1.
The Trojan Women (film)
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The Trojan Women is a 1971 American drama film directed by Michael Cacoyannis and starring Katharine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave. The Trojan Women was one of a trilogy of plays dealing with the created by the Trojan Wars. In fact the actresses got on well, talking about painting, politics, Cacoyannis first staged The Trojan Women in Italy in 1963, with Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Mildred Dunnock in the leading roles. Later in the year he took the production to New York and in 1965. For me, he said in a 1971 magazine interview, the play is particularly pertinent, what the play is saying is as important today as it was when it was written. I feel very strongly about war, militarism, killing people, and I havent found a better writer who makes that point more clearly than Euripides. The play is about the folly of war, the folly of people killing others, Katharine Hepburns costume was designed by Nicholas Georgiadis of Covent Garden. Cacoyannis hand-picked Italys Franco Freda and Adalgisa Favella as make-up artist, both were veterans of the films of Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti. Hepburn said of her acting for this part, My acting has always been a little flamboyant, but for this part, Ive had to pare right down to the bare essentials. Her acting voice dropped, after training, by an octave and was almost accentless
The Trojan Women (film)
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Promotional poster
2.
USC Trojans
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The USC Trojans are the athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. While the mens teams are nicknamed the Trojans, the athletic teams are referred to as either the Trojans or Women of Troy. The program participates in the Pac-12 Conference and has won 125 team national championships,103 of which are NCAA National Championships, USCs cross-town rival is UCLA, with whom there is fierce athletic and scholastic competition. However, USCs rivalry with Notre Dame predates the UCLA rivalry by three years, the Notre Dame rivalry stems mainly from the annual football game played between these two universities and is considered the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. USC sponsors teams in ten mens and thirteen womens NCAA sanctioned sports, * = Beach volleyball is a fully sanctioned NCAA sport which had its first national championship in the spring of 2016. The Trojans have won 125 team national championships,103 of which are NCAA National Championships and this is the third highest count of all universities behind UCLA with 113 and Stanford with 112. The Trojan men have won 97 national championships, more than any other University, the Women of Troy have earned 28 national championships, third in the nation. The Trojans won at least 1 national team title in 26 consecutive years, USC won the National College All-Sports Championship an annual ranking by USA Today of the country’s top athletic programs —6 times since its inception in 1971. Four Trojans have won the prestigious James E. Sullivan Award as the top athlete in America, diver Sammy Lee, shot putter Parry O’Brien. Two Trojans have won the Honda-Broderick Cup as the top collegiate woman athlete of the year, Cheryl Miller, and Trojan women have won 8 Honda Awards, as the top female athlete in their sport. USC has a reputation and long tradition of nurturing Olympic athletes, from the 1904 Summer Olympics through the 2014 winter games,422 Trojan athletes have competed in the Games, taking home 135 gold medals,88 silver and 65 bronze. For instance, USCs three womens water polo 2012 gold medalists count as 3 medals by this method, whereas silver medalist Spain only counts one medal, USC has won 103 NCAA team national championships. USC won USLTA team titles in 1977 and 1978, a December 1998 SPORT magazine ranking listed USC as the No.4 all-time college football program of the 20th century. In 2009 ESPN ranked USC the second best program in football history. The USC Football team has been voted National Champions 11 times, USC is also known for its Heisman Trophy winners. USC is second in Heisman winners at 7, three of the four Heisman winners from 2002 to 2005 were Trojans - Carson Palmer in 2002, Matt Leinart in 2004 and Reggie Bush in 2005. Four other Trojan tailbacks have won the coveted Heisman Trophy as college football’s outstanding player, Mike Garrett in 1965, O. J. Simpson in 1968, Charles White in 1979 and Marcus Allen in 1981. Also notable, USC has 12 players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, USCs record against opponents from the old Pac-10 is 367–153–29, and the Trojans have winning records against all nine other members
USC Trojans
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Matt Leinart's Heisman Trophy
USC Trojans
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Dedeaux Field
USC Trojans
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Dedeaux Field is located on Mark McGwire Way
USC Trojans
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The Galen Center. Notice the Los Angeles Skyline viewable through the north windows.
3.
Astyanax
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In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy and husband of Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe. His birth name was Scamandrius, but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax, because he was the son of the great defender. During the Trojan War, Andromache hid the child in Hectors tomb and his fate was debated by the Greeks, for if he were allowed to live, it was feared he would avenge his father and rebuild Troy. In the version given by the Little Iliad and repeated by Pausanias, he was killed by Neoptolemus, another version is given in Iliou persis, in which Odysseus kills Astyanax. In Ovids Metamorphoses, the child is thrown from the walls by the Greek victors, in Euripidess The Trojan Women, the herald Talthybius reveals to Andromache that Odysseus has convinced the council to have the child thrown from the walls, and the child is in this way killed. Other sources for the story of the Sack of Troy and Astyanaxs death can be found in the Bibliotheca, Astyanax survives to found settlements in Corsica and Sardinia. The Chronicle of Fredegar contains the oldest mention of a medieval legend linking the Franks to the Trojans, one legend, as further elaborated through the Middle Ages, established Astyanax, renamed Francus, as the founder of Merovingian dynasty and forefather of Charlemagne. In Matteo Maria Boiardos Orlando innamorato, Andromache saves Astyanax by hiding him in a tomb, taken to Sicily, Astyanax became the ruler of Messina, killed the giant king of Agrigento and married the queen of Syracuse. He was killed treacherously by Aegisthus, but his wife escaped to Reggio and bore a son, in this tradition, the epic hero Rolands sword Durendal was the very sword used by Hector, and Roland wins the sword by defeating a Saracen knight who had defeated Ruggiero II. In Ludovico Ariostos Orlando Furioso, a continuation of Boiardos poem, Astyanax arrives in Sicily and eventually becomes king of Messina, and his heirs later rule over Calabria. From these rulers is descended Ruggiero II, father of the hero Ruggiero, based on the medieval legend, Jean Lemaire de Belgess Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie has Astyanax survive the fall of Troy and arrive in Western Europe. He changes his name to Francus and becomes king of Celtic Gaul and founds the dynasty leading to Pepin, Lemaire de Belges work inspired Pierre de Ronsards epic poem La Franciade. In this poem, Jupiter saves Astyanax, the young hero arrives in Crete and falls in love with the princess Hyanthe with whom he is destined to found the royal dynasty of France. In Jean Racines play Andromaque, Astyanax has narrowly escaped death at the hands of Odysseus, Andromache has been taken prisoner in Epirus by Neoptolemus who is due to be married to Hermione, the only daughter of the Spartan king Menelaus and Helen of Troy. Astyanax is also the subject of modern works, In David Gemmells Troy series, Astyanax is the son of Andromache. After the Trojan War, Aeneas escapes from Troy with Andromache and Astyanax to Seven hills, a colony in Italy Aeneas and Odysseus found
Astyanax
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An engraving showing the child Astyanax thrown from the walls of Troy as his mother Andromache looks on.
Astyanax
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Astyanax, in Andromache's lap, reaches to touch his father's helmet before his duel with Achilles (
Apulian red-figure column-crater, ca. 370–360 BC)
4.
