Unit 12 PDF

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 44

ANCW20021 CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

UNIT TWELVE

UNIT CONTENT:
Lattimore. R., trans., Iliad of Homer (1961), 24.705-77.
West, D, trans., The Aeneid (London, 1991), Book 2.
Andrews, P. B. S. The Falls of Troy in Greek Tradition. Greece & Rome 12
(1965), 28-32.
SEMINAR READING:
Hesiod Works and Days 42-104
Clay, Jenny Strauss 2003. Hesiods Cosmos (Cambridge, 2003), Chapter 5,
The Two Prometheuses.
Lattimore. R., Iliad of Homer (1961), 24.705-77.
West, D, The Aeneid, (London, 1991) Book
2.
Andrews, P. B. S. The Falls of Troy in Greek Tradition. Greece & Rome 12
(1965): 28-32.

THE FALLS OF TROY IN


GREEK TRADITION
By P. B. S. ANDREWS
A LTHOUGH most authorities now agree in identifying Priam's Troy
X J L with level Vila at Hissarlik, arguments are still advanced from time
to time1 for reverting to the earlier identification with VI [h?]. Since it
is accepted that VI was destroyed by an earthquake and not (or not
primarily) by armed force, this means proposing theories to account for
the discrepancy with Greek tradition. Either the Greeks never took
Troy at all, and simply invented the legend that they didin which
case there seems little point in trying to identify Priam's Troy; or else
the earthquake is symbolized by the Wooden Horse, under cover of
which the Greeks finally entered Troy.
The latter theory seems to me a grave misunderstanding of the nature
of mythological symbolism. The early Greeks considered an earthquake
an act of God, as we do: to them it was the manifest wrath of Poseidon,
the Earthshaker. If we are told that a certain king provoked the wrath
of Poseidon, who took a dreadful revenge upon him, that is as good
as saying in so many words that that king's town was destroyed by
an earthquakeno further symbol is needed. Note that this is told of
Minos of Knossos, a notoriously earthquake-ridden place, as well as of
Laomedon of Troy. The angry Poseidon might possibly have been
pictured as a gigantic horse, but surely never as a wooden one; the
Wooden Horse was immobile, having no power to breach the walls of
Troy until the Trojans themselves dragged it in. It was the work of a
named human builder, Epeios, and is never connected with Poseidon in
tradition, but only from first to last with Athene, the patroness of all
purely human skills and cunning devices (Od. viii. 493, cf. Am. ii. 15,31).
The trouble is that all discussion of the problem, whether by archaeo-
logists or by classicists, seems to start from the tacit assumption that
there is only one 'Homeric Troy', that of Priam, to be accounted for at
Hissarlik. This assumption presumably dates from Schliemann, and
from the very beginning of his work at that, before it was realized how
many historical 'Troys' there had been on the site;2 but no one since has
1
Most recently by C. Nylander in Antiquity, xxxvii (March 1963), 145.
2
If the Troes were the horse-breeders of VI, the use of 'Troy' for earlier
levels must be incorrect. It would have been better had the archaeologists
stuck to 'Hissarlik' for all; but too late to change now.
THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION 29
apparently ever gone back to the Iliad to confirm whether it is correct, in
the light of later discovery. In fact it is not. The Iliad knows three
distinct Troysthose of Laomedon (and his mythical predecessors),
of Priam, and (predicted) of Aeneasseparated by two distinct de-
structions, by Herakles and by Agamemnon. The purpose of this
article is to point out and discuss mainly the traditions of the 'other'
Homeric Troys.
According to the pedigree of Aeneas (//. xx. 215 ff.) the succession
of the kings of Troy was: Dardanos, Erichthonios, Tros, Ilos, Laomedon,
Priam. The first four are plainly artificial. Tros and Dardanos are mere
singulars of the Troes and Dardanoi, the two nations jointly occupying
the land under the rule of Priam. wIlos is presumably backformed from
w
Ilios (but cf. Hittite Wilusa, Wilusija ?). Erichthonios means 'aborigi-
nal' ; one might have expected him to head the list, and I think originally
he did, but the reason for the position of Dardanos will be discussed
later. Laomedon and Priam, however, are 'real' names, that is, poten-
tially those of historical persons. Priamos (Aeolic Perramos) is non-
Greek, but Laomedon looks good Greek and, if so, a suitable name for
a king (or possibly title, cf. Myc. lawagetas ?)yet not a mere invented
one like the cardboard classical Creons. There is no reason why it
should not be genuine. If the 'Grey Minyan' invaders of Troy VI were
akin to those of M.H. Greece, their descendants in the thirteenth century
may well still have spoken a language recognizably cognate with Greek,
