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Iphigenia

Iphigenia

:112 Iphigenia is an asteroid. ---- asteroid Iphigeneia (gr. Ἰφιγένεια, also Iphigenia and sometimes Iphianassa) was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. Iphigeneia is sometimes called a daughter of Theseus and Helen raised by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Artemis punished Agamemnon after he killed a (sacred) deer in a (sacred) grove and boasted he was a better hunter. On his way to Troy to participate in the Trojan War, Agamemnon's ships were suddenly motionless as Artemis stopped the wind in Aulis. A soothsayer named Calchas revealed an oracle that the only way to appease Artemis was to sacrifice Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, to Artemis. According to some versions he did so, but most sources claims that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to Tauris in Crimea to prepare others for sacrifice, and that the goddess left a deer or a goat (the god Pan transformed) in her place. Hesiod called her Iphimedeia (gr. Ἰφιμέδεια) in the Catalogue of Women and told she became the goddess Hecate. Antoninus Liberalis said that Iphigeneia was transported to the island of Leuke, where she was wedded to Achilles under the name of Orsilochia. According to Euripides, Iphigeneia factors into the story of her brother, Orestes. In order to escape the persecutions of the Erinyes for killing his mother Clytemnestra and her lover, he was ordered by Apollo to go to Tauris (now the Crimea), carry off the statue of Artemis which had fallen from heaven, and bring it to Athens. He repairs to Tauris with Pylades, son of Strophius and intimate friend of Orestes, and the pair are at once imprisoned by the Tauri, among whom the custom is to sacrifice all strangers to Artemis. The priestess of Artemis, whose duty it is to perform the sacrifice, is his sister Iphigenia. She offers to release Orestes if he will carry home a letter from her to Greece; he refuses to go, but bids Pylades take the letter while he himself will stay and be slain. After a conflict of mutual affection, Pylades at last yields, but the letter brings about a recognition between brother and sister, and all three escape together, carrying with them the image of Artemis. After their return to Greece, Orestes took possession of his father's kingdom of Mycenae and Argos and Iphigeneia left the image in the temple of Artemis in Brauron, Attica, where she remained as priestess of Artemis Brauronia. According to the Spartans, the image of Artemis was transported by them to Laconia, where the goddess was worshipped as Artemis Orthia. Iphigeneia is known by Greek myths sources since 7-6th century BC and was so closely identified with Artemis that some scholars believe she was originally a rival hunting goddess whose cult was subsumed by Artemis.

Iphianassa

Iphianassa (gr. Ἰφιάνασσα), one of three Agamemnon's daughters in Homer's Iliad (Book 9, lines 145 and 287) is sometimes confused with Iphigeneia. Homer makes no mention to Iphigenia's sacrifice and the name Iphianassa may be simply an older variant of the name Iphigenia. Most scholars nevertheless agree that Iphianassa and Iphigeneia, despite the likeness of their names, probably were quite different characters.

Cymon and Iphigenia

Iliad The episode of Iphigenia and Cymon that inspired painters as Benjamin West (1773), John Everett Millais (1848) and Frederic Leighton (1884) is not really a Greek myth, but a novella taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, developed later by the poet and dramatist John Dryden. The tale intended to demonstrate the power of love. As Iphigenia sleeps in a grove by the sea, a noble but coarse and unlettered Cypriot youth, Cymon, seeing Iphigenia's beauty, fell in love with her and, by the power of love, became an educated and polished courtier.

Some modern sources

BONNARD, A. Iphigénie à Aulis. Tragique et Poesie. Museum Helveticum, Basel, v. 2, p. 87-107, 1945. CROISILLE, J.-M. Le sacrifice d’Iphigénie dans l’art romain et la littérature latine. Latomus, Bruxelles, v. 22, p. 209-225, 1963. DECHARME, P. Iphigenia. In: DAREMBERG, C. & SAGLIO, E. Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, v. 3 (1ère partie), p. 570-572, 1877-1919. JOUAN, F. Le Rassemblement d’Aulis et le Sacrifice d´Iphigénie. In: _______, Euripide et les Légendes des Chants Cypriens. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, p. 259-298, 1966. KAHIL, L. Le sacrifice d’Iphigénie. In: 'Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome'. Antiquité, Rome, v. 103, p. 183-196, 1991. KJELLBERG, L. Iphigeneia. In: PAULY, A.F. & WISSOWA, G. Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, v. 9, p. 2588-2622, 1916. LLOYD-JONES, H. Artemis and Iphigeneia. Journal of Hellenic Studies, London, v. 103, p. 87-102, 1983. PECK, H.T. Iphigeneia. In: Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898. SÉCHAN, L. Le Sacrifice d’Iphigénie. Révue des Études Grecques, Paris, p. 368-426, 1931. WEST, M.L. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Some adaptations of the Iphigenia story

- Iphigenia at Aulis, play by Euripides.
- Iphigénie en Aulide, play by Jean Racine.
- Iphigénie en Aulide, opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck.
- Iphigenia in Tauris, play by Euripides.
- Iphigenia in Tauris, play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
- Iphigénie en Tauride, opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck.
- Iphigénie, ballet by Charles le Picq.
- The Songs of the Kings, novel by Barry Unsworth.
- Iphigenia, play by Samuel Coster.
External links

- [http://www.biblioweb.org/Iphigenie.html Iphigénie de Jean Racine : Analysis, Plot overview] (in French) Category:Greek mythological people Category:Crimea

112 Iphigenia
112 Iphigenia is a fairly large and exceedingly dark Main belt asteroid. It has probably a primitive carbonaceous composition. It was discovered by C. H. F. Peters on September 19, 1870 and named after Iphigenia, the princess sacrificed by her father in Greek mythology. Iphigenia

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra (Greek: Κλυταιμνήστρα Klytaimnéstra, "praiseworthy wooing") was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. She was the daughter of Tyndareus and Leda and mother of Iphigeneia, Orestes, Chrysothemis and Electra. In Greek mythology, she was also believed to have been born of a union between Zeus and Leda, the former having wooed the latter in the guise of a swan. According to legend, following her union with the Olympian, Leda laid two eggs, Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri, also known as the constellation Gemini) were hatched from one, and Helen (later of Troy) and Clytemnestra from the other. Agamemnon followed his brother Menelaus after Menelaus' wife Helen was stolen by Paris, thus igniting the Trojan War. While Agamemnon was away, Clytemnestra weakened her resolve and began a torrid love affair with Aegisthus, her husband's kinsman (daughter with Aegisthus: Erigone). She was bitter towards her absent husband for having sacrificed their daughter, Iphigeneia, to Artemis. At the end of the war, Agamemnon returned to Mycenae where his kinsman, Aegisthus, who in the interval had seduced his wife Clytemnestra, invited him to a banquet at which he was treacherously slain. Princess Cassandra of Troy, who had been taken by Agamemnon as a war trophy, was also put to death by Clytemnestra. According to the account given by Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon was slain by his wife alone in a bath, a piece of cloth or a net having first been thrown over him to prevent resistance. According to Aeschylus, Clytemnestra placed a piece of purple cloth and asked the returning Agamemnon to step over it. He refused at first but then gave in, while Cassandra, who had been endowed with the gift of prophecy but with the curse of no one believing her, waited outside, knowing doom awaited. She stayed outside until she heard Agamemnon scream as he died, then ran inside and was killed by Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra's wrath at the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia, and her jealousy of Cassandra, are said to have been the motives of her crime. The murder of Agamemnon was avenged by his son Orestes. According to some sources, Cassandra was not murdered along with Agamemnon. Some sources see her leaving Mycenae unharmed. We even have historical reason to believe that she survived: in an Athenian museum, we have a plate with an inscripted text, which speaks of the Zakynthian family, descendants since 30 generations of Cassandra of Troy. The story of Orestes is told in Aeschylus's famous trilogy, the Oresteia, in Sophocles's play Electra, and in Euripides's play's Orestes and Electra. Category:Greek mythological people

