1.
Black-figure pottery
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Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC, stylistically it can be distinguished from the preceding orientalizing period and the subsequent red-figure pottery style. Figures and ornaments were painted on the body of the vessel using shapes, delicate contours were incised into the paint before firing, and details could be reinforced and highlighted with opaque colors, usually white and red. The principal centers for this style were initially the commercial hub Corinth, other important production sites are known to have been in Laconia, Boeotia, eastern Greece, and Italy. Particularly in Italy individual styles developed which were at least in part intended for the Etruscan market, Greek black-figure vases were very popular with the Etruscans, as is evident from frequent imports. Greek artists created customized goods for the Etruscan market which differed in form, the Etruscans also developed their own black-figure ceramic industry oriented on Greek models. Black-figure painting on vases was the first art style to give rise to a significant number of identifiable artists, some are known by their true names, others only by the pragmatic names they were given in the scientific literature. Especially Attica was the home of well-known artists, some potters introduced a variety of innovations which frequently influenced the work of the painters, sometimes it was the painters who inspired the potters’ originality. Red- as well as black-figure vases are one of the most important sources of mythology and iconography, since the 19th century at the latest, these vases have been the subject of intensive investigation. The foundation for pottery painting is the carrier, in other words the vase onto which an image is painted. Popular shapes alternated with passing fashions, whereas many recurred after intervals, others were replaced over time. But they all had a method of manufacture, after the vase was made. The workshops were under the control of the potters, who as owners of businesses had a social position. The extent to which potters and painters were identical is uncertain and it is likely that many master potters themselves made their main contribution in the production process as vase painters, while employing additional painters. It is, however, not easy to reconstruct links between potters and painters, but such attributions can only be made with confidence if the signatures of potter and painter are at hand. The painters, who were slaves or craftsmen paid as pottery painters, worked on unfired. In the case of production the subject was painted on the vase with a clay slurry which turned black after firing. This was not a color in the sense, since this surface slip was of the same material as the vase itself
2.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
3.
Troy
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The present-day location is known as Hisarlik. It was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, a new capital called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually in the Byzantine era and these excavations revealed several cities built in succession. Troy VII has been identified with the city that the Hittites called Wilusa, the origin of the Greek Ἴλιον. Today, the hill at Hisarlık has given its name to a village near the ruins. It lies within the province of Çanakkale, some 30 km south-west of the provincial capital, the map here shows the adapted Scamander estuary with Ilium a little way inland across the Homeric plain. Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998, Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC, Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII, in the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander, where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, recent geological findings have permitted the identification of the ancient Trojan coastline, and the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric geography of Troy. In November 2001, the geologist John C, kraft from the University of Delaware and the classicist John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin, presented the results of investigations, begun in 1977, into the geology of the region. Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the major work attributed to Homer. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, the Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and there made sacrifices at tombs associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. After the 1995 find of a Luwian biconvex seal at Troy VII, with the rise of critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were, for a long time, consigned to the realms of legend. However, the location of ancient Troy had from classical times remained the subject of interest. The Troad peninsula was anticipated to be the location, leChavaliers location, published in his Voyage de la Troade, was the most commonly accepted theory for almost a century. In 1822, the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren was the first to identify with confidence the position of the city as it is now known, the hill, near the city of Çanakkale, was known as Hisarlık. In 1868, Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık, in 1871–73 and 1878–79, he excavated the hill and discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period
4.
Giovanni Boccaccio
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Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio wrote a number of works, including The Decameron. The details of Boccaccios birth are uncertain and he was born in Florence or in a village near Certaldo where his family was from. He was the son of Florentine merchant Boccaccino di Chellino and an unknown woman, Boccaccios stepmother was called Margherita de Mardoli. His father worked for the Compagnia dei Bardi and, in the 1320s, married Margherita dei Mardoli, Boccaccio may have been tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of Dante. In 1326, his father was appointed head of a bank, Boccaccio was an apprentice at the bank but disliked the banking profession. He persuaded his father to let him study law at the Studium and he also pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies. His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Robert the Wise in the 1330s, at this time, he fell in love with a married daughter of the king, who is portrayed as Fiammetta in many of Boccaccios prose romances, including Il Filocolo. Acciaioli later became counselor to Queen Joanna I of Naples and, eventually and it seems that Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia, humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, in Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation of poetry. Works produced in this period include Il Filostrato and Teseida, The Filocolo, the period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the Sicilian octave, where it influenced Petrarch. Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the plague of 1340 in that city and he had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence. His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he had gone bankrupt, the pastoral piece Ninfale fiesolano probably dates from this time, also. In 1343, Boccaccios father remarried to Bice del Bostichi and his children by his first marriage had all died, but he had another son named Iacopo in 1344. In Florence, the overthrow of Walter of Brienne brought about the government of popolo minuto and it diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and assisted in the relative decline of Florence. The city was further in 1348 by the Black Death. From 1347, Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage and, despite his claims and his stepmother died during the epidemic and his father was closely associated with the government efforts as Minister of Supply in the city. His father died in 1349 and Boccaccio was forced into an active role as head of the family
5.