as, say, Dutch is with English. Alternatively, if L.M.II Knossos could
have a Greek-speaking dynasty, so for all we know might late VI Troy.
The myth of Laomedon is not told consecutively in the Iliad, but is
the subject of several allusions which show it was well known to Homeric
poets and audiences, and which we can reassemble to give at least the
main outline of the story as they knew it.
Poseidon and Apollo were hired out by Zeus as servants for a year to
Laomedon (xxi. 441-57). Poseidon was set to build a wall round Troy,
'wide and mighty fine, that the town might be impregnable', and Apollo
to herd the king's cattle in the glens; or according to a variant (vii. 452),
simply to help Poseidon. When settling-day came, the king refused to pay
the gods their agreed wages and dismissed them with abuse and threats;
and they went home raging. Apollo, however, bore no lasting rancour,
and in the time of Priam was the principal divine champion of Troy
(for which Poseidon is upbraiding him), but Poseidon's malice against
Troy was unappeasable.
After this, Herakles came to Troy with six ships and but a small
company, to obtain horses from Laomedon (v. 638-42, 648-51). He
30 THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION
encountered a sea-monster (K^TOS: presumably sent by the enraged
Poseidon, as in later accounts) which 'chased him up from the shore to
the plain', where he took refuge behind a 'high embankment' built for
him by the Trojans and Athene against this eventuality (xx. 145-8).
Then he performed some service for the kingpresumably, again as
in later accounts, the killing of the Kfj"ros, but this is not stated in Homer
and conceivably may not be original. Laomedon, however, again
'returned ill words for good deeds, and refused him the horses for which
he came from far'. Thereupon Herakles 'sacked Ilios town and made
her streets desolate', apparently in no way impeded by the impregnable
wall. But he did not bring his booty (or the horses) home, for when he
sailed from Troy Hera raised a storm which drove him down to Cos and
cast him away there friendless; thence Zeus brought him home to Argos
after much struggle (xiv. 250-6, xv. 24-30).
I suggest that this myth is a true tradition of the Troy VI earthquake,
and must rest ultimately on an eye-witness account brought back by
Greeks who chanced to be present at it and who appear as 'Herakles' in
the narrative.
Herakles in classical tradition was the mighty servant, and especially
the tribute-collector, of Eurystheus of Mycenae. These traditions were
known to Homer, though little noticed in the epics (xix. 132-3: xv.
639-40). The classical tributes are all mythological (or rather perhaps
heraldic; the Hydra of Lerna, the Bull of Crete, &c. sound very like
totemic standards), but the tradition itself may be well founded, for it
is too derogatory to be invented of so great a hero without some basis in
folk-memory. The Trojan horses were not included among the Labours,
since Herakles in fact failed to bring them home, and are replaced in the
canon by those of Diomedes of Thrace; but he seems in the myth to
have a prescriptive right to them, so we may perhaps suppose they were
in fact demanded as tribute from Troy by an overlord at Mycenae, per-
haps on some special occasion such as an accession to either throne,
rather than merely sought in trade. (We are not far from the date of
Tawagalawas and the Achaian overlordship of Millawanda; if of
Miletus, why not also of Troy ?)
The six ships, undermanned to leave room for the horses, seem 'real'
and imply some multiple of six horses being fetched. The best Homeric
candidates are perhaps the twelve peerless fillies, sired by the North
Wind on twelve of the three thousand mares of Erichthonios (xx. 219-29),
but classical mythographers preferred to identify them with the (six ?)
stallions, 'the best beneath dawn and sun', given to Tros by Zeus as the
blood-price of Ganymedes (v. 265-70). Both these traditions, like the
THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION 31
more general ones of iTnr66auoi Troes and eumoAos Ilios, point to a real
memory of Trojan supremacy in horse-breedingon which perhaps
the wealth of Troy genuinely depended. The medieval horse-fairs of
England and France were attended by buyers from all over Europe; did
Troy hold the same position in the bronze-age Near East ?
The KTJTOS really is a symboland would make a better earthquake
than any Wooden Horse; but it stands in fact not for the earthquake as
such, but for the tidal wave that accompanied it. We may suppose that
some at least of the Greek party were guarding their ships on the beach,
and were either swept inland by the tsunami, or ran for their lives before
