Myth 20
The Fall of Troy and its aftermath
mostly told in Cyclic
Poems, of which only summaries survive
(Achilles: killed by an arrow from Paris, guided by Apollo)
His armor is to be given to the greatest surviving Greek warrior
assumed to be Ajax
but Odysseus “lawyers” it away from him (the trickiness)
Sophocles Ajax
Ajax goes mad with rage
he (thinks he) attacks all the Greek leaders
wakes up in a sheep pasture
throws himself on
sword
refuses to speak
to Odysseus in the underworld
Trojan Horse
Only mention in Homer is Odyssey
4.231-309
The most elaborate
literary description of the destruction of Troy
Vergil, the Aeneid (70
BC–19BC)
Romans—associate
themselves with Trojans
villainize the Greeks
Odysseus goes to get Neoptolemus (Achilles pre-war son)
Odysseus conceives the
horse
50 warriors
inside
leave Sinon on the beach—badly beaten
the ships pull
out
horse is
a sacrifice to Athena, to ensure safe return
terrorism
Most fully told in the
Aeneid
Ulixes—Ulysses—the greatest of Roman villains
Laocoön, priest of Poseidon
“quidquid id est,
timeo danaos et dona ferentis”
eaten by
snakes (unrelated)
hugely
influential on Michaelangelo
Euripides, the Trojan Women
(415 BC)
agony of defeated
women—critique of war
Vergil—death of old Priam
on altar of Zeus, by Neoptolemus
Menelaus gets Helen back
Helen had gotten a new, post-Paris husband
was going to kill her—takes her shirt off, they go home
Lesser Ajax rapes Cassandra on the altar of Athena
Odysseus kills the infant son of Hector
Neoptolemus cuts the throat of Priam's younger daughter over the tomb of Achilles
Only Aeneas survives
RETURNS home: Nostoi
Odyssey is the most
famous
But Agamemnon's story
is famous too
Aeschylus
trilogy: the Oresteia (458BC):
· The Libation Bearers
While gone, Clytemnestra affair with his cousin Aegisthus
Agamemnon has
Cassandra (she knows what's coming)
Clytemnestra complains of what she has endured during his absence
(10 years!)
Clytemnestra
welcomes him home with murder
Part of
defense—murder of Iphigenia
Orestes—raised in the
wilderness, returns to avenge his father
Clytemnestra has a dream that she gave birth to a serpent that
bite her breasts
send
Electra out to appease Agamemnon's grave
Electra
and Orestes meet up and plot
Clytemnestra
bares her breasts for mercy—no luck
The Furies—Erinyes--now
surround Orestes for matricide
go to the
Athenian law court to resolve this case
(he had
been directed by Apollo, after all)
“first
trial scene in Western lit”
Erinyes—ancient custom is necessary—you can't kill
relatives
what of
Agamemnon's death by Clytemnestra?
They're
not blood related!
Apollo takes up
Orestes case
children
aren't really related to their mother
she's
just the earth—the father's what matters
look at
the case of Athena
Jury is
split—Athena decides—with Orestes
turns Erinyes into Eumenides,
“kindly ones”
beneficial spirits of Athens
Flip side of Antigone?
The law of the state trumps the “unwritten laws”?
(much earlier—first generation of democracy)
optimism
How to
end endless cycle of blood feud
trial
by jury trumps ancient custom