Theseus

Theseus (Greek Θησεύς) was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aegeus (or of Poseidon) and of Aethra. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order. As Heracles was the Dorian hero, Theseus was the Ionian founding hero, considered by Athenians as their own great reformer. His name comes from the same root as θεσμoς ("thesmos"), Greek for institution. In The Frogs Aristophanes credited him with inventing many everyday Athenian traditions. He may have originated in, or been based upon, a historical person or persons

Birth and the six "labors" of Theseus

Aegeus, one of the primordial kings of Athens, found a bride at Troezen, a small city southwest of Athens, in Aethra, daughter of Troezen's king, Pittheus. On their wedding night Aethra waded through the sea to the island Sphairia that lay close to the coast and lay there with Poseidon: by the understanding of sex in Antiquity, the mix of semen gave Theseus a mix divine as well as mortal characteristics in his nature. When she became pregnant, Aegeus decided to return to Athens. But before leaving, he buried his sandals, shield, and sword under a huge rock and told her that when their son grew up, he should move the rock, if he were hero enough, and take the weapons for himself as evidence of his royal parentage. At Athens, Aegeus was joined by Medea, who had fled Corinth after slaughtering the children she had born Jason, and took up a new consort in Aegeus. Priestess and consort represented the old order at Athens. Jason Thus Theseus was raised in the land of his mother. When Theseus grew up and became a brave young man, he moved the rock and recovered his father's arms. His mother then told him the truth about his father's identity and that he must take the weapons back to the king and claim his birthright. To get to Athens, Theseus could choose to go by sea (which was the safe way) or by land, following a dangerous path around the Saronic Gulf, a string of six entrances to the Underworld, each guarded by a chthonic enemy in the shapes of thieves and bandits. Young, brave, and ambitious, Theseus decided to go by the land route, and defeated a great many bandits along the way. At the first site, Epidaurus, sacred to Apollo and the healer Aesculapius, Theseus turned the tables on the chthonic bandit, the "clubber" Periphetes, who beat his opponents into the Earth, and took from him the stout staff that often identifies Theseus in vase-paintings. At the Isthmian entrance to the Netherworld was a robber named Siris. He would capture travelers, tie them between two pine trees which were bent down to the ground, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart. Theseus killed him by his own method. He then raped Siris's daughter, Perigune, fathering the child Melanippus. In another deed north of Isthmus, at a place called Crommyon, he killed an enormous pig, the Crommyonian sow, bred by an old crone named Phaea. Near Megara an elderly robber named Sciron forced travellers along the narrow cliff-face pathway to wash his feet. While they knelt, he kicked them off the cliff behind them, where they were eaten by a sea monster (or, in some versions, a giant turtle). Theseus pushed him off the cliff. Another of these enemies was Cercyon, King at the holy site of Eleusis, who challenged passersby to a wrestling match and, when he had beaten them, killed them. Theseus beat Cercyon at wrestling and then killed him instead. In interpretations of the story that follow the formulas of Frazer's The Golden Bough, Cercyon was a "year-king", who was required to do annual battle for his life, for the good of his kingdom, and was succeeded by the victor. Theseus overturned this archaic religious rite by refusing to be sacrificed. The last bandit was Procrustes, who had a bed which he offered to passersby in the plain of Eleusis. He then made them fit into it, either by stretching them or by cutting off their feet. Theseus killed him, too.

Medea and the Marathonian Bull

When Theseus arrived at Athens, he did not reveal his true identity immediately. He was welcomed by Aegeas, who was suspicious of the stranger. Aegeus's wife, Medea, tried to arrange to have Theseus killed by asking him to capture the Marathonian Bull. On the way to Marathon, Theseus took shelter from a storm in the hut of an ancient woman named Hecale. She swore to make a sacrifice to Zeus if Theseus was successful in capturing the bull. Theseus did capture the bull, but when he returned to Hecale's hut, she was dead. In her honor Theseus gave her name to one of the demes of Attica, making its inhabitants in a sense her adopted children. When Theseus returned victoriously to Athens, Medea tried to poison him, but at the last second Aegeas recognized the sandals, shield, and sword and knocked the poisoned wine cup from Theseus's hand, and father and son were reunited.

Ariadne and the Minotaur

In those days, Athens was required to pay tribute to Crete, the controlling power in the region, a situation that sets the myth in the mid-second millennium BCE: each year, seven young men and seven young women were to be sent to Crete as sacrifices to the Minotaur, a bull-headed monster in the Labyrinth constructed by Daedalus. Theseus, determined to end this horror, volunteered to be one of the sacrifices, and the fourteen chosen sailed to Crete on a ship with black sails, for mourning. In an episode recounted in Pausanias (Guide to Greece I.17.3),Hyginus (Astronomica 2.5) [http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Amphitrite.html] and Plutarch's vita of Theseus, soon after the Athenians arrived in Crete, Theseus boasted of his parentage, as a son of Poseidon. King Minos, a son of Zeus, demanded he prove his claim by bringing up a golden ring he threw into the ocean, and Theseus descended to the Palace of the Sea, a motif used by the 5th-century Attic vase-painters. In the outcome, Theseus was more than successful: he not only recovered the ring, but also brought up a crown of Thetis that Ariadne was to wear. Ariadne was a consort of Dionysus. However, she betrayed the old order when she fell in love with Theseus and gave him a magic sword with which to kill the Minotaur, and a spool of thread. Theseus unwound the thread as he made his way to the center of the Labyrinth searching for the Minotaur, so that he could find his way out of the maze again. In some versions, Theseus found and killed the monster while it slept, but later versions have him taking on the creature in battle. After killing the Minotaur with the magic sword, Theseus married and fled Crete with Ariadne, but then abandoned her, at Athena's demand, on the island of Dia, or possibly Naxos.

The return to Athens

Sailing back to Athens, Theseus forgot to change the black sails for white ones, as he had promised his father he would do if he survived. His father, watching from the cliffs at Sounion Head, jumped to his death in despair over his son's presumed demise. When he finally reached Athens, Theseus had to put a stop to Pallas, who was organizing a rebellion to take the city away from him. He was successful, killed Pallas, and became king of Athens. Plutarch reported that Theseus's ship had been preserved into historical times by gradually replacing all the planks, and that philosophers debated whether it was still the original ship. This question is still known as the "ship of Theseus".

Hippolyte

Theseus assists Heracles in his ninth labour - obtaining the girdle of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons. After succeeding in the task, Theseus kidnaps Hippolyte's sister, Antiope, causing the Amazons to attack Athens to rescue her. In many versions Theseus marries either Antiope or Hippolyte, having a son Hippolytus. Theseus eventually marries Phaedra, having left his wife, or his wife having died after childbirth. In the version where Theseus is married to, and leaves, Hippolyte, Hippolyte tries to exact revenge by bringing the Amazons into Theseus and Phaedra's wedding to kill everyone, though this fails as she is killed by, in some versions Theseus' men, in others Penthesilea, another Amazon.

Pirithous

Theseus's best friend was Pirithous, Prince of the Lapiths. Pirithous had heard stories of Theseus's courage and strength in battle but wanted proof, so he rustled Theseus's herd of cattle and drove it from Marathon, and Theseus set out in pursuit. Pirithous took up his arms and the pair met to do battle, but were impressed with each other they took an oath of friendship and joined the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Later, Pirithous was preparing to marry Hippodamia. The centaurs were guests at the wedding feast, but got drunk and tried to abduct the women, including Hippodamia. The Lapiths won the ensuing battle.

Theseus and Pirithous meet Hades

Theseus and Pirithous pledged themselves to marry daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose Helen and together they kidnapped her, intending to keep her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose Persephone. They left Helen with Theseus's mother, Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her husband, Hades. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and laid out a feast, but as soon as the two visitors sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them fast. Or, in some versions, the stone itself grew and attached itself to their thighs. Heracles freed Theseus but the earth shook when he attempted to liberate Pirithous, and Pirithous had to remain in Hades for eternity. When Theseus returned to Athens, the Dioscuri had taken Helen and Aethra back to Sparta. When Heracles had pulled Theseus from the chair where he was trapped, some of his thigh stuck to it; this explains the supposedly lean thighs of Athenians.