it, to find a miraculous refuge safe from wave or quake in some ancient
earthwork sacred to the local goddess they identified with their own
Athana. Only when the crisis was over and the water fallen back would
they have leisure or inclination to observe that the 'wide and mighty
fine' wall of Troy itself was down, the people in panic, and the town open
for the looting. (This interpretation has the explicit authority of Apollo-
dorus [ii.5.9]: 'Poseidon sent a KTJTOS borne inland by a flood-wave
[TrArjuupfs], which snatched up the people on the plain.')
What the 'good deed' symbolized by the slaying of the KTITOS was we
can only guess, but human nature being what it is this is not difficult.
'Herakles' climbed into Troy over the fallen wall with two equal ob-
jects, to help with rescue work and to lootbut only the looting, naturally,
came to the ears of the distracted king. I like to think that the words
fantastically spoken by Laomedon to the gods in Homer are a genuine
echo of the altercation between furious king and indignant Greek envoys,
among the dust-clouds of Troy VI nearly 3,300 years ago: 'He threatened
to bind us hand and foot and sell us for slaves in far-away islands, he
gave us his word we should have our ears cropped!' Homer does not say
Herakles killed Laomedon, but later versions do; doubtless they cut
him down on the spot, and got on with their looting.
Whether the involuntary visit to Cos is originally part of this tradition,
or an independent one that has been attracted into it, is impossible to
tell. In the Catalogue of Ships (ii. 676-80) the men of Cos are led by
the sons of Thessalos, son of Herakles (the only Homeric occurrence of
this name); according to the mythographers this Thessalos was not an
immigrant from Greece as his name suggests, but begotten by Herakles
on the local princess on the occasion of this visit. At any rate it is clear
that in the Homeric version of the tradition ('corrected' in the classical
one), the expedition to Troy ended in almost complete disaster, and
this is doubtless historical. Most of the shipping at Troy, including the
six Greek ships, was presumably destroyed or damaged by the tidal wave.
33 THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION
If the Trojans pulled themselves together enough to avenge their king,
it may well be that no more than a handful of Greeks got away in a single
battered ship to bring the tale to Mycenae.
The outraging of the gods is the only truly mythical element in the
story; it was evidently invented by 'Herakles' himself, or rather perhaps
by the court poets of Tiryns on his instructions, and it was naturally
invented backwards, starting from the one certain factthat the Earth-
shaker was enraged beyond measure with the king of Troyand then
devising a plausible 'explanation' for it. Poseidon is pictured in the
image of Herakles. He is the servant of the king of Troy, as Herakles
of the king of Mycenae; he is refused his 'due' and abused and threatened
by the king; before that he must have performed some 'good deed' for
himwhat could this be ? Presumably whatever it was, he would undo
it again later; in his rage he threw down the wall of Troy, so it must have
been he that built it to begin with. So now we know what happened, and
need only turn it round and tell it in the right order. But Apollo too
must be brought in, for he is the native god of Troy, so why did he stand
by and do nothing to protect his people from the wrath of Poseidon ?
Evidently because he too was equally outraged by the king. The un-
certainty over his 'good deed' reflects his subsidiary position in the story;
herding the cattle, a job suited to an Anatolian 'peasant god', is doubtless
the superior and original version.
Such is the Greek tradition of the fall of Troy VI.
Later writers add several new details. Some fill in evident gaps in
the piecemeal Homeric account (the sending and the killing of the Kfyros),
but most are intended to tidy up what were wrongly thought to be
inconsistencies and loose ends in Homer, or betray in other ways that
they cannot belong to the original Homeric tradition. They are there-
fore valueless for Trojan history, but must be briefly noticed, if only be-
cause modern versions merely repeat the final composite story from the
mythographers without distinguishing the Homeric from the post-
Homeric elements.
Poseidon and Apollo were helped in building the wall by Aiakos of
Aegina; the section he built was weaker than the gods' and not impreg-
nable. Herakles came twice to Troy. He passed by it on his way back
from the Amazons, and found it being ravaged by the KTJTOS and Laome-
don's daughter Hesione exposed on the shore as an offering. He bar-
