Chapter Twenty, Lecture Two

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

2. 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

3. 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?

4. 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

5. Agamemnon’s Return

6. Agamemnon’s Return • Nostos (Nostoi) • Aeschylus’s Oresteia : the return of Agamemnon • Agamemnon • The Libation Bearers • The Eumenides

7. The Murder of Agamemnon

8. 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”

9. Murder of Agamemnon • Agamemnon and Cassandra murdered by Clytemnestra

10. Orestes’ Revenge

11. 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

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

13. The Trial of Orestes

14. 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)

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

16. Myth of Civic Progress

17. 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

18. 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

19. End