death before Ilion

The main purpose of this side blog is to sift through the different versions and iron out all the inconsistencies I can find, in order to build over time what could be regarded as a "definitive version" of the Greeks myths. Of course, I will never come up with anything more than yet another version, but my aim would be to at least make it internally consistent.

One of my objectives, on top of the sheer pleasure of working with such ancient material, will be to stay as true as possible to the source material. This includes narratives that depict behaviours that are unacceptable today, including, but not limited to, sexual violence, cannibalism, slavery and a general ignorance of the concept of consent, all set within an unquestioned patriarchal culture. I do not plan on removing or sweetening any of that, which is why some of my posts will have trigger warnings and be flagged as adult content.

A rough chronology of the Second Trojan War, including events leading to it. This will be fleshed out as I develop the biographies of the main characters. Comments & criticism are welcome.

1215 | MARRIAGE OF PELEUS & THETIS on the slopes of Mount Pelion. Eris throws the apple of discord at their wedding feast and the goddesses quarrel for the prize of being the fairest. Zeus takes the apple and declares that the matter shall be settled later.

1214 | OATH OF TYNDAREUS in Sparta. Tyndareus announces it is time for his daughter Helen to marry. Many suitors show up. Tyndareus makes them swear an oath to assist Helen's chosen husband in time of need. Menelaus is chosen and marries Helen.

1209 | JUDGMENT OF PARIS on the slopes of Mount Ida. Zeus, impressed by Paris's fairness, sends him Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, for him to judge which is the fairest. Paris chooses Aphrodite, thus gaining the promise of the love of Helen.

1204 | PARIS ABDUCTS HELEN. Paris and Aeneas, with a contingent of men, visit Sparta. Menelaus welcomes him but must leave for Crete for his grandfather King Catreus's funeral. Helen is smitten with love and leaves with Paris, taking her treasury with her. They detour south of Crete, and go to Cyprus and Phoenicia. Menelaus invokes the oath of Tyndareus and summons his allies. Calchas predicts a war with Troy and that Achilles will be needed to win it. Thetis fears for her son's life and hides him in Scyros.

1200 | FIRST GATHERING OF THE FLEETS in Aulis. Calchas predicts the war against Troy will last ten years. EXPEDITION TO MYSIA. Thersander, king of Thebes, is slain. Telephus is wounded by Achilles. The Greek fleet is dispersed by a storm. Many ships are lost and the Greeks take time to recover.

1193 | SECOND GATHERING OF THE FLEETS in Aulis. Achilles heals Telephus, who reveals the way to Troy. Sacrifice of Iphigenia. Philoctetes is left in Lemnos. Achilles slays Tenes. Failed diplomacy attempt by Menelaus & Odysseus. Protesilaus is slain by Hector. THE WAR BEGINS. Cycnus is slain by Achilles.

1193-1185 | The Greeks, especially Achilles and Ajax the greater, carry out multiple campaigns around Troy to cut Troy off from supplies and allies. Many cities are sacked in both Thrace and Asia Minor. During that time, the Greek beachhead near Troy is fortified but never fully manned. Ajax the greater manages to secure and exploit farmland on the Thracian peninsula for the benefit of the Greeks.

1191 | Achilles ambushes and kills Troilus, young son of Priam, because of a prophecy saying that if he reached the age of 20, Troy would never fall.

1190 | Death of Palamedes. His father Nauplius, denied justice, encourages the Greek wives to be unfaithful.

1188 | A small earthquake hits Troy, killing Paris's sons.

1187 | Ajax the greater and Achilles play a game of petteia on the battlefield, saved in extremis by Athena.

1186 | Lack of supplies and mutiny among the Greeks. Intervention of the Wine Growers.

1185 | THE WRATH OF ACHILLES. Deaths of Patroclus and Hector. Intervention of the Amazons.

1184 | Intervention of the Ethiopians. Death of Achilles. The Trojan horse and the FALL OF TROY. Athena is angered against the Greeks.

1184-1175 | THE RETURNS. Many Greek commanders suffer tragedy and turmoil during their return from Troy.

1177 | Aeneas reaches Carthage.

I'm currently wrapping my head around the birth of Aphrodite, how Hesiod and Homer disagree on that topic, and how, if at all possible, I could reconcile both versions. This is a pretty complex one to unpack, and even though I'm inclined to make her a daughter of Zeus, the whole story of her birth from the sea as told by Hesiod is not something I want to cast away as uncanonical.

Hesiod tells us that Aphrodite was born before Zeus, at the beginning of Cronus's reign, and when she was born, both Eros and Himerus, her own sons, were present. Some have proposed that she was born pregnant and gave birth to her sons as soon as she was born, but something doesn't add up in my mind.