gained with Laomedon to save her in return for the horses of Tros, then
killed the Kfj-ros by jumping down its throat and cutting his way out.
Then Laomedon refused the horses; Herakles could not stay to argue,
but left vowing vengeance. When his servitude to Eurystheus was over,
THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION 33
he returned with an army including Telamon son of Aiakos, who knew
from his father the weak part of the wall and led the way into Troy.
Herakles killed Laomedon and all his sons except Podarkes, for whose
life Hesione begged; he spared him on condition she should ransom him
with her veil, and then renamed him Priamos because his sister had
'bought' him (irpfauai). Hesione was awarded to Telamon, to whom
she bore Teukros the bastard brother of Ajax.
It is possible the curious killing of the KTJTOS is original; there seems no
point in inventing such an odd detail later (unlike the idea of making
it a St. George's dragon for Hesione). Does it conceivably conceal a
memory of rescue work among houses thrown down by the earthquake ?
The weak place in the wall is referred to by Homer (vi. 433-4). It may
be genuine tradition of an actual such place discovered in the surviving
part of the wall of Vl/VIIa.1 In that case there is no inconsistency, for
the impregnability of Poseidon's wall was always mythical, but classical
writers naturally did not realize this and so felt the need to invent an
explanation. Aiakos has no other connexion with Troy, and was intro-
duced (first perhaps by Pindar) simply as the father and putative adviser
of Telamon. Telamon in turn had to be introduced, since the whole object
of bringing in Hesione (whom Homer must surely have mentioned
somewhere, had he ever heard of her) was to explain how the brother of
Ajax came to have a name which in classical Greek meant 'the Trojan',
by giving him a Trojan mother. The use of Teukros as a Trojan ethnic
is rigidly excluded from the epic; its significance will be discussed later.
The expedient of identifying Podarkes with Priam by a false etymo-
logy implies that he, and therefore Hesione, really belong to an
independent story not originally connected with Troyotherwise, why
not simply call the spared son Priam from the outset and omit the
'buying' ? The incident bears a marked resemblance to a famous real
one in Hittite history, the encounter of Mursilis of Hatti with the
mother of Manapa-DATTAS of the Land of Seha River. In both
the basic 'plot' is identical: young prince whose life is forfeit, spared by
cruel conqueror at the prayer of his kinswoman; but the mother has
become an elder sister through the exigency of adaptation to Greek tradi-
tions of Troy. The tale might very well have become legendary in
Western Anatolia. The seemingly good Greek name Podarkes could be
a corruption of Mana~\pa-*Tarh\untas. The queen's name is unfortu-
nately not given in any Hittite version, but Hesione is presumably
a dialectal feminine of Eetion, a Homeric name of several Trojan or
Anatolian persons. The ransom as such is required by the Greek false
1
C. W. Blegen, Troy and the Trojans (London, 1963), 116.
3871.1 D
34 THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION
etymology, but why with Hesione's veil (i.e. head-dress) ? In the legend
perhaps did the queen, when she knelt before Mursilis, tear off her
regal ornaments and throw them at his feet ?
So much for Laomedon's Troy. The grounds for directly identifying
Priam's with Vila can now be considered.1 Vila lasted only for a long
generation, or two at most; Priam's Troy lasted only for his own long
lifetime. Vila was burnt to the ground after fighting in the streets; so
was Priam's Troy. The southern fringe which is all that effectively
survives of Vila is filled with the small mean houses of poor people,
hastily built against the inside of the rebuilt wall and over the terraces
and streets of VI and the sites of some of its great houses (though some
were rebuilt). How far this was typical of the whole settlement we can
never now know; the loss of the palace and central houses may be giving
us quite a false idea of its relative poverty. So far as we can tell, however,
Vila housed a larger population than VI, in poorer conditions, within
the same area. Moreover a remarkable feature of it is that all the houses
contain several large storage-jars, buried to their mouths in the floor
and covered with loose slabs; these can only represent an arrangement
for storing emergency food stocks. This is the very picture of a fortress
undergoing prolonged siege or blockade. Comparison immediately
suggests itself, on a much smaller scale, with the condition of Athens
after the Spartan occupation of Decelea. We should form a very false