Phaedra and Hippolytus

Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus, Theseus's son by Hippolyte. According to some versions of the story, Hippolytus had scorned Aphrodite to become a devotee of Artemis, so Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with him as punishment. He rejected her. Alternatively, Phaedra's nurse told Hippolytus of her mistress's love and he swore he would not reveal the nurse as his source of information -- even after Phaedra killed herself and blamed it on his seduction of her in her suicide note. In revenge, Phaedra wrote Theseus a letter claiming that Hippolytus had raped her. She then killed herself. Theseus believed her and, using one of the three curses he had received from Poseidon, Hippolytus's horses were frightened by a sea monster and dragged their rider to his death. In other versions, after telling Theseus that Hippolytus had raped her, he killed his son himself and Phaedra committed suicide out of guilt, for she had not intended for Hippolytus to die. Artemis later told Theseus the truth. In yet another version, Phaedra simply told Theseus this and did not kill herself; Dionysus sent a wild bull which terrified Hippolytus's horses. A cult grew up around Hippolytus, associated with the cult of Aphrodite. Girls who were about to be married offered locks of their hair to him. The cult believed that Asclepius had resurrected Hippolytus and that he lived in a sacred forest near Aricia in Latium.

Theseus and the founding myth of Athens

More broadly, Theseus is the founding hero of Athens, as Solon is Athens' primary political figure of legend. He was responsible for the synoikismos ("dwelling together")—the political unification of Attica, represented in his journey of labours—under Athens. Because he was the unifying king, Theseus built and occupied a palace on the fortress of the Acropolis that may have been similar to the palace excavated in Mycenae. Pausanias reports that after the synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of Aphrodite Pandemos ("Aphrodite of all the People") and Peitho on the southern slope of the Akropolis.

Books

Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958) is a dramatic retelling of the Theseus legend through the return from Crete to Athens. While fictional, it is generally faithful to the spirit and flavor of the best-known variations of the original story. The sequel is The Bull from the Sea (1962), about the hero's later career.

References

- Plutarch, Theseus [http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/theseus.html online version]
- Apollodorus
- Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion 1985
- Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks 1959
- Ruck, Carl A.P. and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, ch. IX "Theseus: making the new Athens 1994, pp. 203-222. Category:Kings of Athens ja:テセウス

Helen

:This article is about the mythical figure known as Helen of Troy. For other meanings of the word see Helen (disambiguation). Helen () was the wife of Menelaus and reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the world; her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War. Trojan War]

Etymology

The name has been compared to Vedic Saraṇyū, daughter of Tvastar, who is abducted in RV 10.17.2; the name may then be from a PIE root
- sel "to elope" and go back to a Proto-Indo-European abduction myth. The name is in any case unrelated to Hellenes, as is sometimes claimed (Hellenes being from the root
- sed "settle").

Helen in Greek mythology

Birth

According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. As the story goes, Zeus took the form of a swan and had sexual relations with Leda on the same night as her husband, King Tyndareus. To Zeus, she gave birth to Helen and Polydeuces, and to Tyndareus: Clytemnestra and Castor. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched. In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of hubris.

Marriage to Menelaus

Two Athenians, Theseus and Pirithous, pledged to marry daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose the child Helen. He and Pirithous kidnapped her and decided to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose Persephone, the wife of Hades. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, the domain of Hades, to kidnap Persephone. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast. As soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. When it was time for Helen to marry, many Greek kings and princes came to seek her hand or sent emissaries to do so on their behalf. Among the contenders were Odysseus, Menestheus, Ajax the Great, Patroclus and Idomeneus, but the favourite was Menelaus, who did not come in person but was represented by his brother Agamemnon, both of whom were in exile, having fled Thyestes. All but Odysseus brought many rich gifts with them. Tyndareus would not choose a suitor, or send any of the suitors away, for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. Odysseus promised to solve the problem if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Penelope, the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband against whoever should quarrel with him. This stratagem succeeded and Helen and Menelaus were married. Following Tyndareus' death, Menelaus became king of Sparta because the only male heirs, Castor and Polydeuces, had died and ascended to Mount Olympus.

Seduction by Paris

Some years later, Paris, a Trojan prince came to Sparta to marry Helen, whom he had been promised by Aphrodite after he had chosen her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, earning the wrath of Athena and Hera. Helen fell in love with him, as the goddess had promised, willingly leaving behind Menelaus and Hermione, their nine-year-old daughter, to be with her new love. Helen's relationship with Paris varies depending on the source of the story. In some, she loved him dearly (perhaps caused by Aphrodite, who had promised her to Paris). In others, she was a cruel, selfish woman who brought disaster to everyone around her, and she hated him. In the version used by Euripides in his play Helen, Hermes fashioned a likeness of her out of clouds at Zeus's request, and Helen never even went to Troy, having spent the entire war in Egypt.

Fall of Troy

When he discovered that his wife was missing, Menelaus called upon all the other suitors to fulfill their oaths, thus beginning the Trojan War. Virtually all of Greece took part, either attacking Troy with Menelaus or defending it from them. When Paris died in the war, his brother, sack]] of Troy. Menelaus had demanded that only he should slay his faithless wife; but, when he raised his sword to do so, the sight of her beauty caused him to let the sword drop from his hand. Instead, he led her in safety to the Greek ships.

Fate

Helen returned to Sparta and live for a time with Menelaus. After Menelaus' death, Helen was exiled by their son, [[Megapenthes. According to another version, used by Euripides in his play Orestes, Helen had long ago left the mortal world by then, having been taken up to Olympus almost immediately after Menelaus's return. Assuming the story of Helen is, to some extent, based on a real event it is worth knowing that this and many other Greek legends point to the existence of a matrilineal inheritance system. Thus Menelaus' right to the throne is based on his being married to the daughter of the previous king. However beautiful Helen may have been, this suggests a more cynical reason to fight over her.

Helen in modern literature

Helen is often called "the face that launched a thousand ships", though this phrase is post-classical, from Christopher Marlowe: :Is this the face that launched a thousand ships :And burned the topless towers of Ilium? ::The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus In Goethe's Faust (Part 2), Helen has a son by Faust named Euphorion. In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees Helen along with Paris in the second circle of Hell, where they have been consigned for succumbing to the sin of lust.