Euripides
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Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few plays have survived, with the others being Aeschylus, Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most, of these,18 or 19 have survived more or less complete and there are also fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, yet he also became the most tragic of poets, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was also unique among the writers of ancient Athens for the sympathy he demonstrated towards all victims of society and his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as an influence, Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age. Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides, for example, it is possible that he never visited Macedonia at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists. Upon the receipt of a saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory. In fact the boy was destined for a career on the stage and he served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, he studied painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus. He had two marriages and both his wives—Melite and Choerine —were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis, there he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky. Eventually he retired to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. However, as mentioned in the introduction, biographical details such as these should be regarded with scepticism and this biography is divided into three sections corresponding to the three kinds of sources. The apocryphal account that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island was a late tradition, much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didnt live to see the final defeat of his city. In an account by Plutarch, the failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides lyrics to their enemies in return for food. Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. Yet Aristophanes borrowed rather than just satirized some of the methods, he was once ridiculed by a colleague, Cratinus, as a hair-splitting master of niceties
Euripides
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Bust of Euripides: Roman marble copy of a 4th-century BC Greek original (
Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome)
Euripides
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A statue of Euripides,
Louvre,
Paris.
5.
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
Troy
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The walls of the
acropolis belong to Troy VII, which is identified as the site of the
Trojan War (c. 1200 BC).
Troy
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Silver
tetradrachm from Troy with head of
Athena, c. 165–150 BC
Troy
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The
odeon dates to the
Roman Troy IX and was renovated by
Hadrian in 124 AD.
Troy
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The view from
Hisarlık across the plain of Ilium to the
Aegean Sea.
6.
Hecuba
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Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several characters of Homers Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris. Ancient sources vary as to the parentage of Hecuba, according to Homer, Hecuba was the daughter of King Dymas of Phrygia, but Euripides and Virgil write of her as the daughter of the Thracian king Cisseus. According to Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars, the emperor Tiberius pestered scholars with obscure questions about ancient mythology, Hecuba appears six times in the Iliad. In Book 6. 326–96, she meets Hector upon his return to the polis and offers him the cup, instructing him to offer it to Zeus. Taking Hectors advice, she chooses a gown taken from Alexanders treasure to give as an offering to the goddess, in Book 22, she pleads with Hector not to fight Achilles, for fear of never get to mourn you laid out on a bier. In Book 24. 201–16, she is stricken with anxiety upon hearing of Priams plan to retrieve Hectors body from Achilles hut. Further along in the episode, at 24. 287–98, she offers Priam the libation cup. Unlike in the first episode in which Hector refuses her offer of the cup, finally, she laments Hectors death in a well-known speech at 24. 748–59. The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus states that Hecuba had a son named Troilus with the god Apollo, an oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated if Troilus reached the age of twenty alive. Hecuba is a character in two plays by Euripides, The Trojan Women and Hecuba. The Trojan Women describes the aftermath of the fall of Troy, Hecuba also takes place just after the fall of Troy. Polydorus, the youngest son of Priam and Hecuba, is sent to King Polymestor for safekeeping, Hecuba learns of this, and when Polymestor comes to the fallen city, Hecuba, by trickery, blinds him and kills his two sons. A third story says that when she was given to Odysseus as a slave, she snarled and cursed at him, so the gods turned her into a dog, in another tradition, Hecuba went mad upon seeing the corpses of her children Polydorus and Polyxena
Hecuba
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Hecuba from the "
Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum "
Hecuba
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The death of Hector on a Roman sarcophagus, c. 200 AD
7.
Cassandra
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Cassandra, also known as Alexandra or Kassandra, was a daughter of King Priam and of Queen Hecuba of Troy in Greek mythology. In modern usage her name is employed as a device to indicate someone whose accurate prophecies are not believed by those around them. In an alternative version, she fell asleep in a temple, Cassandra became a figure of epic tradition and of tragedy. Hjalmar Frisk notes unexplained etymology, citing various hypotheses found in Wilhelm Schulze, Edgar Howard Sturtevant, J. Davreux, R. S. P. Beekes cites García Ramóns derivation of the name from the Proto-Indo-European root *kend- raise. Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba and the twin sister of Helenus. According to legend, Cassandra had dark curly hair and dark brown eyes and was both beautiful and clever, but considered insane. However, her perceived insanity is the result of being cursed by the god Apollo, many versions of the myth relate that she incurred the gods wrath by refusing him sex, sometimes after first promising herself in exchange for the power of prophecy. Hyginus says, In another version, Cassandra consented to have sex with Apollo in exchange for the gift of prophecy and her punishment was the curse of never being believed. In some versions of the myth, Apollo curses her by spitting into her mouth during a kiss, in Aeschylus Agamemnon, she foretells the betrayal of Clytemnestra. She also bemoans her relationship with Apollo, Cassandra had served as a priestess of Apollo and her cursed gift from Apollo became a source of endless pain and frustration to Cassandra. Cassandra was seen as a liar and a madwoman by her family, in some versions of the story, she was often locked up in a pyramidal building on the citadel on her father King Priam’s orders. She was accompanied there by the wardress who cared for her under orders to inform the King of all of his daughters prophetic utterances. She was driven insane by this in the versions where she was incarcerated, though in the versions where she was not. According to legend, Cassandra had instructed her twin brother Helenus in the power of prophecy so he could be a prophet, like her, Helenus was always correct whenever he had made his predictions, but unlike his sister, people believed him. Cassandra made many predictions, with all of her prophecies being disbelieved except for one and she was believed when she foresaw who Paris was and proclaimed that he was her abandoned brother. This took place after he had sought refuge in the altar of Zeus from their brothers’ wrath, Cassandra foresaw that Paris’ abduction of Helen for his wife would bring about the Trojan War and cause the destruction of Troy. She did warn Paris not to go to Sparta along with Helenus who echoed her prophecy, Cassandra saw Helen coming into Troy at Paris return home from Sparta. She furiously snatched away Helens golden veil and tore at her hair, for she had foreseen that Helens arrival would bring the calamities of the Trojan War, the Trojan people, however, welcomed Helen into their city
Cassandra
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Cassandra by
Evelyn De Morgan (1898, London); Cassandra in front of the burning city of Troy at the peak of her insanity.
Cassandra
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Woodcut illustration of Cassandra's prophecy of the fall of Troy (at left) and her death (at right), from an incunable German translation by
Heinrich Steinhöwel of
Giovanni Boccaccio 's
De mulieribus claris, printed by Johann Zainer (de) at Ulm ca. 1474.
Cassandra
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Ajax and Cassandra by
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1806
Cassandra
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Ajax taking Cassandra, tondo of a
red-figure kylix by the Kodros Painter (el), c. 440-430 BC,
Louvre
8.