impression of fifth-century Athens from the remains of refugee squatter
settlements between the Long Walls, if they and they alone had chanced
to survive.
Priam's Troy according to Homer was blockaded (rather than be-
sieged) for ten years (we should rather say nine) by Greeks holding and
operating from a fortified camp at the mouth of the Hellespont. The
ten years may be merely a poetic exaggeration, or perhaps a misunder-
standing of two attacks ten years apart (of which there is some evidence in
post-Homeric tradition), but there seems no reason why the Mycenaeans
should not in fact have maintained such a permanent camp for more than
one season, provided they had full command of the sea. The distance
of Troy from Greece is often much exaggerated by both ancient and
modern writers; it was in fact, in favourable conditions, about 4-5 days'
sail from Mycenae (or Aulis), slightly closer than Rhodes. The tactics
of the Achaians as imagined by Homer are identical, mutatis mutandis,
with those of the Spartans at Decelea as described by Thucydides. They
ravaged the countryside continually, carrying off crops, stock and what-
ever portable property they could, and harassing foragers and relief
1
Blegen, op. cit., chap. VII passim.
THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION 35
caravans (like that of Rhesos in the Doloneia), but not wasting time and
lives directly attacking the fortifications. (When Patroklos rashly did
so, he was killed.) Such tactics must eventually have ruined any bronze-
age fortress, however strong, but especially Troy if, as suggested earlier,
its real wealth depended in fact on its famous horse-herds pasturing in
the Scamander meadows.
I suggest the capture of the Trojan horse-herds is the likeliest real
object of the Trojan War. If Mr. Nylander is right1 and Vila really fell
at the beginning of Myc. IIIC, rather than in the middle of IIIB, Greece
had then already suffered the devastating upheaval known to tradition as
the 'first return of the Herakleidai', which doubtless made serious in-
roads on the native stock of horses in hnr6|3oTov Argos; the need to re-
place them might have seemed paramount. The best source of supply
was Troy, but Troy had doubtless been cool if not openly hostile to
Greece since the VI disaster (as suggested by the paucity of Mycenaean
ware at Vila); if she refused to sell her horses to Mycenae, Mycenae would
have had to come and take them. That Greece itself was in a parlous
and distracted state would have been no bar, to judge by many historical
analogies, to embarking on foreign war for (it would be hoped) easy
lootindeed it might well make it seem all the more desirable.
Returning to the evidence of the Iliad textthis is the point at which
to consider the problem of Dardanos. The patronymic of Priam is
Dardanides (once only Laomedontiades). This is the only exception
to the Homeric rule of practice that the patronymic is derived only from
the father, or very rarely the grandfather; Priam is the fifth generation
from Dardanos. (Ilos is also called Dardanides, but still wrongly since
he is the third generation. Since he is presumably mythical, the usage
is doubtless an extension of the supposed licence with Priam.) The
reason cannot be mere convenience, since, granted that Laomedontiades
is impossibly cumbersome, *wIliades would be metrically equal to Dar-
danides. The implication must be that at some earlier stage in the tradi-
tion Priam really was son of Dardanos.
What the pedigree says of Dardanos is this (xx. 215-18): 'Dardanos
first was begotten by cloud-gathering Zeus; he made a settlement
(KTICTCTE) in/at Dardania, for not yet had holy Ilios on the plain been made
a town, a town of human people, but they were still dwelling on the
foothills of well-watered Ida.' This apparent knowledge of conditions
before there was a Troy is curious and suspicious. There could be no
possible Greek tradition of times before VI, still less earlier levels. On
the other hand there were two short periods in L.H.III itself when
1
See p. 28, note 1, above.
36 THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION
there was in fact no Troy, between VI and Vila and between Vila and
Vllb. i. I suggest we are here in the first of these. 'Dardanos' is not
originally a mythical eponymus like Tros and Ilos (perhaps invented in
imitation of him), but an historical person in disguise: a prince of the
Dardanoi of Ida, real name unknown to Greek tradition, who rallied
the Trojans after the earthquake and gave them (or at least their non-
effectives) shelter on his own lands while Troy was rebuilding, and whose
son Priam eventually succeeded to the throne of the united peoples.
When the imaginary Trojan royal pedigree came to be compiled,