Timeline

The following is an estimation of her life based on the traditional dates of the Trojan War:
- 1225 BC - Birth of Helen to King Tyndareus of Sparta and his wife Leda. Thanks to her beauty she will later be considered daughter of Zeus.
- 1213 BC - At the age of twelve Helen is abducted by King Theseus of Athens who marries her against her father's and brothers' consent. During the absence of Theseus, her brothers Castor and Polydeuces help a revolt by his cousin Menestheus. Menestheus gains the throne and returns Helen to her brothers. According to some versions Helen was pregnant and a few months later gives birth to Iphigeneia. She trusts her daughter to her married sister Clytemnestra who will raise her as her own. Soon Menestheus of Athens and other kings and princes gather at Sparta as Helen's suitors.
- 1212 BC - Tyndareus marries Helen to Menelaus of Mycenae. Menelaus' brother is King Agamemnon who is married to Helen's sister Clytemnestra. Helen soon gives birth to Hermione. The early deaths of her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, soon make Menelaus Tyndareus successor at the throne of Sparta.
- 1203 BC - After nine years of marriage, Paris of Troy visits Sparta and in Menelaus' absence convinces Helen to flee with him. Menelaus discovers that his wife and guest betrayed him and starts contemplating war. King Priam of Troy marries Helen to Paris. Menelaus' preparations for war and gathering of allies and armies took him ten years according to some versions.
- 1194 BC - Beginning of the Trojan War.
- 1184 BC - Paris mortally wounded in battle by Philoctetes. Priam marries Helen to Deiphobus, a younger brother of Paris.
- April 24, 1184 BC - Fall of Troy. Deiphobus is slain by Menelaus who reclaims Helen as his wife. They sail on their return journey but are stranded on the shores of Egypt.
- 1176 BC - After spending eight years in Egypt, they manage to set sail again and reach the shores of the Peloponnesus. According to Euripides they visit Mycenae, arriving shortly after the murders of King Aegisthus, who was Menelaus' first cousin, and Queen Clytemnestra, who was Helen's sister, by their common nephew Orestes, the new King of Mycenae. Orestes attempts to kill his aunt but fails. The royal couple return to Sparta (or else Helen is taken off by Apollo)
- 1174 BC - According to the Odyssey, Telemachus of Ithaca visits Sparta seeking information about his father Odysseus. Menelaus and Helen reply that they have not heard of him since they left Troy ten years ago. They mourn their many lost relatives and friends.
- 1154 BC - According to Pausanias, Menelaus dies of old age and natural causes. Megapenthes, his illegitimate son, seizes the throne and exiles Helen. He soon loses the throne to his first cousin King Orestes of Mycenae who is married to Hermione, the only legitimate daughter of Menelaus and Helen and half-sister of Megapenthes. By this point Orestes had also seized the vacant thrones of Argos and Arcadia and becomes the sole ruler of the Peloponnesus. Helen seeks refuge in Rhodes near Polyxo, widow of Tlepolemus, an old friend of hers. Tlepolemus was famously the first man to be killed during the Trojan War. In revenge for her husband's death, Polyxo ordered her maidens to pretend to be the ghosts of the many dead seeking revenge from Helen. Helen committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree. After her death she is deified.

Sources

- Iliad (Homer)
- Odyssey (Homer)
- Electra (Euripides)
- Bibliotheke III, x,7-xi, 1 (Apollodorus)
- Epitome II, 15-III, 6; V, 22; VI, 29 (Apollodorus)
- Theseus (Plutarch)

External links

- [http://whitedragon.org.uk/articles/troy.htm An analysis of the legend including historical evidence of worship as a goddess]
- [http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/heroines.html#Helen A more detailed profile of Helen] Category:Greek mythological people Category:Characters in the Odyssey ko:헬레나 (신화) ja:ヘレネ

Troy

:This article is about the ancient city of Ilion as described in the works of Homer, and the location of an ancient city associated with it. For other uses see Troy (disambiguation) and Ilion (disambiguation). Ilion (disambiguation) Troy (Greek Troia (or CMC ) also Ílion; Latin: Troia, Ilium) is a legendary city, scene of the Trojan War, part of which is described in Homer's Iliad, an epic poem in Ancient Greek, composed in the 9th or 8th century BC, but containing older material (Iliad means "epic of Ilion"). Troy (Turkish: Truva) is also the name of an archaeological site, the traditional location of Homeric Troy, in Asia Minor or Anatolia, close to the seacoast in what is now northwest Turkey, southwest of the Dardanelles under Mount Ida. A new city of Ilium was founded on the site that many believed to be the location of the legendary Ilion in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople, and declined gradually during Byzantine times. The Roman city of Celeia (now Celje in Slovenia) has been referred to by some writers as Troia secunda ("the second Troy"). In the 1870s the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated the area. Later excavations revealed several cities built in succession to one another. One of the earlier cities (Troy VIIa) is often identified with Homeric Troy. While such an identity is disputed, the site has been successfully identified with the city called Wilusa in Hittite texts; Ilion (which goes back to earlier Wilion with a digamma) is thought to be the Greek rendition of that name.

Legendary Troy

digamma] The story of the Trojans first began in myth and legend. According to Greek mythology, the Trojans were the ancient citizens of the city of Troy in the Troad area, in the country of Phrygia, in the land of Asia Minor (or Little Asia, now Turkey). Troy was known for its riches, gained from port trade with east and west, fancy clothes, iron production, and massive defensive walls. The Trojan royal family was started by Electra and Zeus, the parents of Dardanus. Electra raised Dardanus in her palace on the island of Samothrace. King Tros called the people Trojans and the land Troad, after himself. Ilus founded the city of Ilium that he called after himself. Zeus gave Ilus the Palladium. Poseidon and Apollo built the walls and fortifications around Troy for Laomedon, son of Ilus the younger. When Laomedon refused to pay, Poseidon flooded the land and demanded the sacrifice of Hesione to a sea monster. Pestilence came and the sea monster snatched away the people of the plain. One generation before the Trojan War, Heracles captured Troy and killed Laomedon and his sons, except for young Priam. Priam later became king. During his reign, the Mycenaean Greeks invaded and captured Troy in the Trojan War (traditionally dated to 1193 BC-1183 BC). Both the Trojans and Mycenaean cultures were destroyed in the war. The Trojans Aeneas, Brutus, and Elymus escaped the destruction and became founders of Alba Longa (Rome), Britain, and the Elymi, a people of Sicily. The Maxyans were a west Libyan tribe who said that they were descended from the men of Troy, according to Herodotus. The Trojan ships transformed into naiads, who rejoiced to see the wreckage of Odysseus' ship. Trojan rule in Asia Minor was replaced by the "sons of Herakles" dynasty in Sardis that ruled for 505 years until the time of Candaules. The Ionians, Cimmerians, Phrygians, Milesians of Sinope, and Lydians moved into Asia Minor. The Persians invaded in 546 BC. Some famous Trojans are: Dardanus (founder of Troy), Laomedon, Ganymede, Priam, Paris, Hector, Teucer, Aesacus, Oenone, Telamon, Tithonus, Antigone, Memnon, Corythus, Aeneas, Brutus, and Elymus. Kapys, Boukolion, Aisakos, and Paris were Trojan princes who had naias wives. Some of the Trojan allies were the Hittites and the Amazons. The Aisepid nymphs were the naiads of the Trojan River Aisepos. Pegsis was the naiad of the River Grenikos near Troy. They loved Troy. A Trojan law mentioned by E.O. Gordon allowed queens as well as kings. This law was adopted by King Dunvallo Molmutius (from Brutus) in his code and is still in effect today in Britain. Mount Ida ("Mount of the Goddess") in Asia Minor, is where Ganymede was abducted by Zeus, where Anchises was seduced by Aphrodite, where Aphrodite gave birth to Aeneas, where Paris lived as a shepherd, where the nymphs lived, where the "Judgement of Paris" took place, where the Greek gods watched the Trojan War, where Hera distracted Zeus with her seductions long enough to permit the taking of Troy, and where Aeneas and his followers rested and waited until the Greeks set out for Greece. The altar of Panomphaean (‘source of all oracles’) was dedicated to Jupiter the Thunderer (Tonatus) near Troy. Buthrotos (or Buthrotum) was a city in Epirus where Helenus, the Trojan seer, built a replica of Troy. Aeneas landed there and Helenus foretold his future.

Homeric Troy

Aeneas In the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the river Scamander (modern Karamenderes), where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, where the battles of the Trojan War took place. The site of the ancient city today is some 15 kilometers from the coast, but the ancient mouths of Scamander, some 3,000 years ago, were some 5 kilometers further inland, pouring into a bay that has since been filled with alluvial material. Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the other major work attributed to Homer, the Odyssey, as well as in other ancient Greek writings. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his work the Aeneid. The Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War, and in the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and made sacrifices at the alleged tombs of the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. Ancient Greek historians placed the Trojan War variously in the 12th, 13th or 14th century BC: Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Douris to 1334 BC. In November 2001, geologists John C. Kraft from the University of Delaware and John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin presented the results (see [http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001AM/finalprogram/abstract_25431.htm], [http://www.nature.com/nsu/nsu_pf/030127/030127-4.html], & [http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030203/iliad.html]) of investigations into the geology of the region that had started in 1977. The geologists compared the present geology with the landscapes and coastal features described in the Iliad and other classical sources, notably Strabo's Geographia. Their conclusion was that there is regularly a consistency between the location of Troy as identified by Schliemann (and other locations such as the Greek camp), the geological evidence, and descriptions of the topology and accounts of the battle in the Iliad. A small minority of contemporary scholars dispute the Anatolian location of Homer's Troy. Iman Wilkins has located Troy in England [http://www.troy-in-england.co.uk/trojan-war-1.htm], while Felipe Vinci places it in southern Finland [http://www.jesus1053.com/l2-wahl/l2-autoren/l3-spedicato/Homer-Balt.htm]. Neither theory is generally accepted by classicists. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, while accepting the traditional geography of the Trojan War, arguedhttp://www.varchive.org/dag/index.htm that the Greek Dark Ages never happened, and that the Trojan War was fought several centuries later than is now generally believed.