I'm imagining something along the lines of :

Aphrodite is Zeus's first child, born of Dione.

Hephaestus is born to Hera, who casts him from Olympus because of his ugliness. As revenge, he builds a throne for his mother that imprisons her and accepts to free her if Aphrodite marries him.

Aphrodite is unhappily married to Hephaestus. She becomes the lover of Ares and they are caught redhanded by Hephaestus. The marriage ends and Ares and Aphrodite pursue their relationship, giving birth to several children, among which Eros (the younger) and Himerus.

[speculative] Aphrodite, up to now a minor Olympian, is a favorite of Eros (the elder) who helps her obtain great power but seeking out the place, near Cythera, where Ouranos's genitals fell into the sea and produced foam. She drifts along with the foam until reaching Cyprus, escorted by her two sons, and emerged infused with Ouranos's power and fertility, thus becoming a major goddess.

I'd have to make sure the details line up with the overall chronology (the presence of Dionysus in step 2, for example, is weird) and come up with a more elegant way of telling step 4, but that's the overall idea so far.

1231 (age 0) Queen Hecabe of Troy dreams that she is about to give birth to a flaming torch that sets her city aflame. Aesacus, son of Priam by his previous wife, interprets the dream and declares the child will bring the downfall of Troy. On the day of Paris's birth, Aesacus further prophetizes that any royal child born that day would have to be killed to save Troy. Paris is born that same day before nightfall. Priam spares the child, unable to kill his own son. Herophile, priestess of Apollo, insists the child must be killed. Priam asks his chief herdsman Agelaus to kill Paris. Agelaus cannot kill the child and exposes him on Mount Ida, where he is suckled by a female bear. Five days later, Agelaus finds Paris alive and adopts him and tells Priam the child is dead.

1216 (age 15) Paris routs a gang of cattle thieves and returns the stolen animals to the herd, thus earning the nickname Alexander. Soon afterwards, Paris becomes the lover of Oenone, daughter of the river god Cebren and oread nymph of Mount Ida.

1214 (age 17) Paris and Oenone get married.

1212 (age 19) birth of their son Corythus on Mount Ida.

1211 (age 20) Paris starts organizing bull fights on Mount Ida, which he wins almost every time.

1209 (age 22) Paris offers a golden crown as a prize for his next bull fight. Ares chooses to participate, transforms into a bull and wins the contest. Paris gives the crown to Ares without hesitation, the honesty of which catches Zeus's attention and leads him to decide that Paris will award the golden apple he has been keeping since the marriage of Thetis and Peleus to the fairest goddess. Judgment of Paris: Paris attributes the golden apple to Aphrodite, earning Hera's and Athena's enmity, but winning the promise of Helen's love, most beautiful of all mortal women.

1208 (age 23) To atone for the supposed murder of his own son, Priam has been organizing expiatory games. Paris's favorite bull is taken to be the prize of this year's games. He decides to participate to win it back. Paris wins all the games, which angers his brother Deiphobus, but his sister Cassandra recognizes him with her seeress powers and Priam welcomes him back to Troy.

1207 (age 24) Paris hires Phereclus to build a fleet, as advised by Aphrodite.

1204 (age 27) Paris and his cousin Aeneas and a contingent of warriors leave for Greece, pretexting to visit and enquire about Hesione, Priam's elder sister. They travel through Greece, and when they reach Sparta, they are welcomed and entertained by Menelaus, husband of Helen who is immediately smitten with love for Paris, as promised by Aphrodite. Menelaus must leave for Crete, for the funeral of king Catreus, his grandfather. As soon as he is gone, Helen embarks with Paris for Troy. However, to avoid being pursued, they detour south of Crete, to Cyprus and Phoenicia. Paris and Aeneas sack Sidon.

1203 (age 28) The fleet reaches Troy. Paris and Helen marry.

1202 (age 29) Birth of Bunomus, their son.

1194 (age 37) Birth of Aganus, their second son.

1193 (age 38) The siege of Troy begins.

1192 (age 39) Birth of Idaeus, their third son.

1191 (age 40) Oenone sends their now adult son Corythus to Paris to participate in the war against the Greeks. He is welcomed by Helen and is stricken by her beauty. Paris does not recognize his son and kills him out of jealousy before he is informed of his identity.

1188 (age 43) Troy is struck by a minor earthquake, but the three sons of Paris and Helen are killed by the collapsing roof of their house.

I now have a definite timeline for the life of Paris (aka Alexander), prince of Troy: born 1231, died 1184 aged 46/47. I'll publish the full timeline separately, but wanted to bring up that I've been looking into his parents and siblings, trying to give each of them a few dates here and there.

