Themes of the Trojan Cycle: Contribution to the Study of the Greek Mythological Tradition

By Miguel Carvalho Abrantes

The story of the Trojan War presented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer, is incomplete. This book completes it.
Originally presented as a thesis in the University of Coimbra (Portugal), this book reconstructs the plot of the Trojan War between the Iliad and the Odyssey. In order to do so, it uses the direct knowledge the authors of the Antiquity had of those subjects, but also iconographic sources, presenting them all and showing how they contribute to a faithful reconstruction of the Trojan Cycle, as it was known over 2000 years ago. Among the episodes reconstructed here are, for example, the battle against Penthesilea, the death of Achilles and the famous ruse of the Trojan Horse.
This is a work interesting not only for those who already read the Iliad and the Odyssey, but also for everyone who has some interest in Greek and Roman Mythology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miguel Carvalho Abrantes
• Release date: Jan 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9788829541539

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Themes of the Trojan Cycle – Contribution to the study of the greek mythological tradition

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[Symbol of the University of Coimbra]

Special Thanks

To Plato, Jesus, Cicero, Ovid (Naso magister erat!), Porphyry, Saint Augustine, Tzetzes, and all those countless figures who led me to study the many areas of Classical Studies.

To the four people who, again and again, made me continue.

To the most beautiful of all women, she knows who she is.

To Elisabete Cação, for the many questions she answered me across my Masters.

To the Professors Robert S. J. Garland and Luísa de Nazaré Ferreira, for having accepted to accompany and coordinate me in this voyage.

To the Professors who, in Portugal and outside of it, across the years taught me so much, with a bigger thank you to Carlos F. Clamote Carreto, Delfim Ferreira Leão, João Rasga and Nair de Nazaré Castro Soares.

To the colleagues from the Residência Universitária da Alegria, who always received me so well in Coimbra.

To whoever raised me, for the presence or the absence.

To all of those who, today and always, inspire me.

Index

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................3

PRELIMINARY NOTES..............................................................................................5

1. Introduction and literature review....................................................................7

2. The Trojan Cycle and the problem of the Epitome of the Chrestomathy of Proclus................15

3. Some sources of the Trojan Cycle...................................................................19

3.1. The Iliad............................................................................................................20

3.2. The Odyssey....................................................................................................21

3.3. The fragments of the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, the Sack of Troy and the Returns................21

3.4. Aeschylus’ Oresteia.......................................................................................22

3.5. The lost plays of Aeschylus.........................................................................23

3.6. The odes of Pindar.........................................................................................23

3.7. Sophocles’ Ajax..............................................................................................23

3.8. Sophocles’ Philoctetes.................................................................................24

3.9. Sophocles’ lost plays.....................................................................................24

3.10. Euripides’ Andromache.............................................................................24

3.11. Euripides’ Electra.......................................................................................25

3.12. Euripides’ Hecuba.......................................................................................25

3.13. Euripides’ Helen..........................................................................................25

3.14. Euripides’ Trojan Women.........................................................................26

3.15. Euripides’ Orestes.......................................................................................26

3.16. Euripides’ lost plays...................................................................................26

3.17. Alexandra, attributed to Lycophron......................................................27

3.18. Virgil’s Aeneid..............................................................................................28

3.19. Hyginus’ Fables...........................................................................................28

3.20. Parthenius’ Of the Sorrows of Love.......................................................29

3.21. Ovid’s Letters of the Heroines................................................................29

3.22. Ovid’s Metamorphoses..............................................................................30

3.23. Conon’s Narrations.....................................................................................31

3.24. Seneca’s Agamemnon................................................................................31

3.25. Seneca’s Trojan Women............................................................................31

3.26. The Library, attributed to Apollodorus.................................................31

3.27. Dio Chrysostom’s Discourses..................................................................32

3.28. Ptolemaeus Chennos’ New History........................................................33

3.29. Pausanias’ Description of Greece...........................................................33

3.30. Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead..............................................................34

3.31. Philostratus’ On Heroes............................................................................35

3.32. Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica........................................................35

3.33. Dictys Cretensis’ Chronicle of the Trojan War...................................36

3.34. Dares Phrygius’ History of the Destruction of Troy.........................37

3.35. Triphiodorus’ Sack of Troy.......................................................................38

3.36. Fulgentius’ Mythologies............................................................................38

3.37. The Excidium Troiae..................................................................................39

3.38. The Vatican Mythographers.....................................................................40

3.39. Tzetzes’ Antehomerica, Homerica and Posthomerica......................41

3.40. Benoît de Saint-Maure’s Romance of Troy..........................................42

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4. Some episodes of the Trojan Cycle..................................................................45