De Mulieribus Claris
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De Mulieribus Claris or De Claris Mulieribus is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, first published in 1374. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature, at the same time as he was writing On Famous Women, Boccaccio also compiled a collection of biographies of famous men, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. Boccaccio claimed to have written the 106 biographies for the posterity of the women who were considered renowned and he believed that recounting the deeds of certain women who may have been wicked would be offset by the exhortations to virtue by the deeds of good women. He writes in his presentation of this combination of all types of women that hopefully it would encourage virtue, the author declares in the preface that this collection of 106 short biographies of women is the first example in Western literature devoted solely and exclusively to women. Boccaccio himself even says this work was inspired and modeled on Petrarchs De Viris Illustribus and it also had influence on Geoffrey Chaucers Legend of Good Women and The Canterbury Tales. Boccaccios work has much respect in the history of Western literature and is a fountainhead for European women biography, Boccaccio wrote this work in Certaldo probably between the summer of 1361 and the summer of 1362, although it could have been as late as December 1362. He dedicated his work to Andrea Acciaioli, Countess of Altavilla and she was not his first choice however. He first considered to dedicate his slim volume to Joanna I of Naples and he ultimately decided that his work as a little book was not worthy a person of such great fame. There are over 100 surviving manuscripts which shows that the De Mulieribus Claris was among the most popular works in the last age of the manuscript book. In the last part of the 14th century after Boccaccio died a Donato degli Albanzani had a copy that his friend Boccaccio gave him, in the beginning of the 16th century a Henry Parker translated about half into English and dedicated it to Henry VIII. This was then followed in the 16th century of other Italian translations by Luca Antonio Ridolfi, the invention of the printing press brought the first Latin version done by Johan Zainer in Ulm about 1473. The only complete 16th century printed Latin version to survive is from a Mathias Apiarus done around 1539, from that time it was not until the middle of the 20th century until there was another complete printed version done – some 400 years later. The 106 Famous Women biographies are of mythological and historical women, the brief life stories follow the same general exemplary literature patterns used in various versions of De viris illustribus. This is sometimes interjected with a philosophical or inspirational lesson at the end, the only sources that Boccaccio specifically says he used are Saint Paul, the Bible and Jerome. The wording of the biographies themselves, however, provide hints about where he obtained his information and he clearly had access to works of the classical authors Valerius Maximus, Pliny, Livy, Ovid, Suetonius, Statius, Virgil, Lactantius, Orosius, and Justinus. Ghost of Boccaccio, Writings on Famous Women, Franklin, M
6.
Loggia dei Lanzi
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The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery. It consists of wide open to the street. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with Corinthian capitals, the wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines that Michelangelo proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria. Simone Talenti is also well-known from his contributions to the churches Orsanmichele, the vivacious construction of the Loggia is in stark contrast with the severe architecture of the Palazzo Vecchio. It is effectively an open-air sculpture gallery of antique and Renaissance art, the name Loggia dei Lanzi dates back to the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo I, when it was used to house his formidable landsknechts, or German mercenary pikemen. On the façade of the Loggia, below the parapet, are trefoils with allegorical figures of the four virtues by Agnolo Gaddi. Their blue enamelled background is the work of Leonardo, a monk, the vault, composed of semicircles, was done by the Florentine Antonio de Pucci. It was originally placed in the Villa Medici in Rome, on the side of the Loggia, there is a Latin inscription from 1750 commemorating the change of the Florentine calendar in 1749 to bring it into line with the Roman calendar. The Florentine calendar began on 25 March instead of 1 January, the other inscription from 1893 records the Florentines who distinguished themselves during the annexation of Milan, Venice and Rome to the kingdom of Italy. Underneath the bay on the far left is the statue of Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini. It shows the mythical Greek hero holding his sword in his right hand, the well-proportioned muscular body of Perseus stands poised on the right leg. Perseus is reflecting and he seems to be frightened by his same action, blood is gushing from the head and the neck of the dead Medusa. The richly decorated pedestal, also by Cellini, shows four graceful bronze statuettes of Jupiter, Mercurius, Minerva. The bas-relief on the pedestal, representing Perseus freeing Andromeda, is a copy of the one in Bargello, Benvenuto Cellini worked almost ten years on this bronze. His wax design was approved by Cosimo I de Medici. He met numerous difficulties which, according to his autobiography, almost brought him to the brink of death, the casting of this bronze statue was several times unsuccessful. When attempting again, the melting furnace got overheated, spoiling the casting of the bronze, Cellini gave orders to feed the furnace with his household furniture and finally with about 200 pewter dishes and plates, and his pots and pans. This caused the bronze to flow again, after the bronze had cooled, the statue was finished, except for three toes on the right foot
7.