Priam had many children. Relying on Homer, Apollodorus, Hyginus and Virgil, I've been able to identify 84 children: 16 daughters and 68 sons. I'll have to check again, as I might have missed a couple. He had two wives (Arisbe and Hecabe), and a number of "palace women" (i.e. concubines). By Arisbe, he had at least one son, and soon enough divorced her to marry Hecabe (or Hecuba), the well known queen of Troy. Hector was their first born and Troilus was the last born son. He was still a young teenager when he was ambushed and killed by Achilles (an event that I date to 1191, quite early in the Second Trojan War). As a result, I place his birth in 1205. Apollodorus tells us Paris was their second born. Hyginus says Paris was born much later, but I choose to reject the latter claim, as I consider Apollodorus more authoritative and it agrees better with my timeline.

Indeed, if Paris is the second born, I would place Hector's birth to 1233, which means Hecabe has been birthing children for at least 28 years (!!). If Paris is one of the later children, that birthing period is much longer. If Hecabe gave birth to her first child in her late teens, she would have given birth to Troilus in her mid-forties, which works nicely.

I have therefore set Hecabe's birth to 1251, which makes her 66/67 at the fall of Troy. Priam's birth is more tricky, because he was a boy when the First Trojan War occured, which I have not dated yet (it ties in with the timeline of Heracles and either his capturing of the girdle of the Amazons or his participation in the expedition of the Argo), but I expect Priam to be born around 1270/1265.

I'm still painstakingly building a precise chronology of the Second Trojan War, taking detours along the biographies and lineages that immediately precede it. I've been thinking for a while about chronological discrepancies between dynasties and how to reconcile them. As an extreme example, if we compare the Inachids of Argos/Mycenae with the Deucalionids of Thessaly, some of these discrepancies can represent gaps of ten generations.

But I realize I've been assuming all along that the lifespan of the characters involved was that of mortal men. These families descend from gods and naiads and I'm wondering whether allowing some of their members to have lived three or four human lifetimes would be the easiest and most elegant way to close these gaps.

I'll have to research what the sources have to say about that. In most cases, they just refer to characters as "young" or "old". Nestor and Tiresias are expicitly given long lives by the gods, but I do not recall them being qualified as exceptions and there is no reason to believe that there weren't other occurences of such favors.

Giving the Deucalionids, descendants of Prometheus, extra long lifespans would solve many, if not most, of my chronological issues. I'll have to give some thought to the nature of mortality versus immortality, and how that could affect the child of a god and a mortal. [note to self : myths of Achilles, Demophon, Prometheus & Chiron, men of the golden, silver and bronze ages]

As part of my first objective of establishing a precise framework of the events leading to, during and following the Second Trojan War (1193-1184), I concentrated first on establishing dates of birth and death for Achilles.

As I have established that the fall of Troy occured in 1184 BC, and Achilles died just before the fall of Troy, we can infer that he died that same year.

The Greeks count years inclusively. If you moved into a city in 2021 and moved out in 2023, they'd say you stayed three years. When they say the Second Trojan War lasted ten years, they mean nine in the way we reckon years. Therefore, the siege of Troy and the Second Trojan war began in 1193 BC.

Apollodorus' Library indicates that eight years passed between the first and second gatherings of the fleets at Aulis. As the second occured the same year the Second Trojan War started, and counting inclusively, we can date the first gathering to 1200 BC.

The same source indicates that Achilles was 15 years old at the first gathering of the fleets at Aulis, which places his birth, still counting inclusively, in 1214 BC.

So there we have it : Achilles, admiral of the Greek fleet, leader of the Myrmidons of Phthia (1214-1184 BC), which means he died at age 29/30, as we reckon years.

Now, this gives me my first chronological issue to resolve. Let's admit his parents, Peleus & Thetis, married in 1215 BC, at which time Eris threw the apple. Helen says she had been twenty years in Troy when it was about to fall, which places her arrival there in 1203 BC. Paris and Helen didn't sail straight from Greece to Troy: they detoured in Cyprus and Phoenicia, which places the actual abduction of Helen in 1204 BC. This gives us eleven years between the throwing of the apple and the abduction of Helen, its direct consequence. We can allow some years for Paris to build a fleet, but we'll have to admit that the Judgment of Paris occured years after the marriage of Peleus and Thetis.

In all the versions of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis that I'm aware of, Eris, goddess of strife, is mentioned as causing a stir there, usually by throwing a golden apple and because she was upset at not being invited.

In Hesiod's Theogony, Eris is mentioned as a daughter of Nyx, mother of nefarious spirits (211ff), but in Homer's Iliad, she is said to be Ares' sister and companion, also named Enyo, who delighted in battle and mass slaying (4:441ff, 5:333ff, 5:518ff, 5:590ff, 5:738ff, 11:3ff, 11:73ff, 18:535ff, 20:48ff). This appears to be the same goddess, given two different versions as to her origins. In the one, she is a primeval spirit, born long before Zeus, and in the other, she is daughter of Zeus and therefore one of the Olympians, albeit a savage and unruly one.