'Dardanos' was found associated with a tradition of a building of Troy,
which no other known king was, and so was naturally placed at the
beginning as first founder, above even Erichthonios who stands for the
immemorial antiquity of the horse-breeding kings of VI.
This could also explain the linguistic change from the apparent
Greekness of Laomedon (and Alaksandus of Wilusa, if that is Ilios and
he is an Alexandras; chronologically he might possibly be Laomedon's
real father?) to the non-Greek Priam and Paris. (If Paris is a genuine
name, he may be an almost-forgotten real son of Priam. As a Trojan
hero he has been supplanted by the Greek Hector who arrived in the
train of Achilles; his own Greek name Alexandras may also have come
with Achilles, or belong with Menelaos and Helen, or be Alaksandus
misplaced, or all three.) The Troes are the potentially 'Greek'-speaking
horse-herders of VI, the Dardanoi native Anatolians ?
The third Homeric Troy is that of Aeneas. It is mentioned in one
context only, a prophecy put into the mouth of Poseidon (xx. 302-8):
when Priam is dead, Aeneas is destined to rule the Trojans and his
children's children after him, that the race of Dardanos may not perish.
It is possible that this is a late invention, flattering to iron-age dynasts
who claimed descent from Aeneas. Since, however, there are traces of
slight Mycenaean contact with Vllb. 1 (and perhaps even Vllb. 2),1 it
is also possible it is a genuine if vague tradition. If so, however, it is the
limit of Homeric knowledge of the history of Troy; after Aeneas the
canon is closed, and we must rely for any knowledge of what came after
on the intimations of classical writers.
The only ethnic names for Trojans admitted by the epics are Troes
and Dardanoi (with variants). In classical Greek Dardanoi disappears,
and Troes tends to be increasingly replaced by a new name Teukroi,
treated as absolutely synonymous with it. (As in, e.g., Herodotus'
discussion of the theory that Helen never went to Troy but was detained
in Egypt. In ii. 118, giving what purports to be the Egyptian account,
1
Blegen, op. cit., 171.
THE FALLS OF TROY IN GREEK TRADITION 37
he calls the Trojans Teukroi and the Troad Teukris; in 120, giving his
own reflections with his mind running directly on Homer, he reverts,
perhaps unconsciously, to Troes.)
According to Strabo (xiii. 117) the Teukroi of the Troad were first
mentioned by Callinus, who derived them from Crete on the strength of
the name Ida. Since Ida is freely mentioned by Homer, this theory can
be discounted, but it at least implies that they were not newcomers in
Callinus' time but already regarded as in effect aboriginal. The same
riew was taken in the extension of the Homeric royal pedigree to accom-
modate an eponymous Teukros; instead of being put after Aeneas where
he must rightly belong, he was put right at the beginning, Dardanos
being made an immigrant from Samothrace who married his daughter.
The steps taken to make the Homeric Teukros, brother of Ajax, into
at least a demi-Trojan, by introducing his 'mother' Hesione into the
myth of Laomedon, have already been explained. (If this Teukros is a
genuinefigureof Greek legend, as seems most likely,1 the similarity must
be a pure coincidence; no doubt the ethnic name is a mere approxi-
mation to the native sound, assimilated to the familiar name of the Greek
hero.)
The Teukroi must evidently have been a real people of the Troad,
found in possession by the Aeolic colonists in the Late Iron Age. By
Herodotus' time the name was already obsolescent if not obsolete, their
contemporary descendants being called Gergithai (v. 122; vii. 43); he
makes several references to their alleged earlier history, but these are at
least partially vitiated by his inability to distinguish them from the real
ancient Troes. It seems clear, however, that they were a people of
Thraco-Phrygian stock.
Were they the 'Knobbed Ware' invaders of Vllb. 2; or the unidenti-
fied destroyers of that ? And if the former, are they perhaps also to be
equated with the seafaring Tjekker, who accompanied the Philistines
against Rameses III, and were found in Canaan by Wenamon a century
later ? And if so, what connexion if any with the tradition that Teukros
brother of Ajax founded Salamis in Cyprus after the Trojan War?
One day perhaps these questions too will be answerable; in the mean-
while, they are perhaps as good a note as any on which to end this paper,
which it is hoped may have served to clear up some questions still
generally, but needlessly, regarded as vexed.
1
D . L. Page, History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley, 1959), 236 ff. (on the
meaning of AICCVTE).
Hesiod Works and Days. Tr. Glen Most.!
Creation of Pandora!