Archaeological Troy

The layers of ruins on the site are numbered Troy I – Troy IX, with various subdivisions:
- Troy I – Troy IV: early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC)
- Troy V: 20th – 18th centuries BC.
- Troy VI: 17th – 15th centuries BC.
- Troy VIh: late Bronze Age, 14th century BC
- Troy VIIa: ca. 1300 – 1190 BC, most likely candidate for Homeric Troy.
- Troy VIIb₁: 12th century BC
- Troy VIIb₂: 11th century BC
- Troy VIIb₃: until ca. 950 BC
- Troy VIII: around 700 BC
- Troy IX: Hellenistic Ilium, 1st century BC

Troy I–V

The first city was founded in the 3rd millennium BC. During the Bronze Age, the site seems to have been a flourishing mercantile city, since its location allowed for complete control of the Dardanelles, through which every merchant ship from the Aegean Sea heading for the Black Sea had to pass.

Troy VI

Troy VI was destroyed around 1300 BC, probably by an earthquake. Only a single arrowhead was found in this layer, and no bodily remains.

Troy VII

The archaeological layer known as Troy VIIa, which has been dated on the basis of pottery styles to the mid- to late-13th century BC, is the most often-cited candidate for the Troy of Homer. It appears to have been destroyed by a war, and there are traces of a fire. Until the 1988 excavations, the problem was that Troy VII seemed to be a hill-top fort, and not a city of the size described by Homer, but later identification of parts of the city ramparts suggests a city of considerable size. Partial human remains were found in houses and in the streets, and near the north-western ramparts a human skeleton with skull injuries and a broken jawbone. Three bronze arrowheads were found, two in the fort and one in the city. However, only small portions of the city have been excavated, and the finds are too scarce to clearly favour destruction by war over a natural disaster. Troy VIIb₁ (ca. 1120 BC) and Troy VIIb₂ (ca. 1020 BC) appear to have been destroyed by fires.

Troy IX

The last city on this site, Hellenistic Ilium, was founded by Romans during the reign of the emperor Augustus and was an important trading city until the establishment of Constantinople in the fourth century as the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. In Byzantine times the city declined gradually, and eventually disappeared. Byzantine

Excavation campaigns

Schliemann

With the rise of modern critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were consigned to the realms of legend. In the 1870s (in two campaigns, 1871-73 and 1878/9), however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a hill, called Hissarlik by the Turks, near the town of Chanak (Çanakkale) in north-western Anatolia. Here he discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities, dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann declared one of these cities—at first Troy I, later Troy II—to be the city of Troy, and this identification was widely accepted at that time. Bronze Age

Dörpfeld, Blegen

After Schliemann, the site was further excavated under the direction of Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1893/4) and later Carl Blegen (1932-8). These excavations have shown that were at least nine cities built one on top of each other at this site.

Korfmann

In 1988 excavations were resumed by a team of the University of Tübingen and the University of Cincinnati under the direction of Professor Manfred Korfmann. The question of Troy's status in the Bronze Age world has been the subject of a sometimes acerbic debate between Korfmann and the Tübingen historian Frank Kolb in 2001/2002. In August 2003 following a magnetic imaging survey of the fields below the fort, a deep ditch was located and excavated among the ruins of a later Greek and Roman city. Remains found in the ditch were dated to the late Bronze Age, the alleged time of Homeric Troy. It is claimed by Korfmann that the ditch may have once have marked the outer defences of a much larger city than had previously been suspected. Possible evidence of a battle was also found in the form of arrowheads found in layers dated to the early 12th century BC. Korfmann died on 11 August, 2005, and since the digging permit was tied to his person, it is uncertain how and when the excavations will continue.

Hittite evidence

In the 1920s the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer claimed that placenames found in Hittite texts — Wilusa and Taruisa — should be identified with Ilium and Troia respectively. He further noted that the name of Alaksandus, king of Wilusa, mentioned in one of the Hittite texts is quite similar to the name of Prince Alexandros or Paris of Troy. The Hittite king Mursili II in ca. 1320 BC wrote a letter to the king of the Ahhiyawa, treating him as an equal and implying that Miletus (Millawanda) was controlled by the Ahhiyawa, and also referring to an earlier "Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of the Ahhiyawa. This people have been identified with the Homeric Greeks (Achaeans). These identifications were rejected by many scholars as being improbable or at least unprovable. Trevor Bryce in 1998 championed them in his book The Kingdom of the Hittites, citing a recovered piece of the so-called Manapa-Tarhunda letter, which refers to the kingdom of Wilusa as beyond the land of the Seha (known in classical times as the Caicus) river, and near the land of Lazpa (the Isle of Lesbos). Recent evidence adds weight to the theory that Wilusa is identical to archaeological Troy. Hittite texts mention a water tunnel at Wilusa, and a water tunnel excavated by Korfmann, previously thought to be Roman, has been dated to around 2600 BC. The identifications of Wilusa with archaeological Troy and of the Achaeans with the Ahhiyawa remain controversial, but gained enough popularity during the 1990s to be considered a majority opinion.

Homeric Ilion and historical Wilusa

The events described in Homer's Iliad, even if based on historical events that preceded its composition by some 450 years, will never be completely identifiable with historical or archaeological facts, even if there was a Bronze Age city on the site now called Troy, and even if that city was destroyed by fire or war at about the same time as the time postulated for the Trojan War. No text or artifact has been found on site itself which clearly identifies the Bronze Age site. This is probably due to the planification of the former hillfort during the construction of Hellenistic Ilium (Troy IX), destroying the parts that most likely contained the city archives. A single seal of a Luwian scribe has been found in one of the houses, proving the presence of written correspondence in the city, but not a single text. Our emerging understanding of the geography of the Hittite Empire makes it very likely that the site corresponds to the city of Wilusa. But even if that is accepted, it is of course no positive proof of identity with Homeric (W)ilion. A name Wilion or Troia does not appear in any of the Greek written records from the Mycenean sites. The Mycenaean Greeks of the 13th century BC had colonized the Greek mainland and Crete, and were only beginning to make forays into Anatolia, establishing a bridgehead in Miletus (Millawanda). Historical Wilusa was one of the Arzawa lands, in loose alliance with the Hittite Empire, and written reference to the city is therefore to be expected in Hittite correspondence rather than in Mycenaean palace archives.

Status of the Iliad

The dispute over the historicity of the Iliad was very heated at times. The more we know about Bronze Age history, the clearer it becomes that it is not a yes-or-no question but one of educated assessment of how much historical knowledge is present in Homer. The story of the Iliad is not an account of the war, but a tale of the psychology, the wrath, vengeance and death of individual heroes that assumes common knowledge of the Trojan War to create a backdrop. No scholars assume that the individual events in the tale (many of which centrally involve divine intervention) are historical fact; on the other hand, no scholars claim that the scenery is entirely devoid of memories of Mycenaean times: it is rather a subjective question of whether the factual content is rather more or rather less than one would have expected. The ostensible historicity of Homer's Troy faces the same hurdles as with Plato's Atlantis. In both cases, an ancient writer's story is now seen by some to be true, by others to be mythology or fiction. It may be possible to establish connections between either story and real places and events, but these always risk to be subject to selection bias.