4.1. The story of Penthesilea..............................................................................47

4.1.1. The episode of Penthesilea and its position in relation to the Iliad................47

4.1.2. Penthesilea’s participation in the Trojan War..............................48

4.1.3. Penthesilea in battle.............................................................................48

4.1.4. The death of Penthesilea and Thersites..........................................50

4.2. The story of Memnon....................................................................................53

4.2.1. Memnon’s arrival in Troy....................................................................53

4.2.2. Memnon in combat, the death of Antilochus and the battle with Achilles................53

4.2.3. The death of Memnon..........................................................................55

4.3. The death and funeral of Achilles.............................................................59

4.3.1. The death of Achilles............................................................................59

4.3.2. The recovery of Achilles’ body...........................................................62

4.3.3. Achilles’ funeral.....................................................................................63

4.3.4. The funeral games of Achilles and the challenge for his armor................64

4.3.5. Ajax’s suicide..........................................................................................65

4.4. The episode of Eurypylus and Neoptolemus.........................................69

4.4.1. The coming of Eurypylus.....................................................................69

4.4.2. The coming of Neoptolemus...............................................................69

4.4.3. Eurypylus’ battle with Neoptolemus...............................................71

4.5. Philoctetes and the death of Paris............................................................73

4.5.1. The return of Philoctetes.....................................................................73

4.5.2. The death of Paris.................................................................................74

4.5.3. Paris and Oenone...................................................................................75

4.5.4. Helenus and the requisites for the conquest of Troy.................77

4.6. The artifice of the horse and the conquest of Troy.............................79

4.6.1. The taking of the Palladium...............................................................79

4.6.2. The artifice of the horse......................................................................80

4.6.3. The Trojans’ decision...........................................................................83

4.6.4. Helen and the voices of the Greeks’ wives....................................85

4.6.5. The initial attack to the city...............................................................85

4.6.6. The death of Priam................................................................................86

4.6.7. The episode of Antenor........................................................................87

4.6.8. The episode of Aeneas.........................................................................87

4.6.9. The fates of Deiphobus, Helen and Aethra....................................88

4.6.10. Ajax the Lesser and the rape of Cassandra.................................90

4.6.11. Astyanax’s death..................................................................................91

4.6.12. The fate of Polyxena...........................................................................92

4.6.13. The fates of Cassandra, Andromache, Hecuba and Laodice..94

4.7. The Returns.....................................................................................................97

4.7.1. The return of Ajax the Lesser............................................................97

4.7.2. The return of Helen and Menelaus..................................................98

4.7.3. The episode of Nauplius......................................................................98

4.7.4. The return of Agamemnon..................................................................99

4.7.5. The return of Neoptolemus and Helenus.....................................100

4.7.6. The returns of Diomedes and Nestor............................................101

4.7.7. Other returns........................................................................................101

Conclusion.................................................................................................................103

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................107

RESUMO

Esta dissertação de Mestrado tem como principal objectivo reconstruir os múltiplos eventos que tomavam lugar durante os episódios da parte central do Ciclo Troiano, ou seja, todos aqueles que ocorriam entre o final da trama da Ilíada e o princípio da Odisseia. Com a intenção de se atingir esse objectivo primário, iremos recorrer ao estabelecimento de múltiplas intertextualidades e à leitura de diversas fontes iconográficas.

Esse trabalho principiará por discutir, sucintamente, a existência de algumas fragilidades no Epítome da Crestomatia de Proclo, fonte que tende a ser considerada como uma das mais importantes evidências para o que teve lugar nos episódios aqui em consideração.

Num segundo momento serão apresentadas outras fontes literárias que fazem referência a cada um desses episódios – incluindo textos de Ésquilo, Píndaro, Eurípides, Virgílio ou Ovídio, mas também obras muito menos conhecidas e estudadas, como o Excidium Troiae ou alguns dos textos de Tzetzes – prestando-se particular atenção às várias referências e relações que são feitas no contexto desses episódios que pretendemos reconstruir.

Em terceiro lugar, as evidências recolhidas serão usadas numa tentativa de reconstrução dos vários eventos que teriam lugar nessa parte central do Ciclo Troiano, sendo essa síntese baseada nas diversas provas directas que os textos e imagens têm para nos oferecer.

Palavras-chave: Ciclo Troiano, Proclo, Mitologia, Literatura, Iconografia.

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ABSTRACT

This Masters' dissertation has as its main goal reconstructing the multiple events which took place during the episodes of the central section of the Trojan Cycle, that is, all the episodes which occurred between the end of the plot of Iliad and beginning of the Odyssey. With the goal of reaching that primary objective we will resort to the establishment of multiple intertextualities and to the reading of diverse iconographic sources.

This work will begin by succinctly debating the existence of some fragilities in the Epitome of the Chrestomathy of Proclus, a source that tends to be considered one of the most important pieces of evidence for what took place in each of these episodes.