Andromache
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In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector, daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, the name means man battler or fighter of men or mans battle, from the Greek stem ἀνδρ- man and μάχη battle. This act was carried out by Neoptolemus who then took Andromache as a concubine and Hectors brother, Helenus, by Neoptolemus, she was the mother of Molossus, and according to Pausanias, of Pielus and Pergamus. When Neoptolemus died, Andromache married Helenus and became Queen of Epirus, Pausanias also implies that Helenus son, Cestrinus, was by Andromache. Andromache eventually went to live with Pergamus in Pergamum, where she died of old age, Iliad VI, 390–470, XXII 437–515 Bibliotheca III, xii,6, Epitome V,23, VI,12. Sapphos Fragment 44 Andromache was born in Thebes, a city that Achilles later sacked, killing her father Eetion, after this, her mother died of illness. She was taken from her father’s household by Hector, who had brought countless wedding-gifts, thus Priam’s household alone provides Andromache with her only familial support. In contrast to the relationship of Paris and Helen, Hector and Andromache fit the Greek ideal of a happy and productive marriage. Once Achilles kills Hector, Andromache is utterly alone, Andromache is therefore completely alone when Troy falls and her son is killed. Notably, Andromache remains unnamed in Iliad 22, referred to only as the wife of Hector, indicating the centrality of her status as Hectors wife, the Greeks divide the Trojan women as spoils of war and permanently separate them from the ruins of Troy and from one another. Hector’s fears of her life as a woman are realized as her family is entirely stripped from her by the violence of war. Without her familial structure, Andromache is a woman who must live outside familiar. Andromache’s gradual discovery of her husband’s death and her immediate lamentation culminate the shorter lamentations of Priam, in accordance with traditional customs of mourning, Andromache responds with an immediate and impulsive outburst of grief that begins the ritual lamentation. She casts away her various pieces of headdress and leads the Trojan women in ritual mourning, the final stage of the mourning process occurs in Iliad 24 in the formal, communal grieving upon the return of Hector’s body. In Iliad 22, Andromache is portrayed as the wife, weaving a cloak for her husband in the innermost chambers of the house. Here she is carrying out an action Hector had ordered her to perform during their conversation in Iliad 6, however, Andromache is seen in Iliad 6 in an unusual place for the traditional housewife, standing before the ramparts of Troy. Traditional gender roles are breached as well, as Andromache gives Hector military advice, although her behavior may seem nontraditional, hard times disrupts the separate spheres of men and women, requiring a shared civic response to the defense of the city as a whole. Andromache’s sudden tactical lecture is a way to keep Hector close, Andromache’s role as a mother, a fundamental element of her position in marriage, is emphasized within this same conversation
Andromache
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"
Andromache Mourning Hector " by Jacques-Louis David, 1783
Andromache
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Andromache in Captivity by
Frederic Leighton (ca. 1886)
Andromache
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Aomawa Baker (Andromache) in
Euripides ' The Trojan Women, directed by
Brad Mays at the
ARK Theatre Company in Los Angeles, 2003
9.
Talthybius
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Talthybius was herald and friend to Agamemnon in the Trojan War. He was the one who took Briseis from the tent of Achilles, preceding the duel of Menelaus and Paris, Agamemnon charges him to fetch a sheep for sacrifice. He died at Aegium in Achaia, Talthybius appears in Euripides’ Hecuba and The Trojan Women. In addition, he has a role in The Iliad. In The Iliad, Agamemnon orders Talthybius to fetch the medic Machaon after Menelaus was wounded with a shot by Pandarus. In Hecuba and The Trojan Women, Talthybius seems to always be the bearer of bad news, in The Trojan Women, he tells Hecuba that all of the women are being divided up and given to different Greek Heroes as slaves. He says that Cassandra will be given to Agamemnon and that Hecuba herself will be given to Odysseus, furthermore, Talthybius is the one who tells Andromache of the Greeks’ plan to kill Astyanax, her son by Hector. The plan is to throw Astyanax from the towers of Troy because it would not be wise to let the son of a Trojan hero reach adulthood. In Hecuba, Talthybius brings an order from Agamemnon to Hecuba, telling her to bury her daughter, Polyxena and he exercises significant independence in the way he carries out his orders given to him from the commanders. He was worshipped as a hero at Sparta where sacrifices took place and were offered to him and he served in Trojan war alongside his followers and others who supported him. Talthybius commitment to interests of the Greek commanders and the care he takes to avoid their disapproval, in his dealings with the captive women he felt in the main to be a sympathetic figure
Talthybius
–
Agamemnon, Talthybius and
Epeius, relief from
Samothrace, ca. 560 BC,
Louvre.
10.
Menelaus
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In Greek mythology, Menelaus was a king of Mycenaean Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy, and a central figure in the Trojan War. He was the son of Atreus and Aerope, brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and, according to the Iliad, although early authors such as Aeschylus refer in passing to Menelaus’ early life, detailed sources are quite late, post-dating 5th-century BC Greek tragedy. According to these sources, Menelaus father, Atreus, had been feuding with his brother Thyestes over the throne of Mycenae, after a back-and-forth struggle that featured adultery, incest and cannibalism, Thyestes gained the throne after his son Aegisthus murdered Atreus. As a result, Atreus’ sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon, went into exile and they first stayed with King Polyphides of Sicyon, and later with King Oeneus of Calydon. But when they thought the time was ripe to dethrone Mycenae’s hostile ruler, assisted by King Tyndareus of Sparta, they drove Thyestes away, and Agamemnon took the throne for himself. When it was time for Tyndareus’ step-daughter Helen to marry, many kings, among the contenders were Odysseus, Menestheus, Ajax the Great, Patroclus, and Idomeneus. Tyndareus would accept none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the suitors away for fear of offending them, Odysseus promised to solve the problem in a satisfactory manner if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Tyndareus’s niece Penelope, the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, then it was decreed that straws were to be drawn for Helen’s hand. The suitor who won was Menelaus, the rest of the suitors swore their oaths, and Helen and Menelaus were married, Menelaus becoming a ruler of Sparta with Helen after Tyndareus and Leda abdicated the thrones. Menelaus and Helen had a daughter Hermione as supported, for example, by Sappho and their palace has been discovered in Pellana, Laconia, to the north-west of modern Sparta. Other archaeologists consider that Pellana is too far away from other Mycenaean centres to have been the capital of Menelaus, in a return for awarding her a golden apple inscribed to the fairest, Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. Homers Iliad is the most expansive source for Menelaus’s exploits during the Trojan War, in Book 3, Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen’s return. Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, in Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel’s winner, Athena inspires the Trojan Pandarus to shoot Menelaus with his bow and arrow. However, Athena never intended for Menelaus to die and she protects him from the arrow of Pandarus, Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended aristeia as the hero retrieves the corpse of Patroclus from the battlefield, according to Hyginus, Menelaus killed eight men in the war, and was one of the Greeks hidden inside the Trojan Horse. During the sack of Troy, Menelaus killed Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris, there are four versions of Menelaus’ and Helen’s reunion on the night of the sack of Troy, Angry at Helen, Menelaus looked for and found her. In a fit of rage, he decided to kill her for leaving him for Paris, in a split second, Menelaus wrath went away instantly. He took pity on her, and decided to take her back as wife, Menelaus resolved to kill Helen but her striking beauty prompted him to drop his sword and take her back to his ship “to punish her at Sparta”, as he claimed
Menelaus
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Marble bust of Menelaus
Menelaus
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Menelaus regains Helen, detail of an Attic red-figure crater, c. 450–440 BC, found in
Gnathia (now Egnazia,
Italy).
Menelaus
–
Lelegids
11.
