (though she had married Paris' brother, Deiphobus, after Paris' death, Menelaus killed Deiphobus).
According to some versions, Menelaus stayed in the court of King Polybus of Thebes for a time after the war.
According to the Odyssey, Menelaus' homebound fleet was blown by storms to Crete and Egypt where they were unable to sail away because the wind was calm. Menelaus had to catch Proteus, a shape-shifting sea god to find out what sacrifices to which gods he would have to make to guarantee safe passage. Proteus also told Menelaus that he was destined for Elysium (Heaven) after his death. Menelaus returned to Sparta with Helen.
After Menelaus' death, his illegitimate son Megapenthes sent Helen into exile.
Here is what Homer's Menelaus had to say about the war and its aftermath after the fact (Odyssey IV):
Menelaus overheard [Telemachus] and said, "No one, my sons, can hold his own with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but among mortal men – well, there may be another who has as much wealth as I have, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much and have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I could get home with my fleet.
I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good milk, for the ewes yield all the year round.
But while I was travelling and getting great riches among these people, my brother was secretly and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth.
Whoever your parents may be they must have told you about all this, and of my heavy loss in the ruin of a stately mansion fully and magnificently furnished.
Would that I had only a third of what I now have so that I had stayed at home, and all those were living who perished on the plain of Troy, far from Argos. I often grieve, as I sit here in my house, for one and all of them."
Eventually, a fleet of more than a thousand ships was gathered, commanded by Agamemnon. But when they reached Aulis, the winds ceased.
The prophet Calchas stated that the goddess Artemis was punishing Agamemnon for killing a sacred deer (or a deer in a sacred grove) and boasting that he was a better hunter than she.
The only way to appease Artemis, he said, was to sacrifice Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. According to some versions, he did so, but others claim that he sacrificed a deer in her place, or nothing, and that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to the Crimea to prepare others for sacrifice to her. Hesiod said she became the goddess Hecate.
The Greeks also brought the bones of Pelops, father of Atreus and grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaus to help them win the war. An oracle said they would be necessary to win.
The Greek forces are described in detail in the Catalogue of Ships in the second book of the Iliad. They consist of 28 contingents from mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, the Dodecanese islands, Crete and Ithaca, amassing to a force of some 100,000 men.
The Trojan forces are also listed in the second book of the Iliad, consisting of the Trojans themselves, led by Hector, and various allies listed as Dardanians, Zeleians, Adrasteians, Percotians, Pelasgians, Thracians, Ciconian spearmen, Paionian archers, Halizones, Mysians, Phrygians, Maeonians, Miletians and Lycians.
She was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. Iphigeneia is sometimes called a daughter of Theseus and Helen raised by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.
Artemis punished Agamemnon after he killed a (sacred) deer in a (sacred) grove and boasted he was a better hunter. On his way to Troy to participate in the Trojan War, Agamemnon's ships were suddenly motionless as Artemis stopped the wind in Aulis. A soothsayer named Calchas revelead an oracle that the only way to appease Artemis was to sacrifice Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, to Artemis. According to some versions he did so, but most sources claims that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to Tauris in Crimea to prepare others for sacrifice, and that the goddess left a deer or a goat (the god Pan transformed) in her place. Hesiod called her Iphimedeia in the Catalogue of Women and told she became the goddess Hecate. Antoninus Liberalis said that Iphigeneia was transported to the island of Leuke, where she was wedded to Achilles under the name of Orsilochia.
According to Euripides, Iphigeneia factors into the story of her brother, Orestes. In order to escape the persecutions of the Erinyes for killing his mother Clytemnestra and her lover, he was ordered by Apollo to go to Tauris (now the Crimea), carry off the statue of Artemis which had fallen from heaven, and bring it to Athens. He repairs to Tauris with Pylades, son of Strophius and intimate friend of Orestes, and the pair are at once imprisoned by the Tauri, among whom the custom is to sacrifice all strangers to Artemis.
The priestess of Artemis, whose duty it is to perform the sacrifice, is his sister Iphigenia. She offers to release Orestes if he will carry home a letter from her to Greece; he refuses to go, but bids Pylades take the letter while he himself will stay and be slain.
After a conflict of mutual affection, Pylades at last yields, but the letter brings about a recognition between brother and sister, and all three escape together, carrying with them the image of Artemis. After their return to Greece, Orestes took possession of his father's kingdom of Mycenae and Argos and Iphigeneia left the image in the temple of Artemis in Brauron, Attica, where she remained as priestess of Artemis Brauronia According to the Spartans, the image of Artemis was transported by them to Laconia, where the goddess was worshipped as Artemis Orthia.