The Iliad as essentially legendary

Some archaeologists and historians maintain that none of the events in Homer are historical. Others accept that there may be a foundation of historical events in the Homeric stories, but say that in the absence of independent evidence it is not possible to separate fact from myth in the stories. In recent years scholars have suggested that the Homeric stories represented a synthesis of many old Greek stories of various Bronze Age sieges and expeditions, fused together in the Greek memory during the "dark ages" which followed the fall of the Mycenean civilization. In this view, no historical city of Troy existed anywhere: the name derives from a people called the Troies, who probably lived in central Greece. The identification of the hill at Hissarlik as Troy is, in this view, a late development, following the Greek colonisation of Asia Minor in the 8th century BC.

The Iliad as essentially historical

Another view is that Homer was heir to an unbroken tradition of epic poetry reaching back some 500 years into Mycenaean times. In this view, the poem's core could reflect a historical campaign that took place at the eve of the decline of the Mycenaean civilization. Much legendary material would have been added during this time, but in this view it is meaningful to ask for archaeological and textual evidence corresponding to events referred to in the Iliad. Such a historical background gives a credible explanation for the geographical knowledge of Troy (which could, however, also have been obtained in Homer's time by visiting the traditional site of the city) and otherwise unmotivated elements in the poem (in particular the detailed Catalogue of Ships). Linguistically, a few verses of the Iliad suggest great antiquity, because they only fit the meter if projected back into Mycenaean Greek, suggesting a poetic tradition spanning the Greek Dark Ages. Even though Homer was Ionian, the Iliad reflects the geography known to the Mycenaean Greeks, showing detailed knowledge of the mainland but not extending to the Ionian islands or Anatolia, which suggests that the Iliad reproduces an account of events handed down by tradition, to which the author did not add his own geographical knowledge. Anatolia

Tourism

Today there is a Turkish town called Truva in the vicinity of the archaeological site, but this town has grown up recently to service the tourist trade. The archaeological site is officially called Troy by the Turkish government and appears as such on many maps. A large number of tourists visit the site each year, mostly coming from Istanbul by bus or by ferry via Çanakkale. The visitor sees a highly commercialised site, with a large wooden horse built as a playground for children, then shops and a museum. The archaeological site itself is, as a recent writer said, "a ruin of a ruin," because the site has been frequently excavated, and because Schliemann's archaeological methods were very destructive: in his conviction that the city of Priam would be found in the earliest layers, he demolished many interesting structures from later eras, including all of the house walls from Troy II. For many years also the site was unguarded and was thoroughly looted.

Troy in later legend

see also Trojan War. Such was the fame of the Trojan story in Roman and medieval times that it was built upon to provide a starting point for various legends of national origin. The most famous is undoubtedly that promulgated by Virgil in the Aeneid, tracing the ancestry of the founders of Rome, and more specifically the Julio-Claudian dynasty, to the Trojan prince Aeneas. Similarly Geoffrey of Monmouth traces the legendary kings of Britain to a supposed descendant of Aeneas called Brutus.

External links

- Archaeology
- [http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/eng/index.html Project Troia - The new excavations at Troy]
- [http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/vr/vr0207_en.html digital reconstructions of the city]
- [http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/27.html Troy VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War]
- [http://www.tourismturkey.org/regions/marmara/Troy.htm Where Is "Troy" Now?]
- [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/DF221xS344I/ Ilios. The city and country of the Trojans]: the results of researches and discoveries on the site of Troy and through the Troad in the years 1871-72-73-78-79; (searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries, requires dejavu-plugin)
- Geography
- [http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Troy.html the Troad] (with an image of a model of Troy II)
- [http://www.archaeometry.gr/symposium2003/pages_en/abstracts/papers/geophysical/geo19.htm Geomorphologic changes in the valley of the Scamander] (link broken as of 23 Aug 2005)
- Alternative location theories
- [http://phdamste.tripod.com/trojan.html The Trojan Kings of England] Category:Trojans Category:Greek mythology Category:Hittite Empire Category:Archaeological sites in Turkey Category:Destroyed cities ko:트로이아 ja:イリオス

Trojan War

The Trojan War was a war waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor by the armies of the Achaeans, following the kidnapping (or elopement) of Helen of Sparta by Paris of Troy. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in a cycle of epic poems of which only two, the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, survive intact. The Iliad describes an episode late in this war, and the Odyssey describes the journey home of one of the Greek leaders, Odysseus. Other parts of the story, and different versions, were elaborated by later Greek poets, and by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid. Ancient Greeks believed that the events Homer related were basically true. They believed that this war took place in the 13th or 12th century BC, and that Troy was located in the vicinity of the Dardanelles in what is now north-western Turkey. By modern times both the war and the city were widely believed to be mythological. In 1870, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a site in this area which he believed to be the site of Troy, and at least some archaeologists agree. There remains no certain evidence that Homer's Troy ever existed, still less that any of the events of the Trojan War cycle ever took place. Many historians believe that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various stories of sieges and expeditions by the Greeks of the Bronze Age or Mycenean period, and do not describe actual events. Those who think that the stories of the Trojan War derive from a specific historical conflict usually date it to between 1300 BC and 1200 BC.