Helen of Troy
–
In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy, also known as Helen of Sparta, or simply Helen, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world, by marriage she was Queen of Laconia, a province within Homeric Greece, the wife of King Menelaus. Her abduction by Prince Paris of Troy brought about the Trojan War, elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides and Homer. In her youth, she was abducted by Theseus, a competition between her suitors for her hand in marriage sees Menelaus emerge victorious. An oath sworn beforehand by all the suitors requires them to military assistance in the case of her abduction. When she marries Menelaus she is very young, whether her subsequent involvement with Paris is an abduction or a seduction is ambiguous. The legends recounting Helens fate in Troy are contradictory, Homer depicts her as a wistful figure, even a sorrowful one, who comes to regret her choice and wishes to be reunited with Menelaus. Other accounts have a treacherous Helen who simulates Bacchic rites and rejoices in the carnage, ultimately, Paris was killed in action, and in Homers account Helen was reunited with Menelaus, though other versions of the legend recount her ascending to Olympus instead. A cult associated with her developed in Hellenistic Laconia, both at Sparta and elsewhere, at Therapne she shared a shrine with Menelaus and she was also worshiped in Attica and on Rhodes. Her beauty inspired artists of all time to represent her, frequently as the personification of ideal beauty, Christopher Marlowes lines from his tragedy Doctor Faustus are frequently cited, Was this the face that launchd a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. However, in the play this meeting and the ensuing temptation are not unambiguously positive, closely preceding death, images of her start appearing in the 7th century BC. In classical Greece, her abduction by—or elopement with—Paris was a popular motif, in medieval illustrations, this event was frequently portrayed as a seduction, whereas in Renaissance painting it is usually depicted as a rape by Paris. The fact that rape and kidnapping were interchangeable terms lends additional ambiguity to the story, the etymology of Helens name continues to be a problem for scholars. Georg Curtius related Helen to the moon, Émile Boisacq considered Ἑλένη to derive from the noun ἑλένη meaning torch. It has also suggested that the λ of Ἑλένη arose from an original ν. Linda Lee Clader, however, says none of the above suggestions offers much satisfaction. Inversely, others have connected this etymology to a hypothetical proto-indo-european sun goddess, in particular, her marriage myth may be connected to a broader indo-european marriage drama of the sun goddess, and she is related to the divine twins, just as many of these goddesses are. The origins of Helens myth date back to the Mycenaean age, the first record of her name appears in the poems of Homer, but scholars assume that such myths invented or received by the Mycenaean Greeks made their way to Homer
Helen of Troy
–
Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus intends to strike Helen; captivated by her beauty, he drops his sword. A flying
Eros and
Aphrodite (on the left) watch the scene. Detail of an Attic
red-figure krater, c. 450–440 BC (
Paris,
Louvre)
Helen of Troy
–
Leda and the Swan by
Cesare da Sesto (c. 1506–1510,
Wilton). The artist has been intrigued by the idea of Helen's unconventional birth; she and Clytemnestra are shown emerging from one egg; Castor and Pollux from another.
Helen of Troy
–
Theseus pursuing a woman, probably Helen. Side A from an Attic red-figure bell-krater, c. 440–430 BC (
Louvre, Paris).
Helen of Troy
–
In this painting by
Maarten van Heemskerck Helen, queen of the Greek city-state Sparta, is abducted by Paris, a prince of Troy in Asian Minor. The Walters Art Museum.
12.
Poseidon
–
Poseidon was one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in Greek mythology. His main domain was the ocean, and he is called the God of the Sea, additionally, he is referred to as Earth-Shaker due to his role in causing earthquakes, and has been called the tamer of horses. He is usually depicted as a male with curly hair. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology, both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. According to some folklore, he was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have birth to a colt. There is a Homeric hymn to Poseidon, who was the protector of many Hellenic cities, according to the references from Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was the chosen domain of Poseidon. The form Ποτειδάϝων appears in Corinth, the origins of the name Poseidon are unclear. Walter Burkert finds that the second element da- remains hopelessly ambiguous, another theory interprets the second element as related to the word *δᾶϝον dâwon, water, this would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters. There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin, Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two alternative etymologies, either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a foot-bond, or he knew many things. If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja. A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is found, indicating a lost consort goddess. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld, the chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos, a powerful attribute. In the cave of Amnisos Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia and she was related with the annual birth of the divine child. During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax was her companion in Mycenean cult. It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription, in Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter. Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for the Two Queens, the Two Queens may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys, in Arcadia, Demeters mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, a Medusa type with a horses head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water
Poseidon
–
Poseidon from
Milos, 2nd century BC (
National Archaeological Museum of Athens)
Poseidon
–
Poseidon, Paella Museum
Poseidon
–
Poseidon in
Kadriorg Palace,
Tallinn
Poseidon
–
Poseidon holding a
trident. Corinthian plaque, 550-525 BC. From Penteskouphia.
13.
Athena
–
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is the goddess of wisdom, craft, and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena, Athena is known for her calm temperament, as she moves slowly to anger. She is noted to have fought for just reasons. Athena is portrayed as a companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her city, Athens. Veneration of Athena was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes, in her role as a protector of the city, many people throughout the Greek world worshipped Athena as Athena Polias. While the city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear the same name, Athena is associated with Athens, a plural name, because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood, the Athenai, in earliest times. Mycenae was the city where the Goddess was called Mykene, at Thebes she was called Thebe, and the city again a plural, Thebae. Similarly, at Athens she was called Athena, and the city Athenae, Athena had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. According to mythical lore, she competed with Poseidon and she won by creating the olive tree, the Athenians would accept her gift and name the city after her. In history, the citizens of Athens built a statue of Athena as a temple to the goddess, which had piercing eyes, a helmet on her head, attired with an aegis or cuirass, and an extremely long spear. It also had a shield with the head of the Gorgon on it. A large snake accompanied her and she held Nike, the goddess of victory, therefore, Mylonas believes that Athena was a Mycenaean creation. On the other hand, Nilsson claims that she was the goddess of the palace who protected the king, a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja is also found in Linear A Minoan, the final part being regarded as the Linear A Minoan equivalent of the Linear B Mycenaean di-u-ja or di-wi-ja. Divine Athena also was a weaver and the deity of crafts, whether her name is attested in Eteocretan or not will have to wait for decipherment of Linear A. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean she who knows divine things better than others. Thus for Plato her name was to be derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Plato also noted that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neith, and which was identified with Athena. Neith was the war goddess and huntress deity of the Egyptians since the ancient Pre-Dynastic period, in addition, ancient Greek myths reported that Athena had visited many mythological places such as Libyas Triton River in North Africa and the Phlegraean plain
Athena
–
Mattei Athena at
Louvre. Roman copy from the 1st century BC/AD after a Greek original of the 4th century BC, attributed to Cephisodotos or Euphranor.
Athena
–
Athenian
tetradrachm representing the goddess Athena.
Athena
–
A new
peplos was woven for Athena and ceremonially brought to dress her
cult image (
British Museum).
Athena
–
Marble Greek copy signed “Antiokhos”, a 1st-century BC variant of
Phidias ’ 5th-century
Athena Promachos that stood on the
Acropolis.
14.
Classical Athens
–
Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, the peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved in the 440s to 430s BC, known as the Age of Pericles. The radical politician of aristocratic background, Cleisthenes, then took charge, the reforms of Cleisthenes replaced the traditional four Ionic tribes with ten new ones, named after legendary heroes of Greece and having no class basis, which acted as electorates. Each tribe was in divided into three trittyes, while each trittys had one or more demes —depending on their population—which became the basis of local government. The tribes each selected fifty members by lot for the Boule, the public opinion of voters could be influenced by the political satires written by the comic poets and performed in the city theaters. Most offices were filled by lot, although the ten strategoi were elected, prior to the rise of Athens, Sparta, a city-state with a militaristic culture, considered itself the leader of the Greeks, and enforced a hegemony. In 499 BC Athens sent troops to aid the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor and this provoked two Persian invasions of Greece, both of which were repelled under the leadership of the soldier-statesmen Miltiades and Themistocles. In 490 the Athenians, led by Miltiades, prevented the first invasion of the Persians, guided by king Darius I, in 480 the Persians returned under a new ruler, Xerxes I. Simultaneously the Athenians led a naval battle off Artemisium. However, this action was not enough to discourage the Persian advance which soon marched through Boeotia, setting up Thebes as their base of operations. This forced the Athenians to evacuate Athens, which was taken by the Persians, subsequently the Athenians and their allies, led by Themistocles, defeated the Persian navy at sea in the Battle of Salamis. It is interesting to note that Xerxes had built himself a throne on the coast in order to see the Greeks defeated, spartas hegemony was passing to Athens, and it was Athens that took the war to Asia Minor. These victories enabled it to bring most of the Aegean and many parts of Greece together in the Delian League. He fostered arts and literature and gave to Athens a splendor which would never return throughout its history and he executed a large number of public works projects and improved the life of the citizens. Hence, he gave his name to the Athenian Golden Age, silver mined in Laurium in southeastern Attica contributed greatly to the prosperity of this Golden Age of Athens. During the time of the ascendancy of Ephialtes as leader of the democratic faction, the conflict marked the end of Athenian command of the sea. The war between Athens and the city-state Sparta ended with an Athenian defeat after Sparta started its own navy, Athenian democracy was briefly overthrown by the coup of 411, brought about because of its poor handling of the war, but it was quickly restored. The war ended with the defeat of Athens in 404
Classical Athens
–
Early
Athenian coin, 5th century BC.
