Chapter Twenty, Lecture Two Was there really a Trojan War?

The Hellespont always a critical choke- point between East and West Nine levels of historic Troy, beginning in 3000 BC. Troy VII (1150 BC) mostly likely Homer’s Troy –Crowded housing, stockpiles of food, other evidence of seige

Was there really a Trojan War? Recent work shows extensive settlement around the citadel of Troy with ditch and palisade, effective against (Greek?) cavalry Typical Anatolian fortress Place-names and personal names are from the Hittite language –Was Troy a Hittite city?

Was there really a Trojan War? The story of Troy is not Homer’s (800 BC), and even specific elements of it go back to the Late Bronze Age Classical Greeks didn’t doubt the historicity of the war –The Locrian maidens and the Temple of Athena in Troy Xerxes, Alexander at Troy

Agamemnon’s Return

Nostos (Nostoi) Aeschylus’s Oresteia : the return of Agamemnon –Agamemnon –The Libation Bearers –The Eumenides

The Murder of Agamemnon

Murder of Agamemnon Agamemnon returns from Troy with Cassandra, who is to be his mistress Clytemnestra, meanwhile, had been colluding with Aegisthus, son of Thyestes –Clytemnestra vengeful because of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia –Aegisthus wishes to avenge the “Banquet of Thyestes”

Murder of Agamemnon Agamemnon and Cassandra murdered by Clytemnestra

Orestes’ Revenge

Orestes, taken from Mycenae after the regicide, is now grown and returns to avenge his father’s death –Ordered even to murder his own mother by the Delphic Oracle Finds his sister, Electra, who will help

Orestes’ Revenge Orestes kills both, but is immediately driven insane and pursued by the Furies –They punish the spilling of familial blood

The Trial of Orestes

Delphi: Apollo orders Orestes to go to Athens to stand trial for the matricide In Athens, Athena establishes a new court, the Court of the Areopagus, to try the case Apollo represents Orestes, the Furies prosecute their case against him In the end, Orestes is acquitted; the Furies are appeased and become protective spirits (the Eumenides)

The Trial of Orestes Other sources: Orestes rules peacefully over Mycenae –But to marry Hermionê, he had to have her first husband, Neoptolemus, murdered

Myth of Civic Progress

Oresteia written as Athenian democracy was still extending itself Ends cycle of blood vendetta Establishes civil courts – the Areopagus – with the approval of the gods Judicial authority of families curtailed Written law replaces oral law

Myth of Civic Progress Tames the ancient ones – the Furies (the Eumenides in the end) – and puts the impulse for revenge to work in the system of civil authority This reworking of traditional myths shows how the Greeks would not hesitate to modify them for reflection on contemporary issues

End