Iphigeneia is known by Greek myths sources since 7-6th century BC and was so closely identified with Artemis that some scholars believe she was originally a rival hunting goddess whose cult was subsumed by Artemis.
Iphianassa
one of three Agamemnon's daughters in Homer's Iliad (Book 9, lines 145 and 287) is sometimes confused with Iphigeneia. Homer makes no mention to Iphigenia's sacrifice and the name Iphianassa may be simply an older variant of the name Iphigenia.
Most scholars nevertheless agree that Iphianassa and Iphigeneia, despite the likeness of their names, probably were quite different characters.
Cymon and Iphigenia
Cymon and Iphigenia by Frederic LeightonThe episode of Iphigenia and Cymon that inspired painters as Benjamin West (1773), John Everett Millais (1848) and Frederic Leighton (1884) is not really a Greek myth, but a novella taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, developed later by the poet and dramatist John Dryden.
The tale intended to demonstrate the power of love. As Iphigenia sleeps in a grove by the sea, a noble but coarse and unlettered Cypriot youth, Cymon, seeing Iphigenia's beauty, fell in love with her and, by the power of love, became an educated and polished courtier.
Ajax (Aias) the Great is described as second only to Achilles in Homer's Illiad and he is the only one of the great heroes who does not receive assistance from any of the gods. The great-grandson of Zeus, he is, basically, on his own and yet manages to excel in a way that puts him far above all the other Greeks.
Ajax and Achilles were close friends, with Ajax going out to fight in Achilles' stead when Achilles was sulking in his tent over his argument with Agamemnon. Ajax also personally rescued the armor and body of Achilles after the latter was killed by Paris. He did not, however, fare so well in his competition with Odysseus over that armor - at the behest of Athena, Agamemnon awarded the prize to Odysseus.
Incensed at the injustice, Ajax when mad and proceeded to slaughter the sheep, thinking that they were actually the Greek leaders.
After he came to his sense he killed himself with the sword given to him by Hector in order to make up for his shame. Greek legends say that he lives on with Achilles on the island of Leuke.
Ajax was venerated on the island of Salamis where the people built a temple in his honor.
The amphora at the top of the page was pained by Exekias on a vase around 530 BCE. Achilles is on the left and Ajax is on the right, both resting and playing a game instead of participating in combat. This humanization of the two legendary figures helps bridge the gap not only between the average person and the hero but also, by extension, between the average person and gods - one of the religious functions of heroes in Greek mythology.
The Athenian leader Solon tried to link Ajax with the Aeacus family in order to both appropriate Ajax for themselves and to justify the Athenian claim to the island of Salamis.
A statue to Ajax was erected in the agora and thereby was the religious veneration of Ajax turned into a means towards political ends.
Key to the hero cults was their explicit territoriality. Even more than the later worship of the Olympian gods, the veneration of ancestral heros was tied to a specific site around a specific city, usually a tomb, where the presence of the dead person could be felt and consulted.
Such tombs were both symbols and talismans: symbols of the pedigree of the community, telling people where they came from (and, hence, what was expected of them in the future) as well as talismans against threats, assaults, and potential disasters. Just as the hero fought for the community in the past, he or she was expected to continue their exertions in the future.
The famous Catalogue of Ships is recorded as a part of Book II (verses 494–760, PP Il.2.494) of Homer's Iliad. It lists the names of all the allies who came with the Greeks to lay siege to Troy along with the names of their leaders and the number of ships they brought with them. It is followed by a similar, though shorter, list of the Trojans' allies.
The Catalogue provides a rare summary of the geopolitical situation in the region although its reliability is disputed. Some argue that it dates from the time of the Trojan War in the mid 13th century BC, while others contend that it dates from the time of Homer himself in the 8th century BC and is an attempt to transfer later information back five centuries. An intermediate theory is that the catalogue originated through a process of accretion during the poem's oral transmission and reflects gradual inclusion of the homelands of local sponsors by individual singers.
The Catalogue
The Catalogue lists 28 contingents accounting for a total of 1186 ships, corresponding to a force of some 100.000 to 140.000 men. It contains 50 toponyms and 150 ethnonyms.