(42) For the gods keep the means of life concealed from
human beings. Otherwise you would easily be able to work
in just one day so as to have enough for a whole year even
without working, and quickly you would store the rudder
above the smoke, and the work of the cattle and of the
hard-working mules would be ended.

(47) But Zeus concealed it, angry in his heart because


crooked-counseled Prometheus (Forethought) had
!deceived him. For that reason he devised baneful evils for!
human beings, and he concealed fire; but the good son of
!Iapetus [Prometheus] stole it back from the counsellor Zeus in a
hollow fennel-stalk
for human beings, escaping the notice of Zeus
who delights in the thunderbolt.

(53) But the cloud-gatherer Zeus spoke to him in anger:


Son of Iapetus, you who know counsels beyond all others,
you are pleased that you have stolen fire and beguiled my
mind-a great grief for you yourself, and for men to come.
To them I shall give in exchange for fire an evil in which they may
all take pleasure in their spirit, embracing their own evil.

(59) So he spoke, and he laughed out loud, the father of


men and of gods. He commanded renowned Hephaestus
!to mix earth with water as quickly as possible, and to put
the voice and strength of a human into it, and to make a
beautiful, lovely form of a maiden similar in her face to the
immortal goddesses. He told Athena to teach her crafts, to
Weave richly worked cloth, and golden Aphrodite to shed
grace and painful desire and limb-devouring cares around
her head; and he ordered Hermes, the intermediary, the
killer of Argus, to put a dogs mind and a thievish character into
her.
(69) So he spoke, and they obeyed Zeus, the lord,!
Cronus son. Immediately the famous Lame One [Hephaistos]
fabricated out of earth a likeness of a modest maiden, by the
plans of Cronus son; the goddess, bright-eyed Athena,!
gave her a girdle and ornaments; the goddesses Graces and
queenly Persuasion placed golden jewelry all around on
!her body; the beautiful-haired Seasons crowned her all!
around with spring flowers; and Pallas Athena fitted the
whole ornamentation to her body. Then into her breast
!the intermediary, the killer of Argus, set lies and guileful
words and a thievish character, by the plans of deep-thundering
Zeus; and the messenger of the gods placed a voice
!in her and named this Woman Pandora (All-Gift), since all
those who have their mansions on Olympus had given her a
gift-a Woe for men who live on bread.

(83) When he had completed the sheer, intractable


deception, the father sent the famous killer of Argus, the
swift messenger of the gods, to take her as a gift to
Epimetheus (Afterthought). And Epimetheus did not
consider that Prometheus had told him never to accept a gift
from Olympian Zeus, but to send it back again, lest
something evil happen to mortals; it was only after he accepted
her, when he already had the evil, that he understood.
(90) For previously the tribes of men used to live upon
!the earth entirely apart from evils, and without grievous
toil and distressful diseases, which give death to men. [For
in misery mortals grow old at once.] But the woman
removed the great lid from the storage jar with her hands
and scattered all its contents abroad-she wrought bane-!ful evils
for human beings. Only Anticipation1 remained there in its
unbreakable home under the mouth of the storage
jar, and did not fly out; for before that could happen
she closed the lid of the storage jar, by the plans of!the aegis-holder,
the cloud-gatherer, Zeus. But countless
other miseries roam among mankind; for the earth is full of
evils, and the sea is full; and some sicknesses come upon
men by day, and others by night, of their own accord,
bearing evils to mortals in silence, since the counsellor Zeus
took their voice away. Thus it is not possible in any way to
evade the mind of Zeus.

1 5
See Hesiod Theogony 535-57. Often translated Hope; but the Greek word (elpis) can mean
anticipation of bad as well as of good things.

You might also like