In a second moment we will present you several other literary sources that reference each of these episodes – including texts by Aeschylus, Pindar, Euripides, Virgil, or Ovid, but also texts a lot less known or studied, such as the Excidium Troiae or some of Tzetzes' productions – always paying special attention to the several references, and relationships, which are created in the context of those episodes that we seek to reconstruct.

In third place, the evidence collected will then be used in an attempt to reconstruct the several events which would have their place in that central section of the Trojan Cycle, with that synthesis being based in multiple direct evidence that the texts and images have to offer us.

Keywords: Trojan Cycle, Proclus, Mythology, Literature, Iconography.

Preliminary notes

Since the author of this dissertation does not have a degree in Classics, has little knowledge of Latin and close to none of Ancient Greek, he could only work on texts and studies that already existed in Portuguese, English, French or Spanish. In spite of that difficulty in accessing the original texts, the theme of this dissertation was chosen, most of all, due to the fascination that some of the episodes of the Trojan Cycle exert in the author, and by his will in continuing to develop research centered on the study of Greek and Latin mythology.

The abbreviations for the Greek works here cited are the ones from H. G. Liddell-R. Scott-H. Stuart Jones (eds.), A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, 1996). For the Latin authors, the ones of P. G. W. Glare (ed.), Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1982). For works and authors not mentioned in these dictionaries, more direct references were used (for example, Dict. for the work of Dictys of Crete) or simplifications that allow us to easily understand what work we are talking about (for example, ET for the Excidium Troiae).

In the translation of Greek and Latin names to Portuguese we followed the work of M. H. Ureña Prieto et alii, Índices de nomes próprios gregos e latinos (Lisboa, 1995).

The articles of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford, ³1996,  consulted in the digital version 3.53, 2000) are identified with the sigla OCD.

Across this dissertation we make several references to an Epic Cycle and a Trojan Cycle. We should clarify that the second designation alludes exclusively to the episodes of the Epic Cycle that relate directly to the Trojan War, beginning with the ones which took place before the Iliad and ending with the death of Odysseus.

Lastly, we should state that the lines of this dissertation were not written under the new Portuguese Ortographic Agreement.

[This English edition was translated directly from the Portuguese original, and there was an effort to retain all the sense of the original. However, since its writer is not a native English speaker, he hopes the quality of his research may compensate for his limited language.]

1. Introduction and literature review

Any study of the Greek and Latin literature from the Antiquity is hard to dissociate from the two big Homeric Poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. For over a millenium, and until they were supplanted by the texts of Christianity, these were the two works that everyone should know, and that the most diverse authors never stop mentioning. Plato and Aristotle repeteadly mention them, the same way Cicero, Ovid, Claudius Aelianus, Saint Augustine and Boethius, among many others, do so. When the christian apologists want to show us the many errors of Paganism they also tend to resort to these works[1].

However, if these two epic poems were undeniably the most famous ones, they were neither the only ones attributed to Homer, nor the only ones that the century of the author had produced. It is quite famous the story of Margites, a work already attributed to this poet by Aristotle (Po. 4.1448b-1449a), and which did not reach us except in a few fragments, as are the several episodes that were left out of the homeric productions, but which their author already seemed to partially know. Episodes such as the ones of the death of Antilochus by Memnon, the death of Achilles, or the construction of the wooden horse, only appear to us attested more directly in later poems, but the verses attributed to Homer seemed to know them in some sense and make them several allusions, as we will see later on.

So, we are led to ask what happened to those lost epopees. In the many years that separate the time of Homer from the century of August we can still find, here and there, subtle references to each of them. Around the second century BC Aristarchus still seemed to know, at least partially, their contents[2]. If those allusions still continue to occur in the first centuries of our era, in works such as the ones of Athenaeus of Naucratis, they then tend to cease, as if those old poems, or their content, were lost forever, something that John Philoponus, author of the VI century AD, seems to attribute to the influence of an epopee by Peisander of Laranda (cf. West 2013: 51). For us, the oldest work that deals with these themes in a continuous way is the one of Quintus of Smyrna[3]. Others follow, such as Dictys of Crete and Dares Phrygius, but instead of evoking the poems from Homer’s time, they tend to make their own constructions with the material they likely still had in front of them.

When Tzetzes, in the XII century, writes on the episodes of the Trojan Cycle, he even mentions, from time to time, the sources he used to get that information, and if some of them still reached our day, others are for us empty names, making us think more directly on the quantity of material about this subject that was lost across the centuries.

This problem is particularly visible in another work created in the same century, but in a very different cultural context – the Romance of Troy, by Benoît de Sainte-Maure. If this author could even have known the Homeric Poems, or other compositions related to the Trojan Cycle[4], he seems to consider them secondary to the reports, allegedly written by witnesses of the war, attributed to Dictys of Crete and Dares Phrygius. It is those authors, and only those, that the French poet tells us he follows in the creation of his own poem, and those are also the same texts used by the authors