British Museum.
Classical Athens
–
Delian League ("Athenian Empire") shown in yellow, Athenian territory shown in red, situation in 431 BC, before the
Peloponnesian War.
Classical Athens
–
The modern
National Academy in Athens, with Apollo and Athena on their columns, and Socrates and Plato seated in front.
Classical Athens
–
Map of the environs of Athens showing
Piraeus,
Phalerum, and the
Long Walls
15.
Ancient Greek
–
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Ancient Greek
–
Inscription about the construction of the statue of
Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon, 440/439 BC
Ancient Greek
–
Ostracon bearing the name of
Cimon,
Stoa of Attalos
Ancient Greek
–
The words ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ as they are inscribed on the marble of the 1955
Leonidas Monument at
Thermopylae
16.
Tragedy
–
Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. In the wake of Aristotles Poetics, tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, in the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre. Drama, in the sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-generic deterritorialisation from the mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects against models of tragedy, taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation. The word tragedy appears to have used to describe different phenomena at different times. It derives from Classical Greek τραγῳδία, contracted from trag-aoidiā = goat song, scholars suspect this may be traced to a time when a goat was either the prize in a competition of choral dancing or was that around which a chorus danced prior to the animals ritual sacrifice. In another view on the etymology, Athenaeus of Naucratis says that the form of the word was trygodia from trygos and ode. There is some dissent to the origins of tragedy, mostly based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested, friedrich Nietzsche discussed the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book The Birth of Tragedy. Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a chorus of goat-like satyrs in the original dithyrambs from which the genre developed. Scott Scullion writes, There is abundant evidence for tragoidia understood as song for the prize goat, and as prize was established the billy goat, the clearest is Eustathius 1769.45, They called those competing tragedians, clearly because of the song over the billy goat. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in the 5th century have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Athenian tragedies were performed in late March/early April at an annual state religious festival in honor of Dionysus. The presentations took the form of a contest between three playwrights, who presented their works on three successive days, each playwright offered a tetralogy consisting of three tragedies and a concluding comic piece called a satyr play. The four plays sometimes featured linked stories, only one complete trilogy of tragedies has survived, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The Greek theatre was in the air, on the side of a hill. Performances were apparently open to all citizens, including women, the theatre of Dionysus at Athens probably held around 12,000 people
Tragedy
–
Aristotle's Tragic Plot Structure
Tragedy
–
Literature
Tragedy
–
Mask of
Dionysus. Greek,
Myrina, 2nd century BCE.
Tragedy
–
Scene from the tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. Roman fresco in Pompeii.
17.
Ancient Greece
–
Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
Ancient Greece
–
The
Parthenon, a temple dedicated to
Athena, located on the
Acropolis in
Athens, is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks.
Ancient Greece
–
Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period,
c. 750 BC.
Ancient Greece
–
Political geography of ancient Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods
18.
Playwright
–
A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes plays. The term is not a variant spelling of playwrite, but something quite distinct, hence the prefix and the suffix combine to indicate someone who has wrought words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form - someone who crafts plays. The homophone with write is in this case entirely coincidental, the term playwright appears to have been coined by Ben Jonson in his Epigram 49, To Playwright, as an insult, to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and this view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term playwright later lost this negative connotation, the earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks. These early plays were written for annual Athenian competitions among playwrights held around the 5th century BC, such notables as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. For the ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis, the act of making and this is the source of the English word poet. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics, the first play-writing manual, in this famous text, Aristotle established the principle of action or praxis as the basis for all drama. He then included a hierarchy of elements for the beginning with plot, character, thought, diction, music. The ends of drama were plot, character, and thought, the means of drama were language and music, since the myths, upon which Greek tragedy were based, were widely known, plot had to do with the arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was equated with choice as rather than psychology, so that character was determined by action, in tragedy, the notion of ethical choice determined the character of the individual. Thought had more to do and the imitation of an action that is serious, thus, he developed his notion of hamartia, or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist. It provides the basis for the play, a term still held as the sine qua non of dramaturgy. The Poetics, while very brief and highly condensed, is studied today. Perhaps the most Aristotelian of contemporary playwrights is David Mamet, who embraces the idea of character as agent of the action, and emphasizes causality in the structure of his plays. His recently revived, Speed-the-Plow, is quintessentially Aristotelian, in that it observes the unities and builds its plot through a causal stream of discoveries and reversals. The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities, of action, place, and time
Playwright
–
William Shakespeare
19.
Peloponnesian War
–
The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases and this period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched an expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily. This ushered in the phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War. The destruction of Athens fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved, but Sparta refused. The Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world, the economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece, poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into a struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Indeed, the fifty years of Greek history that preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. The city proceeded to conquer all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, by the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens. This tribute was used to support a fleet and, after the middle of the century, to fund massive public works programs in Athens. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action at this time, conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, Athens sent out a sizable contingent, but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots, the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta. When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the country, a fifteen-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War, ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and a number of other states. The war was ended by the Thirty Years Peace, signed in the winter of 446/5 BC. The Thirty Years Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens powerful ally Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens, the rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap, and Athens found itself facing the prospect of revolts throughout the empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a war to determine the fate of the empire
Peloponnesian War
–
The walls surrounding Athens
Peloponnesian War
–
The Peloponnesian war alliances at 431 BC. Orange: Athenian Empire and Allies; Green: Spartan Confederacy
Peloponnesian War
–
The key actions of each phase
Peloponnesian War
–
Eight bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre written by
Thucydides the sonne of
Olorus. Interpreted with faith and diligence immediately out of the Greeke by
Thomas Hobbes secretary to ye late
Earle of Deuonshire. (
Houghton Library)
20.
Aegean Sea
–
The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the Greek and Anatolian peninsulas, i. e. between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles, the Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea was known as Archipelago, but in English this words meaning has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally. In ancient times, there were various explanations for the name Aegean, a possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word αἶγες – aiges = waves, hence wavy sea, cf. also αἰγιαλός, hence meaning sea-shore. The Venetians, who ruled many Greek islands in the High and Late Middle Ages, popularized the name Archipelago, in some South Slavic languages the Aegean is often called White Sea. The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres in area, the seas maximum depth is 3,543 metres, east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south, Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos, many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are actually extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Aegean Sea as follows, On the South. In the Dardanelles. A line joining Kum Kale and Cape Helles, the dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of 23–30 metres, then flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara at velocities of 5–15 cm/s. The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea, Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40–50 m to 200–300 metres with temperatures ranging from 11–18 °C. Aegean Sea Bottom Water – occurring at depths below 500–1000 m with a uniform temperature. The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC, before that time, at the peak of the last ice age sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared c.7000 BC, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3,000 years after that, the subsequent Bronze Age civilizations of Greece and the Aegean Sea have given rise to the general term Aegean civilization. In ancient times, the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations – the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenean Civilization of the Peloponnese, later arose the city-states of Athens and Sparta among many others that constituted the Athenian Empire and Hellenic Civilization. Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean like frogs around a pond, the Aegean Sea was later invaded by the Persians and the Romans, and inhabited by the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians, the Venetians, the Genoese, the Seljuq Turks, and the Ottoman Empire. The Aegean was the site of the democracies, and its seaways were the means of contact among several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays, in ancient times, navigation through the sea was easier than travelling across the rough terrain of the Greek mainland
Aegean Sea
–
Map of the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
–
Topographical and
bathymetric map
Aegean Sea
–
Panoramic view of the
Santorini caldera, taken from Oia.