1. (II.494) Boeotians: 50 ships with 120 men each
2. (II.511) Minyans: 30 ships
3. (II.517) Phocians: 40 ships
4. (II.527) Locrians of Euboea led by Ajax the Lesser: 40 ships
5. (II.536) Abantes led by Elephinor: 40 ships
6. (II.546) Athenians led by Menestheus: 50 ships, together with 12 ships of Salamis led by Ajax the Great
7. (II.559) Achaeans of Argos and Tiryns, led by Diomedes: 80 ships
8. (II.569) forces led by Agamemnon, from Mycenae and Corinth: 100 ships
9. (II.581) Lacedaemonians, led by Menelaus: 60 ships
10. (II.591) forces from Pylos led by Nestor: 90 ships
11. (II.603) Arcadians led by Agapenor: 60 ships
12. (II.615) Elians: 40 ships
13. (II.625) Dulichium led by Meges: 40 ships
14. (II.631) forces of Ithaca led by Odysseus: 12 ships
15. (II.638) Aetolians led by Thaos : 40 ships
16. (II.645) Cretans led by Idomeneus: 80 ships
17. (II.653) Rhodians led by Tlepolemus: 9 ships
18. (II.671) Symians led by Nireus: 3 ships
19. (II.676) Nisyrians: 30 ships
20. (II.681) Myrmidons of Argos led by Achilles: 50 ships
21. (II.695) Phulacians led by Protesilaus, later by Podarces: 40 ships
22. (II.711) Boebians led by Eumelus: 11 ships
23. (II.716) Meliboeans led by Philoctetes, later by Medon: 7 ships with 50 archers each
24. (II.734) Oechalians: 30 ships
25. (II.738) Ormenians led by Eurypylus: 40 ships
26. (II.748) Eloneans: 40 ships
27. (II.756) Enienes led by Gouneus: 22 ships
28. (II.760) Magnetes led by Prothous: 40 ships
Biremes and Triremes
Legend has it, that for ten long years the Greeks laid siege to the ancient city of Troy but could not take it. Then one night they sailed away leaving only a large Wooden Horse.
Thinking that the Greeks had given up and returned home the Trojans took what they thought was a large idol into the city as war booty.
That night ten brave men crawled out of the belly of the horse. They opened the gates of the city allowing the returning Greek soldiers to pour in and defeat the mighty city of Troy.
The Bireme was the warship used at the time of the Trojan wars. It had a broad bottom with a shallow draft. Biremes were propelled by two banks of oars and virtually skimmed over the seas. The bow had a portion that protruded out at water level. It is thought that this configuration was intended for ramming and piercing the enemy's ships hull.
This earlier configuration is close to the structure of the boats used by the Greeks to defeat the Persian fleet at Salamis in 480 BCE. It is clear from ancient Iconography that the evolution and changes to the configuration of these ships evolved over an extended period of time. The time between the Trojan and Persian wars being approximately 800 years.
An important version of an ancient warship was the "bireme" equipped with an outrigger. The advantage was, that this way, a ship could have two rows of oars on each side. The upper row of oars-men was sitting on an upper bench more outside, so their oars wouldn't interfere with the oars of their fellow mates sitting below. A "bireme" could be equipped with as many as a hundred oars-men, fifty on each side of the ship.
The next step in the evolution of Greek war ships was the
creation of the "trireme" with three rows of oars-men on each side of the ship (seethe modern recreation above). The "trireme" was the standard warship of most Greek city-states. While a "trireme" still had a quite narrow hull, the outrigger had to be wider than on a "bireme". Most Greek "triremes" had a partial fighting-deck, while the later Roman version of this warship-type, had a full deck. The ship shown is a recreation made by the Trireme Trust.
The ultimate test of these ships came for the Greeks during the Persian Wars at the battle of Salamis against the Persian Fleet. See the Battle of Salamis. The victory of the Greeks in this battle paved the way for the flowering of the Greek culture during the next fifty years.
A Greek Warship of Trireme Class
Shown in the picture is Olympias , a reconstruction of an Athenian Trireme of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, built in Greece to a design worked out by John Coates, a naval architect, taking into consideration ancient evidence researched by John Morrison, former President of Wolfson College, Cambridge.
Olympias was commissioned into the Hellenic Navy in 1987. The trireme had three banks of rowers and sail to power the ship. this design came into use in the sixth century BCE.