Background

Peleus and Thetis, the apple, and the judgment

:See also Judgement of Paris. Judgement of Paris)]] According to Greek mythology, Zeus became king of the gods by overthrowing his father Cronus; Cronus in turn had overthrown his father Ouranos. Zeus came to learn of a prophecy that he himself would be overthrown by a son of his. (Within the extent of Greek myth, though, this never happened). Another prophecy said of the sea-nymph Thetis, with whom Zeus had an affair, that her son would be greater than his father. Possibly for one or both of these reasons, Thetis was betrothed upon Zeus' orders to a now-elderly human king, Peleus. To Peleus and Thetis a son was born, named Achilles. It was prophesied that he would die, young, at Troy. Hoping to protect him, when he was an infant his mother bathed him in the river Styx, making him invincible everywhere except the heel by which she held him. He grew up to be the greatest of all mortal warriors. All of the gods were invited to Peleus and Thetis' wedding, except Eris, or Discord. Insulted, she attended invisibly and cast down upon the table a golden apple on which were inscribed the words Kallisti, (To the fairest one). The apple was claimed by Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite. They quarrelled bitterly over it, and none of the other gods would venture an opinion favouring one contender for fear of earning the enmity of the other two. Eventually, Zeus ordered the matter to be settled by the judgment of Paris, a prince of Troy, who was being raised as a shepherd because of a prophecy that he would be the downfall of Troy. The goddesses tried to bribe the boy. Athena offered Paris wisdom, skill in battle, and the abilities of the greatest warriors; Hera offered him political power and control of all of Asia, and Aphrodite offered him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris awarded the apple to Aphrodite, and returned to Troy.
The elopement of Helen
The most beautiful woman in the world was Helen, one of the daughters of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. Her mother was Leda, who had been seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan; accounts differ over which of Leda's four children were fathered by Zeus and which by Tyndareus. Helen had scores of suitors, and her father was unwilling to choose one for fear the others would retaliate violently. Finally, one of the suitors, Odysseus of Ithaca, proposed a plan to solve the dilemma. In exchange for Tyndareus' support of his own suit towards Penelope, he suggested that Tyndareus require all of Helen's suitors to promise that they would defend the marriage of Helen, regardless of who she chose. The suitors duly swore the required oath, although not without a certain amount of grumbling. Helen chose Menelaus to wed. He had humbly not petitioned for her himself, but instead sent his brother Agamemnon on his behalf. The two brothers had been living at Tyndareus' court since being exiled from their homeland of Argos after their father, Atreus, was killed and had his throne usurped by his brother Thyestes and Thyestes' son Aegisthus. Menelaus inherited Tyndareus' throne of Sparta, with Helen as his queen, and Agamemnon married Helen's sister Clytemnestra and took back the throne of Argos. On a diplomatic mission to Sparta, Paris fell in love with Helen and, with Aphrodite's help, kidnapped or seduced her (accounts vary) and took her back to Troy as his wife. All the kings and princes of Greece were called upon to make good their oaths and retrieve Helen. The story of Helen is paralleled by the earlier elopement from Troy of the princess Hesione with Telamon of Salamis.
The marshalling of the forces
Odysseus had by this time married Penelope and fathered a son, Telemachus. In order to avoid the war, he feigned madness, and sowed his fields with salt. Palamedes outwitted him by putting his infant son in front of the plough, and Odysseus turned aside, unwilling to kill his son, and so revealed his sanity and joined the war. Calchas the oracle had stated that the Greeks would not win without Achilles. His mother Thetis, knowing that Achilles would die if he went to Troy, disguised him as a woman in the court of king Lycomedes in Scyros. There he had an affair with the king's daughter Deidameia, resulting in a child, Neoptolemus. Odysseus, Ajax the Greater, and Achilles's tutor Phoenix went to retrieve Achilles. According to one story they blew a horn, and Achilles revealed himself by seizing a spear to fight intruders rather than fleeing. According to another, they disguised themselves as merchants bearing trinkets and weaponry, and Achilles was marked out from the other women by admiring the wrong goods. Eventually, a fleet of more than a thousand ships was gathered, commanded by Agamemnon. But when they reached Aulis, the winds ceased. The prophet Calchas stated that the goddess Artemis was punishing Agamemnon for killing a sacred deer (or a deer in a sacred grove) and boasting that he was a better hunter than she. The only way to appease Artemis, he said, was to sacrifice Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. According to some versions, he did so, but others claim that he sacrificed a deer in her place, or nothing, and that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to the Crimea to prepare others for sacrifice to her. Hesiod said she became the goddess Hecate. The Greeks also brought the bones of Pelops, father of Atreus and grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaus to help them win the war. An oracle said they would be necessary to win. The Greek forces are described in detail in the Catalogue of Ships in the second book of the Iliad. They consist of 28 contingents from mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, the Dodecanese islands, Crete and Ithaca, amassing to a force of some 100,000 men. The Trojan forces are also listed in the second book of the Iliad, consisting of the Trojans themselves, led by Hector, and various allies listed as Dardanians, Zeleians, Adrasteians, Percotians, Pelasgians, Thracians, Ciconian spearmen, Paionian archers, Halizones, Mysians, Phrygians, Maeonians, Miletians and Lycians.
The War
Lycia
Telephus
When the Greeks left for the war, they accidentally stopped in Mysia, ruled by King Telephus. In the battle, Achilles wounded Telephus, who killed Thersander. The wound would not heal and Telephus asked an oracle who claimed "he that wounded shall heal". Telephus went to Aulis, and either pretended to be a beggar, asking Achilles to help heal his wound, or kidnapped Orestes and held him for ransom, demanding the wound be healed. Achilles refused, claiming to have no medical knowledge. Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound and the spear must be able to heal it. Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound, and Telephus was healed.
Philoctetes
Philoctetes was Heracles's friend and, because he lit Heracles's funeral pyre when no one else would, he received Heracles's bow and arrows. He sailed with seven ships full of men to the Trojan War, where he was planning on fighting for the Greeks. They stopped on Chryse for supplies, and Philoctetes was bitten by a snake. The wound festered and smelled horrible; Odysseus advised and the Atreidae ordered Philoctetes to stay on Lemnos. Medon took control of Philoctetes's men. Philoctetes stayed alone on Lemnos for ten years.
Arrival
An oracle had prophesied that the first Greek to walk on the land after stepping off a ship in the Trojan War would be the first to die. Protesilaus, leader of the Phylaceans, fulfilled this prophesy. The Greeks buried him as a god and Hermes was sent to show him his wife one last time before going to Hades. His wife, Laodamia, followed him to his death. Alternatively, Hector killed Protesilaus and Laodamia killed herself in grief. After Protesilaus' death, his brother, Podarces, joined the war in his place. The Greeks besieged Troy for nine years. There were occasional skirmishes, both with Troy and her allies. At one point, Greek forces sacked a nearby town and Agamemnon took as his slave-girl Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo. When Chryses tried to buy her back, he was rebuked, so he prayed to Apollo to punish the Greeks, and the army was struck by a plague.
Chryseis and Briseis
The events of the Iliad begin at this point. For more information, see that article. An oracle told Agamemnon he must give up Chryseis. Furious at this, and at Achilles who had guaranteed the oracle his own protection, Agamemnon took Achilles' concubine Briseis as his own. Achilles and Agamemnon argued and Achilles refused to fight any longer. Although the Greeks were destined to win the war, Achilles begged his mother Thetis to intervene with Zeus and ensure that the Greeks did badly until Agamemnon apologized to Achilles. The next day the Greeks were badly beaten in open battle, and all of the major warriors but Ajax were eventually injured too seriously to continue. The Trojans, led by Hector, advanced steadily on the Greek position. Seeing the danger, Achilles let his comrade Patroclus borrow his armour, and lead his troops into battle. Patroclus was killed by Hector who then took Achilles' armour. Maddened with grief, Achilles swore revenge. He donned new armour from Hephaestus brought to him by Thetis, and killed Hector, then dragged his body from his chariot around Troy three times. He refused to return it to the Trojans for funeral rites. Priam, with protection from the gods, personally came and begged to have it back, at which point Achilles relented, and a truce was called for twelve days while Hector was buried.
Xanthus
During the Trojan War, Xanthus, one of Achilles' horses, was rebuked by Achilles for allowing Patroclus to be killed. Xanthus responded by saying that a god had killed Patroclus and a god would soon kill Achilles too. The Erinyes struck the horse dumb. The narrative of the Iliad ends here.
The death of Achilles
Shortly after the death of Hector, Achilles defeated Memnon of Ethiopia, Cycnus of Colonae and the Amazonian warrior Penthesilia (with whom Achilles also had an affair in some versions). He was very soon killed by Paris — either by a poisoned arrow (the arrow was guided by Apollo; Paris did not do it by himself), or in an older version by a knife to the back (or heel), while visiting a Trojan princess, Polyxena, during a truce. Both versions conspicuously deny the killer any sort of valour, saying Achilles remains undefeated on the battlefield. His bones were mingled with those of Patroclus, and funeral games were held. Like Ajax, he is represented as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the Danube.
Achilles' armour/death of Ajax
Achilles' armour was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Ajax. They competed for it and Odysseus won. Ajax went mad with grief and vowed to kill his comrades; he started killing cattle (thinking they were Greek soldiers), and then himself. The Greeks captured Helenus, son of King Priam of Troy, a prophet, and tortured him until he told them under what circumstances they could take Troy. Helenus said they would win if they retrieved Heracles' arrows (which were in Philoctetes's possession); steal the Trojan Palladium (they accomplished this with the Trojan Horse; or Odysseus and Diomedes did so one night) and persuade Achilles' son (Neoptolemus) to join the war. Neoptolemus was hiding from the war at Scyros but the Greeks retrieved him. Alternatively, he told them that they could win if Troilius, Helenus' half-brother, son of Apollo and Hecuba, was killed before he turned twenty. Achilles ambushed Troilius. Odysseus and Neoptolemus retrieved Philoctetes from Lemnos. Philoctetes' wound was healed by Machaon or Asclepius. Philoctetes then killed Paris with a poisoned arrow he got from Heracles.
Diomedes
Diomedes almost killed Aeneas in battle but Aphrodite, Aeneas's mother, saved him. Diomedes wounded Aphrodite and she dropped her son, fleeing to Mount Olympus. Aeneas was then enveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who took him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy. Artemis healed Aeneas there. Later in the war, Diomedes fought with Hector and saw Ares, the war-god, fighting on the Trojans' side. Diomedes called for his soldiers to fall back slowly. Hera, Ares's mother, saw Ares's interference and asked Zeus, Ares's father, for permission to drive Ares away from the battlefield. Hera encouraged Diomedes to attack Ares and he threw his spear at the god. Athena drove the spear into Ares's body and he bellowed in pain and fled to Mount Olympus, forcing the Trojans to fall back.
The Trojan Horse
Trojan Horse] The end of the war came with one final plan. The Greeks (or, in some records, Odysseus on their behalf) devised a new ruse - a giant hollow wooden horse, an animal that was sacred to the Trojans. It was built by Epeius and filled with Greek warriors led by Odysseus. The rest of the Greek army appeared to leave and the Trojans accepted the horse as a peace offering. A Greek spy, Sinon, convinced the Trojans that the horse was a gift despite the warnings of Laocoon and Cassandra. The Trojans, who were understandably overjoyed that the ten-year siege had lifted, entered a night of mad revelry and celebration, and when the Greeks emerged from the horse the city was in a drunken stupor. The Greeks opened the city gates to allow their fellow soldiers in, and the city was utterly destroyed--every single man and boy killed (including infants), every woman and girl enslaved, all its wealth pillaged, and the city itself reduced to rubble. There is much question as to whether a wooden horse was even created. Homer's stories are believed by many to be the merging of many wars fought on Troy. In his merging, he creates many characters out of the gods and uses many metaphors. It is suggested that the Trojan Horse actually represents an earthquake that occurred between the wars that could have weakened Troy's walls and left them open for attack. Structural damage on the city believed to be Troy - its location being the same as that represented in Homer's Iliad and the artifacts found there suggesting it was a place of great trade and power - shows signs that there was indeed an earthquake. Other scholars, including several ancient sources, suggest that the "Trojan horse" was in fact a battering ram.
The aftermath
The ghost of Achilles appeared to the survivors of the war, demanding Polyxena, the Trojan princess, be sacrificed before anybody could leave. Neoptolemus did so. According to the Odyssey, Menelaus's fleet was blown by storms to Crete and Egypt where they were unable to sail away because the wind was calm. Menelaus had to catch Proteus, a shape-shifting sea god to find out what sacrifices to which gods he would have to make to guarantee safe passage. Proteus also told Menelaus that he was destined for Elysium (Heaven) after his death. Menelaus returned to Sparta with Helen. According to some stories the Helen who was taken by Paris was a fake, and the real Helen was in Egypt where she was reunited with Menelaus at this point. They had a daughter, Hermione. After the war, Idomeneus's ship hit a horrible storm. Idomeneus promised Poseidon that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw when he returned home if Poseidon would save his ship and crew. The first living thing was his son, whom Idomeneus duly sacrificed. The gods were angry at his murder of his own son and they sent him in exile to Calabria in Italy. (Aeneid III, 400). In an alternate version, his own subjects on Crete sent him into exile because he brought a plague with him from Troy. He fled to Calabria, and then Colophon, in Asia Minor, where he died. In yet a third version, used by Virgil, the plague was visited upon Crete as punishment for Idomeneus' act. Virgil illustration from Stories from the Greek Tragedians by Alfred Church.]] Cassandra was raped by Ajax the lesser, then taken as a concubine by Agamemnon. Agamemnon returned home to Argos. His wife Clytemnestra (Helen's sister) was having an affair with Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, Agamemnon's cousin who had conquered Argos before Agamemnon himself retook it. Possibly out of vengeance for the death of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra plotted with her lover to kill Agamemnon. Cassandra foresaw this murder, and warned Agamemnon, but he disregarded her. He was killed, either at a feast or in his bath according to different versions. Cassandra was also killed. Agamemnon's son Orestes, who had been away, returned and conspired with his sister Elektra to avenge their father. They killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Orestes married Hermione and retook Argos, becoming king over all the Peloponessus. Neoptolemus took Andromache and Helenus as slaves and married Andromache. He feuded with Orestes, because Menalaus had promised his daughter Hermione to him, but now wanted her to marry Neoptolemus. They fought, and Neoptolemus was killed. Helenus then married Andromache and they ruled over a colony of Trojan exiles in what had once been Achilles' kingdom. There Aeneas encountered them on his journey to Italy. Queen Hecuba of Troy was enslaved by the Achaeans. Lycaon was enslaved by Achilles. He was later killed trying to escape. Since Antenor, Priam's brother-in-law, had supported giving Helen back to the Greeks, he was spared. Helen Galleria Borghese, Rome]] Aeneas led a group of survivors away from the city, including his son Ascanius, his trumpeter Misenus, father Anchises, the healer Iapyx, all the Lares and Penates and Mimas as a guide. His wife Creusa was killed during the sack of the city. They fled Troy with a number of ships, seeking to establish a new homeland elsewhere. They landed in several nearby countries that proved inhospitable and finally were told by a Sibyl that they had to return to the land of their forebears. They first tried Crete, where Dardanus had once settled, but found it ravaged by the same plague that had driven Idomeneus away. They found the colony led by Helenus and Andromache, but declined to remain. After seven years they arrived in Carthage, where Aeneas had an affair with Dido. Eventually the gods ordered him to continue onward (Dido committed suicide), and he and his people arrived at the mouth of the Tiber in Italy. There a Sibyl took him to the underworld and foretold the majesty of Rome, which would be founded by his people. He negotiated a settlement with the local king, Lavinius, and was wed to his daughter, Lavinia. This triggered a war with other local tribes, which culminatied in the founding of the settlement of Alba Longa, ruled by Aeneas and Lavinia's son Silvius. Three hundred years later, according to Roman myth, his descendants Romulus and Remus founded Rome. The details of the journey of Aeneas, his affair with Dido, and his settling in Italy are the subject of the Roman epic poem the Aeneid by Virgil. Odysseus, attempting to travel home, underwent a series of trials, tribulations and setbacks that stretched his journey to ten years' time. These are detailed in Homer's epic poem The Odyssey.
The Trojan War in art
The story of the siege of Troy provided inspiration for many pieces of art, most famously Homer's Iliad, set in the last year of the siege. Some of the others include Troades by Euripides, Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, Iphigenia and Polyxena by Samuel Coster, Palamedes by Joost van den Vondel and Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz (1855-1858).
Participants