Charles Le Brun
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Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV the greatest French artist of all time, he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art, born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was also a pupil of François Perrier, in Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latters theories of art, on his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria. Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet, Colbert also promptly recognized Le Bruns powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the Academy of France at Rome, another project Le Brun worked on was Hôtel Lambert. The ceiling in the gallery of Hercules was painted by him, Le Brun started work on the project in 1650, shortly after his return from Italy. The decoration continued intermittently over twelve years or so, as it was interrupted by the renovation of Vaux le Vicomte. In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only. He was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death, the King had declared him the greatest French artist of all time. From this date all that was done in the palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. While he was working on The Battles, Le Bruns style became more personal as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him. Le Bruns decoration is not only a work of art, it is the monument of a reign. This contributed to the illness which on 22 February 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles, besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, what mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read, nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers
8.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially the Met, is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the edge of Central Park along Manhattans Museum Mile, is by area one of the worlds largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains a collection of art, architecture. On March 18,2016, the museum opened the Met Breuer museum at Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side, it extends the museums modern, the Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art. The museum is home to collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, as well as antique weapons. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day and it opened on February 20,1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, the museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Mets galleries. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts traveling shows throughout the year. The director of the museum is Thomas P. Campbell, a long-time curator and it was announced on February 28th,2017 that Campbell will be stepping down as the Mets director and CEO, effective June. On March 1st,2017 the BBC reported that Daniel Weiss shall be the acting CEO until a replacement is found, Beginning in the late 19th century, the Met started to acquire ancient art and artifacts from the Near East. From a few tablets and seals, the Mets collection of Near Eastern art has grown to more than 7,000 pieces. The highlights of the include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures. The Mets Department of Arms and Armor is one of the museums most popular collections. Among the collections 14,000 objects are many pieces made for and used by kings and princes, including armor belonging to Henry VIII of England, Henry II of France, Rockefeller donated his more than 3, 000-piece collection to the museum. The Mets Asian department holds a collection of Asian art, of more than 35,000 pieces, the collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum, many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections
9.
Clytemnestra
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Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon and queen of Mycenae in ancient Greek legend. Her Greek name Klytaimnḗstra is also sometimes latinized as Clytaemnestra and it is commonly glossed as famed for her suitors. However, this form is a later misreading motivated by an erroneous etymological connection to the verb mnáomai, the original name form is believed to have been Klytaimḗstra without the -n-. The present form of the name does not appear before the middle Byzantine period, Aeschylus, in certain wordplays on her name, appears to assume an etymological link with the verb mḗdomai. Clytemnestra was the daughter of Tyndareus and Leda, the King, according to the myth, Zeus appeared to Leda in the form of a swan, seducing and impregnating her. Leda produced four offspring from two eggs, Castor and Clytemnestra from one egg, and Helen and Polydeuces from the other, therefore, Castor and Clytemnestra were fathered by Tyndareus, whereas Helen and Polydeuces were fathered by Zeus. Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus were in exile at the home of Tyndareus, in due time Agamemnon married Clytemnestra and Menelaus married Helen. In a late variation, Euripidess Iphigenia at Aulis, Clytemnestras first husband was Tantalus, King of Pisa, Agamemnon kills him and his infant son, in another version, her first husband was King of Lydia. The kings of Lydia, according to Plutarchs The Greek Questions,45, having succeeded Omphale who had received from Herakles Hippolytes axe, after Helen went from Sparta to Troy, her husband, Menelaus, asked his brother Agamemnon for help. However, consistently weak winds prevented the fleet from sailing, through a subplot involving the gods and omens, the priest Calchas said the winds would be favorable if Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis. Agamemnon persuaded Clytemnestra to send Iphigenia to him, telling her he was going to marry her to Achilles, when Iphigenia arrived at Aulis, she was sacrificed, the winds turned, and the troops set sail for Troy. The Trojan War lasted ten years, during this period of Agamemnons long absence, Clytemnestra began a love affair with Aegisthus, her husbands cousin. Whether Clytemnestra was seduced into the affair or entered into it independently differs according to the author of the myth. Nevertheless, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus began plotting Agamemnons demise, Clytemnestra was enraged by Iphigenias murder. Aegisthus saw his father Thyestes betrayed by Agamemnons father Atreus, in old versions of the story, on returning from Troy, Agamemnon is murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife, Clytemnestra. In some later versions Clytemnestra helps him or does the killing herself in his own home, Clytemnestra waited until he was in the bath, and then entangled him in a cloth net and stabbed him. Trapped in the web, Agamemnon could neither escape nor resist his murderer, meanwhile, Cassandra saw a vision of herself and Agamemnon being murdered. Her attempts to elicit help failed and she realized she was fated to die, and resolutely walked into the palace to receive her death
10.