The story of the Trojans first began in myth and legend. According to Greek mythology, the Trojans (or Troyans, or Dardani) were the ancient citizens of the city of Troy in the Troad area, in the country of Phrygia, in the land of Asia Minor (or Little Asia, now Turkey). Troy was known for its riches, gained from port trade with east and west, fancy clothes, iron production, and massive defensive walls. The Trojan royal family was started by Elektra and Zeus, the parents of Dardanus. Elektra raised Dardanus in her palace on the island of Samothrace. King Tros called the people Trojans and the land Troad, after himself. Ilus founded the city of Ilium that he called after himself. Zeus gave Ilus the Palladium.
Poseidon and Apollo built the walls and fortifications around Troy for Laomedon, son of Ilus the younger. When Laomedon refused to pay, Poseidon flooded the land and demanded the sacrifice of Hesione to a sea monster. Pestilence came and the sea monster snatched away the people of the plain.
One generation before the Trojan War, Heracles captured Troy and killed Laomedon and his sons, except for young Priam. Priam later became king. During his reign, the Mycenaean Greeks invaded and captured Troy in the Trojan War (traditionally dated to 1193 BC-1183 BC).
Both the Trojans and Mycenaean cultures were destroyed in the war. The Trojans Aeneas, Brutus, and Elymus escaped the destruction and became founders of Alba Longa (Rome), Britain, and the Elymi, a people of Sicily. The Maxyans were a west Libyan tribe who said that they were descended from the men of Troy, according to Herodotus. The Trojan ships transformed into naiads, who rejoiced to see the wreckage of Odysseus' ship.
Trojan rule in Asia Minor was replaced by the "sons of Herakles" dynasty in Sardis that ruled for 505 years until the time of Candaules. The Ionians, Cimmerians, Phrygians, Milesians of Sinope, and Lydians moved into Asia Minor. The Persians invaded in 546 BC.
Some famous Trojans are: Dardanus (founder of Troy), Laomedon, Ganymede, Priam, Paris, Hector, Teucer, Aesacus, Oenone, Telamon, Tithonus, Antigone, Memnon, Corythus, Aeneas, Brutus, and Elymus. Kapys, Boukolion, Aisakos, and Paris were Trojan princes who had naias wives.
Some of the Trojan allies were the Hittites and the Amazons. The Aisepid nymphs were the naiads of the Trojan River Aisepos. Pegsis was the naiad of the River Grenikos near Troy.
A Trojan law mentioned by E.O. Gordon allowed queens as well as kings. This law was adopted by King Dunvallo Molmutius (from Brutus) in his code and is still in effect today in Britain.
Mount Ida ("Mount of the Goddess") in Asia Minor, is where Ganymede was abducted by Zeus, where Anchises was seduced by Aphrodite, where Aphrodite gave birth to Aeneas, where Paris lived as a shepherd, where the nymphs lived, where the "Judgement of Paris" took place, where the Greek gods watched the Trojan War, where Hera distracted Zeus with her seductions long enough to permit the taking of Troy, and where Aeneas and his followers rested and waited until the Greeks set out for Greece.
The altar of Panomphaean (‘source of all oracles’) was dedicated to Jupiter the Thunderer (Tonatus) near Troy. Buthrotos (or Buthrotum) was a city in Epirus where Helenus, the Trojan seer, built a replica of Troy. Aeneas landed there and Helenus foretold his future.
Homeric Troy
The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, where the battles of the Trojan War took place. The site of the ancient city today is some 15 kilometers from the coast, but the ancient mouths of Scamander, some 3,000 years ago, were some 5 kilometers further inland, pouring into a bay that has since been filled with alluvial material.
Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the other major work attributed to Homer, the Odyssey, as well as in other ancient Greek writings. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his work the Aeneid.
The Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War, and in the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and made sacrifices at the alleged tombs of the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus.
Ancient Greek historians placed the Trojan War variously in the 12th, 13th or 14th century BC: Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Douris to 1334 BC.
In November 2001, geologists John C. Kraft from the University of Delaware and John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin presented the results of investigations into the geology of the region that had started in 1977. The geologists compared the present geology with the landscapes and coastal features described in the Iliad and other classical sources, notably Strabo's Geographia.
Their conclusion was that there is regularly a consistency between the location of Troy as identified by Schliemann (and other locations such as the Greek camp), the geological evidence, and descriptions of the topology and accounts of the battle in the Iliad.