21.
Athens
–
Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
Athens
–
From upper left: the
Acropolis, the
Hellenic Parliament, the
Zappeion, the
Acropolis Museum,
Monastiraki Square, Athens view towards the sea
Athens
–
Athena, patron goddess of Athens;
National Archaeological Museum
Athens
–
Acropolis of Athens, with
Odeon of Herodes Atticus seen on bottom left
22.
Herma
–
A herma, commonly in English herm, is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height. The form originated in Ancient Greece, and was adopted by the Romans, in the earliest times Greek divinities were worshiped in the form of a heap of stones or a shapeless column of stone or wood. In many parts of Greece there were piles of stones by the sides of roads, especially at their crossings, and on the boundaries of lands. The religious respect paid to such heaps of stones, especially at the meeting of roads, is shown by the custom of each passer-by throwing a stone on to the heap or anointing it with oil. Later there was the addition of a head and phallus to the column, before his role as protector of merchants and travelers, Hermes was a phallic god, associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. The surmounting heads were not, however, confined to those of Hermes, those of gods and heroes. In this case a compound was formed, Hermathena, Hermares, Hermaphroditus, Hermanubis, Hermalcibiades, in Athens, where the hermai were most numerous and most venerated, they were placed outside houses as apotropes for good luck. They would be rubbed or anointed with oil and adorned with garlands or wreaths. This superstition persists, for example the Porcellino bronze boar of Florence, in Roman and Renaissance versions, the body was often shown from the waist up. The form was used for portrait busts of famous public figures, especially writers like Socrates. Sappho appears on Ancient Greek herms, and anonymous female figures were used from the Renaissance on. In 415 BC, on a night shortly before the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War and this was a horribly impious act and many people believed it threatened the success of the expedition. Though it was never proven, the Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or Spartan sympathizers from Athens itself, one suspect was the writer Xenophon. The J. Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles has a collection of Roman Herma boundary marker stones in its stored collection. An Aesops fable makes fun of statue of Hermes, when a pious dog offers to anoint it, the god hastily assures his worshipper that this is not necessary
Herma
–
Herma of
Demosthenes from the
Athenian Agora, work by Polyeuktos, c. 280 BC,
Glyptothek.
Herma
–
Archaic bearded head of
Hermes from a herm, early 5th century BC.
Herma
–
A hermaic sculpture of an old man, probably a philosopher.
Ai Khanoum,
Afghanistan, 2nd century BCE.
Herma
–
Busts from a Roman double herm of
Seneca and
Socrates
23.
Sicily
–
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant
Sicily
–
Mount Etna rising over suburbs of Catania
Sicily
–
Sicily Sicilia
Sicily
–
Sicilian landscape
Sicily
–
Location of the
Salso
24.
Palamedes (Greek mythology)
–
In Greek mythology, Palamedes was the son of Nauplius and Clymene. He joined the Greeks in the expedition against Troy, pausanias in his Description of Greece says that in Corinth is a Temple of Fortune in which Palamedes dedicated the dice that he had invented. Agamemnon sent Palamedes to Ithaca to retrieve Odysseus, who had promised to defend the marriage of Helen, paris had kidnapped Helen, but Odysseus did not want to honor his oath. He pretended to be insane and plowed his fields with salt, Palamedes guessed what was happening and put Odysseus son, Telemachus, in front of the plow. Odysseus stopped working and revealed his sanity, the ancient sources show differences in regards to the details of how Palamedes was caused to die and also the actual way in which his death was brought about. Odysseus never forgave Palamedes for ruining his attempt to out of the Trojan War. When Palamedes advised the Greeks to return home, Odysseus hid gold in his tent, the letter was found and the Greeks accused him of being a traitor. Palamedes was stoned to death by Odysseus and Diomedes, according to other accounts the two warriors drowned him during a fishing expedition. Still another version relates that he was lured into a well in search of treasure, although he is a major character in some accounts of the Trojan War, Palamedes is not mentioned in Homers Iliad. Ovid discusses Palamedes role in the Trojan War in the Metamorphoses, Palamedes fate is described in Virgils Aeneid. In the Apology, Plato describes Socrates as looking forward to speaking with Palamedes after death, euripides and many other dramatists have written dramas about his fate. The major Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel wrote in 1625 the play Palamedes, authorities in Amsterdam found no difficulty in deciphering the political meanings behind Vondels Classical allusions, and imposed a heavy fine on the playwright. D. R. Reinsch, Die Palamedes-Episode in der Synopsis Chronike des Konstantinos Manasses und ihre Inspirationsquelle, studien zur byzantinischen Literatur gewidmet Wolfram Hoerandner zum 65. Hg. v. Martin Hinterberger und Elisabeth Schiffer, berlin-New York, Walter de Gruyter,2007, 266-276
Palamedes (Greek mythology)
–
Palamedes before
Agamemnon in a 1626 painting by
Rembrandt
25.
Satyr play
–
Satyr plays were an ancient Greek form of tragicomedy, similar in spirit to the bawdy satire of burlesque. They featured choruses of satyrs, were based on Greek mythology, and were rife with drunkenness, brazen sexuality, pranks, sight gags. Satyric drama was one of the three varieties of Athenian drama, the two being tragedy and comedy. It can be traced back to Pratinas of Phlius, c.500 BC, after settling in Athens, he probably adapted the dithyramb, customary in his native home, with its chorus of satyrs, to complement the form of tragedy which had been recently invented in Athens. It met with approval and was developed by his son Aristeas, by Choerilus, by Aeschylus. They were short, half the duration of a tragedy, the general theme of heaven, fate, and the gods affecting human affairs in the tragedies was carried through into the festivities of the chorus of satyrs and Sileni, companions of Dionysus. The origins of culture and the emergence of the satyr play can be traced to ancient rural celebrations in honour of the god Dionysus. Brockett also suggests the possibility that the play was the first form of drama from which both tragedy and comedy gradually emerged. A. E. Haigh however maintained that the play is a survival from “the primitive period of Bacchic worship”. Haigh lists several examples of recorded entries to the City Dionysia, thus, in 472 BC Aeschylus won the first prize with Phineaus, Persae, Glaucus and the satyr play Prometheus. Among Euripides’ entries, Haigh underlines Theristae, Sisyphus and Alcestis which Euripides was allowed to present as a replacement of the satyr play. The mythological origins of the satyrs are closely linked to the advent of Dionysus into Hellenic culture, the satyrs and their female counterpart, the maenads, were followers of Dionysus, a “late-comer to Olympus and probably of Asiatic origin”. According to Roger Lancelyn Green, the satyrs probably began as minor deities, while their designated leader Silenus originated as a water spirit. Silenus was already an attendant to Dionysus when the satyrs joined the god’s following, the satyrs characterised themselves by amorality, excessive drinking and the breaking down of traditional values and barriers. The amusing effect of the play did not depend so much on the action itself, as was the case in comedy and that relation was in keeping with the wanton, saucy, and insolent, and at the same time cowardly, nature of the satyrs. The number of persons in the chorus is not known, although there were probably either twelve or fifteen, the dance of the chorus in the satyric drama was called sicinnis, and consisted of a fantastic kind of skipping and jumping. The only satyr play to survive in its entirety is Euripides Cyclops, based on Odysseus encounter with the cyclops, Polyphemus, in Book 9 of the Odyssey. We also have fragments of a satyr play of Sophocles called Ichneutae, in which the satyrs are employed by Apollo to track down his stolen cattle
Satyr play
–
Papposilenus playing the crotals, theatrical type of the satyr play,
Louvre
Satyr play
–
Actor as Papposilenus, around 100 AD, after 4th-century BC original
26.