Homer
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Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
11.
Iliad
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The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly. The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC. Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution gives a date of 760–710 BC, in the modern vulgate, the Iliad contains 15,693 lines, it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects. Note, Book numbers are in parentheses and come before the synopsis of the book, after an invocation to the Muses, the story launches in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besieging Greeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive of Agamemnon, although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollos help, and Apollo causes a plague to afflict the Greek army, after nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon but will go home. Odysseus takes a ship and returns Chryseis to her father, whereupon Apollo ends the plague, in the meantime, Agamemnons messengers take Briseis away. Achilles becomes very upset, sits by the seashore, and prays to his mother, Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to bring the Greeks to the breaking point by the Trojans, so Agamemnon will realize how much the Greeks need Achilles. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees, Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Agamemnon heeds the dream but decides to first test the Greek armys morale, the plan backfires, and only the intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout. Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnons war. After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain, the poet takes the opportunity to describe the provenance of each Greek contingent. When news of the Greek deployment reaches King Priam, the Trojans too sortie upon the plain, in a list similar to that for the Greeks, the poet describes the Trojans and their allies. The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by his brother and head of the Trojan army, Hector. While Helen tells Priam about the Greek commanders from the walls of Troy, Paris is beaten, but Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with Helen before Menelaus can kill him
12.
Troilus
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Troilus is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War. The first surviving reference to him is in Homers Iliad, which scholars believe was composed by bards, in Greek mythology, Troilus is a young Trojan prince, one of the sons of King Priam and Hecuba. Prophecies link Troilus fate to that of Troy and so he is ambushed and murdered by Achilles, Sophocles was one of the writers to tell this tale. It was also a theme among artists of the time. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents and he was also regarded as a paragon of youthful male beauty. In Western European medieval and Renaissance versions of the legend, Troilus is the youngest of Priams five legitimate sons by Hecuba, despite his youth he is one of the main Trojan war leaders. He dies in battle at Achilles hands, in a popular addition to the story, originating in the 12th century, Troilus falls in love with Cressida, whose father has defected to the Greeks. Cressida pledges her love to Troilus but she switches her affections to the Greek hero Diomedes when sent to her father in a hostage exchange. Chaucer and Shakespeare are among the authors who wrote works telling the story of Troilus, within the medieval tradition, Troilus was regarded as a paragon of the faithful courtly lover and also of the virtuous pagan knight. Once the custom of courtly love had faded, his fate was regarded less sympathetically, little attention was paid to the character during the 18th and 19th centuries. However, Troilus has reappeared in 20th and 21st century retellings of the Trojan War by authors who have elements from both the classical and medieval versions of his story. For the ancient Greeks, the tale of the Trojan War, the characters death early in the war and the prophecies surrounding him demonstrated that all Trojan efforts to defend their home would be in vain. His symbolic significance is evidenced by linguistic analysis of his Greek name Troilos and it can be interpreted as an elision of the names of Tros and Ilos, the legendary founders of Troy, as a diminutive or pet name little Tros or as an elision of Troië and lyo. These multiple possibilities emphasise the link between the fates of Troilus and of the city where he lived, given this, it is unfortunate that the Cypria—the part of the Epic Cycle that covers the period of the Trojan War of Troilus death—does not survive. Indeed, no complete narrative of his remains from archaic times or the subsequent classical period. Most of the sources from before the Hellenistic age that even referred to the character are lost or survive only in fragments or summary. Partially compensating for the texts are the physical artifacts that remain from the archaic. The story of the circumstances around Troilus death was a theme among pottery painters
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Polyxena". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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