There is, however, a recent theory proposed by historian Iman Wilkins that proposes a new location of Troy in England. The theory is generally not accepted by classicists.
Archaeological Troy
The layers of ruins on the site are numbered Troy I – Troy IX, with various subdivisions:
Troy I – Troy IV: early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC)
Troy V: 20th – 18th centuries BC.
Troy VI: 17th – 15th centuries BC.
Troy VIh: late Bronze Age, 14th century BC
Troy VIIa: ca. 1300 – 1190 BC, most likely candidate for Homeric Troy.
Troy VIIb1: 12th century BC
Troy VIIb2: 11th century BC
Troy VIIb3: until ca. 950 BC
Troy VIII: around 700 BC
Troy IX: Hellenistic Ilium, 1st century BC
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Troy I–V
The first city was founded in the 3rd millennium BC. During the Bronze Age, the site seems to have been a flourishing mercantile city, since its location allowed for complete control of the Dardanelles, through which every merchant ship from the Aegean Sea heading for the Black Sea had to pass.
Troy VI
Troy VI was destroyed around 1300 BC, probably by an earthquake. Only a single arrowhead was found in this layer, and no bodily remains.
Troy VII
The archaeological layer known as Troy VIIa, which has been dated on the basis of pottery styles to the mid- to late-13th century BC, is the most often-cited candidate for the Troy of Homer. It appears to have been destroyed by a war, and there are traces of a fire. Until the 1988 excavations, the problem was that Troy VII seemed to be a hill-top fort, and not a city of the size described by Homer, but later identification of parts of the city ramparts suggests a city of considerable size.
Partial human remains were found in houses and in the streets, and near the north-western ramparts a human skeleton with skull injuries and a broken jawbone. Three bronze arrowheads were found, two in the fort and one in the city. However, only small portions of the city have been excavated, and the finds are too scarce to clearly favour destruction by war over a natural disaster.
Troy VIIb1 (ca. 1120 BC) and Troy VIIb2 (ca. 1020 BC) appear to have been destroyed by fires.
Troy IX
The last city on this site, Hellenistic Ilium, was founded by Romans during the reign of the emperor Augustus and was an important trading city until the establishment of Constantinople in the fourth century as the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. In Byzantine times the city declined gradually, and eventually disappeared.
Excavation campaigns
With the rise of modern critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were consigned to the realms of legend. In the 1870s (in two campaigns, 1871-73 and 1878/9), however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a hill, called Hissarlik by the Turks, near the town of Chanak (Çanakkale) in north-western Anatolia.
Here he discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities, dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann declared one of these cities—at first Troy I, later Troy II—to be the city of Troy, and this identification was widely accepted at that time
After Schliemann, the site was further excavated under the direction of W. Dörpfeld (1893/4) and later Carl Blegen (1932-8).
These excavations have shown that were at least nine cities built one on top of each other at this site.
Since 1988 excavations have been resumed by a team of the University of Tübingen and the University of Cincinnati under the direction of Professor Manfred Korfmann.
The question of Troy's status in the Bronze Age world has been the subject of a sometimes acerbic debate between Korfmann and the Tübingen historian Frank Kolb.
Following a magnetic imaging survey of the fields below the fort, a deep ditch was located and excavated among the ruins of a later Greek and Roman city. Remains found in the ditch were dated to the late Bronze Age, the alleged time of Homeric Troy. It is claimed by Korfmann that the ditch may have once have marked the outer defences of a much larger city than had previously been suspected.
Possible evidence of a battle was also found in the form of arrowheads found in layers dated to the early 12th century BC.
Hittite evidence
In the 1920s the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer claimed that placenames found in Hittite texts — Wilusa and Taruisa — should be identified with Ilium and Troia respectively. He further noted that the name of Alaksandus, king of Wilusa, mentioned in one of the Hittite texts is quite similar to the name of Prince Alexandros or Paris of Troy.
The Hittite king Mursili II in ca. 1320 BC wrote a letter to the king of the Ahhiyawa, treating him as an equal and implying that Miletus (Millawanda) was controlled by the Ahhiyawa, and also referring to an earlier "Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of the Ahhiyawa. This people has been identified with the Homeric Greeks (Achaeans).
These identifications were rejected by many scholars as being improbable or at least unprovable. Trevor Bryce in 1998 championed them in his book The Kingdom of the Hittites, citing a recovered piece of the so-called Manapa-Tarhunda letter, which refers to the kingdom of Wilusa as beyond the land of the Seha (known in classical times as the Caicus) river, and near the land of Lazpa (the Isle of Lesbos).