Hesiod however, in his Work and Days (11ff), clarifies that there were two distinct Eris :

It was never true that there was only one Eris. There have always been two on earth. There is one you could like when you understand her. The other is hateful. The two Erites have separate natures. There is one Eris who builds up evil war, and slaughter. She is harsh; no man loves her, but under compulsion and by will of the immortals, men promote this rough Eris. But the other one was born the elder daughter of black Nyx. The son of Kronos, who sits on high and dwells in the bright air set her in the roots of the earth and among men; she is far kinder. She pushes the shiftless man to work, for all his laziness. A man looks at his neighbour, who is rich: then he too wants work; for the rich man presses on with his ploughing and planting and ordering of his estate. So the neighbour envies the neighbour who presses on toward wealth. Such Eris is a good friend to mortals.

The hateful one is very obviously Homer's Eris/Enyo, whereas the "good friend to mortals" is the one mentioned in the Theogony.

Now which one of these two was the one who caused a stir at the marriage feast on mount Pelion? I would argue it would be Eris/Enyo, who, as an Olympian, would expect to be invited, and because she is unruly, would probably not be.

Greek mythology is recorded in numerous texts, covering multiple centuries, locations, traditions and variations. Many of these ancient sources are lost to us, or fragmentary. This leaves us with an incomplete (albeit vast) and oftentimes incoherent collection of written sources on which to base my own work.

The sources which are considered by the ancient Greeks themselves as foundational and central to Greek mythology are essentially : the early Greek epic poets (amongst which is, of course, Homer), Hesiod (author of the famed Theogony, not counted as an epic poet) and the Homeric Hymns (called Homeric because they are written in the same language, style and meter as the Iliad and Odyssey). These texts were written down between the 8th and the 5th centuries BC, and are based on oral material that goes much further back.

Of the early epic poems, only the Iliad and the Odyssey attributed to Homer still survive, considered by the ancient Greeks as the pinnacle of their literature. Of all the other epics, only fragments and (if we're lucky) summaries remain. The Trojan Cycle was made of the following works :

The Cypria, which describes the origin and early years of the Second Trojan War

The Iliad, which tells of the wrath of Achilles and the death of Hector

The Aethiopis, which describes the intervention of Amazons and Ethiopians in the war, and the death of Achilles

The Little Iliad, a dense work that covers events from the funeral of Achilles to the episode of the Trojan horse

The Sack of Troy, which, as its title suggests, tells the events from the Trojan horse to the desctruction of the city and the anger of Athena

The Return from Troy, in which the Greek heroes return home, with tragic developments, such as the murder of Agamemnon and the revenge of Orestes

The Odyssey, tells the return of Ulysses, the longest and most adventurous return of all Greek heroes

The Telegony, that covers further adventures of Ulysses until he is killed by Telegonus, his son by Circe

To this we can add a Theban Cycle (covering the life of Oedipus, both Theban Wars and the revenge of Alcmaeon) and a few additional epics (including a Titanomachy I would have loved to read). Chances are high that there were many more, lost to us even by name.

Hesiod left us three complete works and a number of fragments, the most important of which is the Theogony, which describes how the universe began and the early history of the gods.

Lastly, the Homeric Hymns, of which three may be later additions, are poems or songs that praise the gods, each hymn being dedicated to a specific god.

The most famous conflict in Greek mythology is the Second Trojan War. Numerous epics, poems and histories were written about it or about events that led to it or followed it. It is a moment in time when all Greek heroes united and all the different mythical arcs mingled into one glorious paroxysmic event. Arcs had mingled before, during the Calydonian boar hunt, the voyage of the Argo, and the two Theban wars for example, but none to that scale and fame.

This war was a consequence of Zeus' will to put an end to the race of heroes, offspring of gods and humans, which he deemed too numerous, and marked the end of the heroic age and the beginning of the iron age. Setting aside the nostoi and the semi-historical dorian invasion of the descendants of Heracles, Greek mythology's grand finale pretty much takes place there.

As such, with the objective of building a coherent chronology of events, characters and lineages, I will start at Troy and work my way backwards. Greek historians provide various dates for the fall of Troy, ranging from the mid-XIIth to mid-XIVth centuries BC, but the most widely accepted date is 1184 BC, as supported by none other than Eratosthenes, Diodorus the Sicilian and Castor of Rhodes. This will be my starting point.

My first objectives, therefore, are to build a general chronological framework (theogony, ages of the world, major events) without dating anything precisely and to then devise a detailed chronology of events around and during the Second Trojan War.