Armies on the Greek side (Achaeans)
Achaeans See Catalogue of Ships #Abantes #Arcadia #Aetolia #Athens and Salamis #Argos and Tiryns #Boebeans (Thessaly) #Boeotia #Crete #Dulichium #Elis #Elone (Thessaly) #Enienes #Iolcus (Thessaly) #Ithaca #Locris #Magnesia #Meliboea #

Iphigenia

Iphianassa

Cymon and Iphigenia

Some modern sources

Some adaptations of the Iphigenia story

External links

112 Iphigenia

Clytemnestra

Theseus

Birth and the six "labors" of Theseus

Medea and the Marathonian Bull

Ariadne and the Minotaur

The return to Athens

Hippolyte

Pirithous

Theseus and Pirithous meet Hades

Phaedra and Hippolytus

Theseus and the founding myth of Athens

Other stories and his death

Books

References

Helen

Etymology

Helen in Greek mythology

Birth

Marriage to Menelaus

Seduction by Paris

Fall of Troy

Fate

Helen in modern literature

Timeline

Sources

External links

Troy

Legendary Troy

Homeric Troy

Archaeological Troy

Troy I–V

Troy VI

Troy VII

Troy IX

Excavation campaigns

Schliemann

Dörpfeld, Blegen

Korfmann

Hittite evidence

Homeric Ilion and historical Wilusa

Status of the Iliad

The Iliad as essentially legendary

The Iliad as essentially historical

Tourism

Troy in later legend

See also

External links

Trojan War

Background

Peleus and Thetis, the apple, and the judgment

The elopement of Helen

The marshalling of the forces

The War

Telephus

Philoctetes

Arrival

Chryseis and Briseis

Xanthus

The death of Achilles

Achilles' armour/death of Ajax

Diomedes

The Trojan Horse

The aftermath

The Trojan War in art

Participants

Armies on the Greek side (Achaeans)