Recent evidence adds weight to the theory that Wilusa is identical to archaeological Troy. Hittite texts mention a water tunnel at Wilusa, and a water tunnel excavated by Korfmann, previously thought to be Roman, has been dated to around 2600 BC.
The identifications of Wilusa with archaeological Troy and of the Achaeans with the Ahhiyawa remains controversial, but gained enough popularity during the 1990s to be considered a majority opinion.
Homeric Ilion and historical Wilusa
Map of the TroasThe events described in Homer's Iliad, even if based on historical events that preceded its composition by some 450 years, will never be completely identifiable with historical or archaeological facts, even if there was a Bronze Age city on the site now called Troy, and even if that city was destroyed by fire or war at about the same time as the time postulated for the Trojan War.
No text or artifact has been found on site itself which clearly identifies the Bronze Age site. This is probably due to the planification of the former hillfort during the construction of Hellenistic Ilium (Troy IX), destroying the parts that most likely contained the city archives. A single seal of a Luwian scribe has been found in one of the houses, proving the presence of written correspondence in the city, but not a single text. Our emerging understanding of the geography of the Hittite Empire makes it very likely that the site corresponds to the city of Wilusa. But even if that is accepted, it is of course no positive proof of identity with Homeric (W)ilion.
A name Wilion or Troia does not appear in any of the Greek written records from the Mycenean sites. The Mycenaean Greeks of the 13th century BC had colonized the Greek mainland and Crete, and were only beginning to make forays into Anatolia, establishing a bridgehead in Miletus (Millawanda). Historical Wilusa was one of the Arzawa lands, in loose alliance with the Hittite Empire, and written reference to the city is therefore to be expected in Hittite correspondence rather than in Mycenaean palace archives.
Status of the Iliad
The dispute over the historicity of the Iliad was very heated at times. The more we know about Bronze Age history, the clearer it becomes that it is not a yes-or-no question but one of educated assessment of how much historical knowledge is present in Homer. The story of the Iliad is not an account of the war, but a tale of the psychology, the wrath, vengence and death of individual heroes that assumes common knowledge of the Trojan War to create a backdrop. No scholars assume that the individual events in the tale (many of which centrally involve divine intervention) are historical fact; on the other hand, no scholars claim that the scenery is entirely devoid of memories of Mycenaean times: it is rather a subjective question of whether the factual content is rather more or rather less than one would have expected. The ostensible historicity of Homer's Troy faces the same hurdles as with Plato's Atlantis. In both cases, an ancient writer's story is now seen by some to be true, by others to be mythology or fiction. It may be possible to establish connections between either story and real places and events, but these always risk to be subject to selection bias.
The Iliad as essentially legendary
Some archaeologists and historians maintain that none of the events in Homer are historical. Others accept that there may be a foundation of historical events in the Homeric stories, but say that in the absence of independent evidence it is not possible to separate fact from myth in the stories.
In recent years scholars have suggested that the Homeric stories represented a synthesis of many old Greek stories of various Bronze Age sieges and expeditions, fused together in the Greek memory during the "dark ages" which followed the fall of the Mycenean civilization. In this view, no historical city of Troy existed anywhere: the name derives from a people called the Troies, who probably lived in central Greece. The identification of the hill at Hissarlik as Troy is, in this view, a late development, following the Greek colonisation of Asia Minor in the 8th century BC.
The Iliad as essentially historical
Another view is that Homer was heir to an unbroken tradition of epic poetry reaching back some 500 years into Mycenaean times. In this view, the poem's core could reflect a historical campaign that took place at the eve of the decline of the Mycenaean civilization. Much legendary material would have been added during this time, but in this view it is meaningful to ask for archaeological and textual evidence corresponding to events referred to in the Iliad. Such a historical background gives a credible explanation for the geographical knowledge of Troy (which could, however, also have been obtained in Homer's time by visiting the traditional site of the city) and otherwise unmotivated elements in the poem (in particular the detailed Catalogue of Ships). Linguistically, a few verses of the Iliad suggest great antiquity, because they only fit the meter if projected back into Mycenaean Greek, suggesting a poetic tradition spanning the Greek Dark Ages. Even though Homer was Ionian, the Iliad reflects the geography known to the Mycenaean Greeks, showing detailed knowledge of the mainland but not extending to the Ionian islands or Anatolia, which suggests that the Iliad reproduces an account of events handed down by tradition, to which the author did not add his own geographical knowledge.