Iliad
–
The iLiad was an electronic handheld device, or e-Reader, which could be used for document reading and editing. Like the Barnes and Noble nook, Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, in 2010, sales of the iLiad ended when its parent company, iRex, filed for bankruptcy. The display used is an active matrix display, which uses E Ink Vizplex Imaging Film manufactured by E Ink Corporation. Underneath the E Ink screen is a tablet by WACOM which requires a stylus for input. When it was introduced, the Iliad had largest screen size of existing e-paper products, the iLiad can display document files in several formats, including PDF, Mobipocket, XHTML and plain text. It can also display JPEG, BMP and PNG images, as of May 3,2007 Mobipocket is supported, making the mobipocket digital rights management content available on this platform. IRexs product page for the states that Support for additional E-book formats will become available over the coming months. Through its wireless service, iDS, the iLiad can also download content. Les Echos, a French financial newspaper, is distributed this way, users can connect to their computer over a wireless network to sync new data onto the iLiads internal memory or an inserted MMC, SD, or CF card. The distributor of the iLiad is iRex Technologies, a Philips spin-off company and it was initially advertised in December 2005, to be launched in April 2006, but was delayed until July, when it started to be sold as a beta product. It was released to the public near the end of July. Its list price in Europe is €649, and in US $699, one of the advanced features of the iLiad is the ability to add notes to existing documents. With the integrated Wacom tablet and stylus, it is possible to directly on almost any document. Using the desktop software, those notes can be merged into the original document and this provides malleability, an important feature of physical books that is missing from most ebook products, allowing users to annotate, highlight, and personalize the text. Because of its open Linux operating system, the iLiad is able to run third party applications created for it, developers and users wishing to create or run third party applications can request shell access from the manufacturer. Developers have been able to improve on the devices functionality by porting viewers such as FBReader, full screen PDF reading is made available by community-supported iPDF releases. Programs for recreation, including audio playback, sudoku, and calendars, are rapidly growing community content available for use on the iLiad, independent users have also reported successful porting of mobile web browsers to iLiads Linux platform, although with limited functionality and many bugs. IRex as a company has had a relationship with its Open Source developers
Iliad
–
iRex iLiad
Iliad
Iliad
–
iLiad in sunlight
Iliad
–
iLiad e-book reader equipped with e-paper display
27.
Hector
–
In Greek mythology and Roman Mythology, Hector was a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who was a descendant of Dardanus and Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and he was married to Andromache, with whom he had an infant son, Scamandrius. He acted as leader of the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, during the European Middle Ages, Hector figures as one of the Nine Worthies noted by Jacques de Longuyon, known not only for his courage but also for his noble and courtly nature. Indeed, Homer places Hector as peace-loving, thoughtful as well as bold, a son, husband and father. James Redfield writes of Hector as a martyr to loyalties, a witness to the things of this world, in Greek, Héktōr is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ékhein, archaic form *ἕχειν hékhein, to have or to hold from Proto-Indo-European *seǵh- to hold. Héktōr, or Éktōr as found in Aeolic poetry, is also an epithet of Zeus in his capacity as he who holds, Hectors name could thus be taken to mean holding fast. According to the Iliad, Hector does not approve of war between the Greeks and the Trojans, for ten years, the Achaeans besieged Troy and their allies in the east. Hector commanded the Trojan army, with a number of subordinates including Polydamas, and his brothers Deiphobus, Helenus, and Paris. By all accounts, Hector was the best warrior the Trojans and all their allies could field, diomedes and Odysseus, when faced with his attack, described him as what Robert Fagles translated as an incredible dynamite, and a maniac. In the Iliad, Hectors exploits in the war prior to the events of the book are recapitulated and he had fought the Greek champion Protesilaus in single combat at the start of the war and killed him. A prophecy had stated that the first Greek to land on Trojan soil would die, thus, Protesilaus, Ajax, and Odysseus would not land. Finally, Odysseus threw his shield out and landed on that, in the ensuing fight, Hector killed him, fulfilling the prophecy. The Argives were initially reluctant to accept the challenge, however, after Nestors chiding, nine Greek heroes stepped up to the challenge and drew by lot to see who was to face Hector. Ajax wins and fights Hector to a stalemate for the entire day, with neither able to achieve victory, they express admiration for each others courage, skill, and strength. Hector gave Ajax his sword, which Ajax later uses to kill himself, Ajax gives Hector his girdle, which later was used to attach Hectors corpse to Achilles chariot by which he is dragged around the walls of Troy. The Greek and the Trojans make a truce to bury the dead, in the early dawn the next day the Greeks take advantage of it to build a wall and ditch around the ships. Zeus is watching in a distance, another mention of Hectors exploits in the early years of war was given in the Iliad book 9. During the embassy to Achilles, Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax all try to persuade Achilles to rejoin the fight and he then claims, There he stood up to me alone one day, and he barely escaped my onslaught
Hector
–
Hector brought back to
Troy. From a
Roman sarcophagus of ca. 180–200 AD.
Hector
–
Coin from
Troy, 177-192 AD. Obverse: Bust of
Commodus. Reverse: Hector, brandishing shield and spear, on a two-horse chariot. Inscription EKTΩP (Hektor) above, IΛIEΩN (Ilion meaning Troy) in exergue.
Hector
–
Hector Admonishes Paris for His Softness and Exhorts Him to Go to War by
J.H.W. Tischbein (1751–1828)
Hector
–
Ajax and Hector exchange gifts (
woodcut in
Andreas Alciatus, Emblematum libellus, 1591)
28.