Tourism
"Trojan Horse" at the site of TroyToday there is a Turkish town called Truva in the vicinity of the archaeological site, but this town has grown up recently to service the tourist trade. The archaeological site is officially called Troy by the Turkish government and appears as such on many maps.
A large number of tourists visit the site each year, mostly coming from Istanbul by bus or by ferry via Çanakkale. The visitor sees a highly commercialised site, with a large wooden horse built as a playground for children, then shops and a museum. The archaeological site itself is, as a recent writer said, "a ruin of a ruin," because the site has been frequently excavated, and because Schliemann's archaeological methods were very destructive: in his conviction that the city of Priam would be found in the earliest layers, he demolished many interesting structures from later eras, including all of the house walls from Troy II. For many years also the site was unguarded and was thoroughly looted.
Troy in later legend
Such was the fame of the Trojan story in Roman and medieval times that it was built upon to provide a starting point for various legends of national origin. The most famous is undoubtedly that promulgated by Vergil in the Aeneid, tracing the ancestry of the founders of Rome, and more specifically the Julio-Claudian dynasty, to the Trojan prince Aeneas. Similarly Geoffrey of Monmouth traces the legendary kings of Britain to a supposed descendant of Aeneas called Brutus.
Is a legendary city, scene of the Trojan War, part of which is described in Homer's Iliad, an epic poem in Ancient Greek, composed in the 9th or 8th century BC, but containing older material (Iliad means "about Ilion").
Troy is also the name of an archaeological site, the traditional location of Homeric Troy, in Anatolia, close to the seacoast in what is now northwest Turkey, southwest of the Dardanelles under Mount Ida.
A new city of Ilium was founded on the site that many believed to be the location of the legendary Ilion in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople, and declined gradually during Byzantine times. The Roman city of Celeia (now Celje in Slovenia) has been referred to by some writers as Troia secunda ("the second Troy").
In the 1870s the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated the area. Later excavations revealed several cities built in succession to one another. One of the earlier cities (Troy VIIa) is often identified with Homeric Troy. While such an identity is disputed, the site has been successfully identified with the city called Wilusa in Hittite texts; Ilion (which goes back to earlier Wilion with a digamma) is thought to be the Greek rendition of that name.
The Story of the Trojan War in mythology is told through passages from Homer's Illiad and the works of other classic poets, like Ovidio, Virgilio, Apolodoro and Trifiodoro. The war was waged against Troy by the Greeks and lasted for ten years. The war was caused by the abduction of Helen by Paris. The war ended with the destruction of Troy.
Portable Planetariums Home Company has done a complete reconstruction of the Trojan Cicle: since Leda (mother of helen) and the swan until end of the Trojan War. We have four Projection Cylinders devoted Troy: 1) Precedents 2) First 9 years 3) Tenth year of Wart and 4) Fall of Troy. Almost images in the cylinders belong to the classical greek art.
Greek Mythology - Troyan Cicle II: First Nine Years of Troyan War Projection Cylinder for Portable Planetariums or Educative Domes
Troy, Troia, Ílion, Troia, Ilium, Truva, Achean Fleet, Ajax and Achilles, Troy and Allies, Achean Principal War Chiefs, Menelaus, Diomede, Ulysses, Nestor, Achilles and Agamenon, Iphigeneia also Iphigenia and sometimes Iphianassa, Achaean Fleet Arrives to Troy, Menelaus, Priamo King of Troy, Hector, Ilione, Creusa, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antiphus, Polites, Laodice, Paris, Cassandra, Polydorus, Polyxena, Tróáin, Troilus (fathered by Apollo), Lycaon, Cebriones, Amazons, Penthesilea the Amazon Queen in the Troy War, Achilles kills to Mennon, the Black King allied with Priam, Death of Memnon, Eos takes the Memnon death body from the Battle Field, Zeus weighs the Memnon' souls, Achilles kills to Troilo, The Rage of Achilles, Achilles and Briseis (Hippodameia), Achilles Claims to his mother Thetis, Tethis claims help, for her son Achilles, to Zeus, Achaeans and Trojans returns to the Battle Field, Diomedes, Apollo removes to Aeneas from the Battle Field, Aeneas, Ulysses and Diomedes capture to Dolon, Aphrodite.
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