Hecuba (play)
–
Hecuba is a tragedy by Euripides written c.424 BC. It takes place after the Trojan War, but before the Greeks have departed Troy, the central figure is Hecuba, wife of King Priam, formerly Queen of the now-fallen city. It depicts Hecubas grief over the death of her daughter Polyxena, in the plays opening, the ghost of Polydorus tells how when the war threatened Troy, he was sent to King Polymestor of Thrace for safekeeping, with gifts of gold and jewelry. But when Troy lost the war, Polymestor treacherously murdered Polydorus, Polydorus has foreknowledge of many of the plays events and haunted his mothers dreams the night before. The events take place on the coast of Thrace, as the Greek navy returns home from Troy, the Trojan queen Hecuba, now enslaved by the Greeks, mourns her great losses and worries about the portents of her nightmare. The Chorus of young slave women enters, bearing fateful news, one of Hecubas last remaining daughters, Polyxena, is to be killed on the tomb of Achilles as a blood sacrifice to his honor. Greek commander Odysseus enters, to escort Polyxena to an altar where Neoptolemus will shed her blood, Odysseus ignores Hecubas impassioned pleas to spare Polyxena, and Polyxena herself says she would rather die than live as a slave. In the first Choral interlude, the Chorus lament their own doomed fate, the Greek messenger Talthybius arrives, tells a stirring account of Polyxenas strikingly heroic death, and delivers a message from Agamemnon, chief of the Greek army, to bury Polyxena. Hecuba sends a girl to fetch water from the sea to bathe her daughters corpse. After a second Choral interlude, the body of Polydorus is brought on stage, upon recognizing her son whom she thought safe, Hecuba reaches new heights of despair. Hecuba rages inconsolably against the brutality of such an action, Agamemnon enters, and Hecuba, tentatively at first and then boldly requests that Agamemnon help her avenge her sons murder. Hecubas daughter Cassandra is a concubine of Agamemnon so the two have some relationship to protect and Agamemnon listens, Agamemnon reluctantly agrees, as the Greeks await a favorable wind to sail home. The Greek army considers Polymestor an ally and Agamemnon does not wish to be observed helping Hecuba against him and he inquires about Hecubas welfare, with a pretense of friendliness. Hecuba reciprocates, concealing her knowledge of the murder of Polydorus, Hecuba tells Polymestor she knows where the remaining treasures of Troy are hidden, and offers to tell him the secrets, to be passed on to Polydorus. Hecuba convinces him and his sons to enter an offstage tent where she claims to have more personal treasures, enlisting help from other slaves, Hecuba kills Polymestors sons and stabs Polymestors eyes. He re-enters blinded and savage, hunting as if a beast for the women who ruined him, Agamemnon re-enters angry with the uproar and witnesses Hecubas revenge. Polymestor argues that Hecubas revenge was an act, whereas his murder of Polydorus was intended to preserve the Greek victory and dispatch a young Trojan. The arguments take the form of a trial, and Hecuba delivers a rebuttal exposing Polymestors speech as sophistry, Agamemnon decides justice has been served by Hecubas revenge
Hecuba (play)
–
Hecuba Blinding Polymestor by Giuseppe Maria Crespi
29.
Ajax the Lesser
–
Ajax was a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris. He was called the lesser or Locrian Ajax, to him from Ajax the Great. He was the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War and he is a significant figure in Homers Iliad and is also mentioned in the Odyssey, in Virgils Aeneid and in Euripides The Trojan Women. In Etruscan legend, he was known as Aivas Vilates, according to Strabo, he was born in Naryx in Locris, where Ovid calls him Narycius Heroes. According to the Iliad, he led his Locrians in forty ships against Troy and he is described as one of the great heroes among the Greeks. In battle, he wore a cuirass, was brave and intrepid, especially skilled in throwing the spear and, next to Achilles. On his return from Troy, his vessel was wrecked on the Whirling Rocks and he would have been saved in spite of Athena, but he said that he would escape the dangers of the sea in defiance of the immortals. In punishment for this presumption, Poseidon split the rock with his trident, in later traditions, this Ajax is called a son of Oileus and the nymph Rhene and is also mentioned among the suitors of Helen. After the taking of Troy, he rushed into the temple of Athena, where Cassandra had taken refuge, Ajax violently dragged her away to the other captives. According to some writers, he raped Cassandra inside the temple, odysseus, accused him of this crime and Ajax was to be stoned to death, but saved himself by establishing his innocence with an oath to Athena, clutching her statue in supplication. Since Ajax dragged a supplicant from her temple, Athena had cause to be indignant, despite this, Ajax managed to hide in the altar of a deity where the Greeks, fearing divine retribution should they kill him and destroy the altar, allowed him to live. When the Greeks left without killing Ajax, despite their sacrifices, when Ajax finally left Troy during the Returns from Troy, Athena hit his ship with a thunderbolt, but Ajax still survived with some of his men, managing to cling onto a rock. He boasted that even the gods could not kill him and Poseidon, upon hearing this, split the rock with his trident, thetis buried him when the corpse washed up on Myconos. Other versions depict a different death for Ajax, showing him dying when on his voyage home, after his death, his spirit dwelt in the island of Leuce. The story of Ajax was frequently made use of by ancient poets and artists, and the hero who appears on some Locrian coins with the helmet, shield, other accounts of his death are offered by Philostratus and the scholiast on Lycophron. The abduction of Cassandra by Ajax was frequently represented in Greek works of art, such as the chest of Cypselus described by Pausanias and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Smith, William, ed. article name needed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Ajax
Ajax the Lesser
–
Ajax the Lesser raping Cassandra
Ajax the Lesser
–
Ajax and
Cassandra by Solomon J. Solomon (1886). In the collection of the
Art Gallery of Ballarat in
Victoria, Australia
30.
Odysseus
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Odysseus, also known by the Latin name Ulysses, was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homers epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homers Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. Husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility and he is most famous for the Odyssey, ten eventful years he took to return home after the decade-long Trojan War. The name has several variants, in Greek the character was called Olysseus, Oulixeus, Oulixes, hence, there may originally have been two separate figures, one called something like Odysseus, the other something like Ulixes, who were combined into one complex personality. The etymology of the name is unknown, ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai to be wroth against, to hate, or to oduromai to lament, bewail. Homer in references and puns, relates it to various forms of this verb and it has also been suggested that the name is of non-Greek origin, probably not even Indo-European, with an unknown etymology, R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseuss early childhood is recounted, Euryclea tries to guide him to naming the boy Polyaretos, for he has much been prayed for. Autolycus apparently in a sardonic mood, decided to give the child a name that would commemorate his own experience in life. Because I got odium upon myself before coming here, let the childs name be Odysseus to signify this. The pun was prophetic as well as commemorative, Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades, son of Laërtes. In the Iliad and Odyssey there are several epithets used to describe Odysseus and his name and stories were adopted into Etruscan religion under the name Uthuze. Hence, Odysseus was the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes, according to the Iliad and Odyssey, his father is Laertes and his mother Anticlea, although there was a non-Homeric tradition that Sisyphus was his true father. The rumor went that Laertes bought Odysseus from the conniving king, Odysseus is said to have a younger sister, Ctimene, who went to Same to be married and is mentioned by the swineherd Eumaeus, whom she grew up alongside, in Book 15 of the Odyssey. Homers Iliad and Odyssey portray Odysseus as a hero, but the Romans. In Virgils Aeneid, written between 29 and 19 BC, he is referred to as cruel Odysseus or deceitful Odysseus. Turnus, in Aeneid ix, reproaches the Trojan Ascanius with images of rugged, forthright Latin virtues, declaring, You shall not find the sons of Atreus here, nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear. While the Greeks admired his cunning and deceit, these qualities did not recommend themselves to the Romans, who possessed a rigid sense of honour. His attempts to avoid his sacred oath to defend Menelaus and Helen offended Roman notions of duty, the majority of sources for Odysseus pre-war exploits—principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus—postdate Homer by many centuries
Odysseus
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Head of Odysseus from a
Roman period Hellenistic marble group representing Odysseus blinding
Polyphemus, found at the villa of
Tiberius at
Sperlonga
Odysseus
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Head of Odysseus wearing
pileus depicted on a 3rd-century BC coin from
Ithaca
Odysseus
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Greek Mythology
Odysseus
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This is a painting of Odysseus's boat passing between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Scylla has plucked six of Odysseus's men from the boat. The painting is an Italian fresco dating to 1560 C.E.
Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Troades". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
Works related to The Trojan Women at Wikisource
The Trojan Women public domain audiobook at LibriVox
