Important figures of the War
HEKTOR
Hektor was the paramount warrior
of the Trojans and his death at the hands of the greatest of all the Greek
adversaries, Achilles, was a significant incident in the Trojan war and marked a
turning point in the fortunes of the Trojans. Before this moment, Achilles had
withdrawn from the war and under Hektor's leadership, the Trojans had gained the
upper hand, culminating in the death of Patroclus, Achilles' henchman and close
friend, at the hands of Hektor himself.
In the Iliad 22: 209-213 Homer
describes how Hektor was fated to die at the hands of Achilles. After both
warriors had chased each other around the walls of Troy, the grey-eyed goddess
Athene, (Who favoured Achilles) then spurred on Hektor's demise by encouraging
him to challenge Achilles in one-to-one armed conflict. Achilles initiated the
action by thrusting his spear at Hektor, who dodged it and retaliated by
throwing his spear at Achilles, only for it to fatefully bounce off Achilles'
shield. Next, Hektor lunged at him with his sword, but Achilles, clad in armour
divinely crafted by Hephaestus, struck a fatal blow into Hektor's neck with the
spear that Athene had retrieved for him. Homer describes Hektor's demise:
"....where the collar bones hold the neck from the shoulders, the throat, where
death of the soul comes most swiftly, in this place brilliant Achilles drove the
spear as he came on in fury, and clean through the soft part of the neck the
spear point was driven."
PARIS
Paris was the youngest son of Priam
and Hecuba. When he was born, it was foretold that he would be the cause of the
downfall of Troy, as told in a dream of Hecuba. He was sent out of Troy in hopes
that the message would be false. He went to Mount Ida in order to be a
shepherd.
Eris, the goddess of strife, was not invited to
the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. She came anyway, and she threw
a golden apple into the middle of the wedding. Inscribed on the apple was a
message. It read "To the fairest." Immediately, the apple was claimed by Hera,
Athena and Aphrodite. They all asked Zeus to decide on who should receive the apple.
Zeus knew how much trouble he would be in if he decided on one, because the
other two would have grave revenge. So Zeus descended to Mount Ida where Paris
was farming and asked him to be the Judge.
Paris, being a mortal, could
not decide. However, each of the three goddesses decided to make it easier for
him. They would each offer him gifts, and he would get the gifts form
the goddess he chose.
Hera offered Paris power. She offered to give him
all of Asia, and great power. He thought this offer was great, but he decided to
hear the other offers first before deciding.
Athena offered him great
wisdom, and great luck in battle. He would be the best strategist in the world.
He loved this idea, but he waited to hear Aphrodite's offer.
Aphrodite
offered him two things. The first was his body, and the second was the love of
the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Since Paris's first love was women, he
decided to pick Aphrodite's offer. Hera and Athena vowed vengeance.
Paris soon went home to Troy after that, and with Aphrodite's help, he managed
to send a fleet of ships, break into Menelaus's palace in Greece and kidnap Helen. He
also took a lot of treasure with him.
As Helen was the most beautiful
woman in the world, all of her suitors were the most powerful people in Greece.
In order for peace to be kept when Helen chose a suitor, all other suitors must
vow to keep Helen as the wife of whom she chose. So when Helen chose Menelaus,
all of the other suitors had to agree that if anyone tried to kidnap her, they
would try to get her back. So, when Paris kidnapped her, all of Greece declared
war on the city of Troy.
These actions of Paris and Aphrodite started
the
Trojan war. Paris fights, but he is mostly out of legend until Hector
is killed by Achilles. While Achilles and his allies bring
Hector's body back into Troy for a funeral, Paris take a bow and arrows and
shoots it at Achilles. Apollo guides his arrow so that it hits
Achilles's foot, in the famous Achilles tendon. Achilles
dies. Paris is soon killed afterwards in the
war.
- Homer. Iliad.
- Homer. Odyssey.
- Apollodorus. Bibliotheke III,x, 8-xi, 2.
- Apollodorus. Epitome II, 16-III, 6; IV, 1; VI, 29
KING PRIAM OF TROY
Priam
was the son of Laomedon and was the king of Troy. He became king after Laomedon and
all of Priam's brothers were killed by Heracles in the first sack of Troy. Priam himself
was the father, by his wife Hecuba and other women, of fifty sons and many
daughters, including Hector, Paris, and Cassandra. He unsuccessfully defended his city
during the Trojan War, at the end of which Troy was
sacked a second time and was finally destroyed.During the Trojan War, Priam's
son Hector was killed by the Greek hero Achilles. In one of the most moving scenes of the
Iliad, Priam courageously entered the Greek camp by night and pleaded with
Achilles to return Hector's body for burial. Priam himself was finally killed by
Achilles' son, Neoptolemus, upon an altar of Zeus in the center
of Troy.
- Apollodorus. Bibliotheke II, vi, 4; III, xii, 5.
- Apollodorus. Epitome IV, 7; V, 21.
- Homer. Iliad XXIV.
- Virgil. Aeneid II.
ACHILLES
Achilles
(Άχιλλεύς) was the son of Peleus and the Nereïd Thetis. Ligyron was the
name given to Achilles at birth.
While still an infant, Thetis tried to make her son immortal. One
account says that she anointed Achilles in ambrosia before laying him in a fire,
burning away the mortal parts of his body, making him invulnerable from
ordinary
weapons. When Peleus discovered she held their son over a fire, he
cried out in
alarm, leaving Achilles invulnerable except for his heels.
Annoyed with her
husband's interferences, Thetis left her husband and son,
and returned home to
the sea.
A different account says that Thetis dipped him in Styx, the river of the Underworld, holding him by his feet. His heels were the only vulnerable parts of
his body, which was covered by Thetis' hands. This is obviously where the term - Achilles' heel - originated.
Achilles was brought up and trained by his father and the wise Centaur, Cheiron. His name was changed from Ligyron to Achilles. He learned how to hunt and fight. He was so swift, that he could run down any wild animal.
When the Greeks began gathering the leaders, to fight in the war in Troy, Thetis knew from a prophecy that her son has two possible destinies. One was a
peaceful and long life, but without the fame and glory. The other was the most glorious - he can become one of the greatest Greek heroes, but only to be fated to
die young.
Thetis tried to prevent her son from going to Troy, by disguising Achilles as a girl and hiding him in the court of Lycomedes at the island of Scyrus. During his stay in Scyrus, one of the king's daughters, Deïdaemeia (Deidaemeia), fell in love with him, bore him a son, named Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus).
The Greeks having been told by
the seer that Troy would not fall without the
aid of Achilles. One of the
Greek captains, Odysseus, penetrated his disguise,
by placing spear and
shield among the gifts to the king's daughters. When the
Greeks blew their
trumpets as if the island were been attack, Achilles snatched
the weapons,
thereby revealing his identity. Once discovered however, Achilles
willingly
joined the Greeks.
In the Trojan War,
Achilles was regarded as the handsomest, the swiftest, the
strongest and
the bravest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War. He led the Myrmidons with fifty ships
from Phthia, Alus, Alope, and Trachis. Achilles wore immortal armour
belonging
to his father, a wedding gift from the gods. He was also armed
with a spear made
by Cheiron, from a tree in Mount Pelion. Peleus also gave
his two immortal
horses to his son (Xanthus and
Batus.
Before arriving in Troy, Achilles
was warned by his mother, not to kill
Tenes, son of Apollo and king of
Tenedos. If he were to kill Tenes, the god
would surely avenge his son's
death. But landing on the island of Tenedos,
Achilles had forgotten her
warning that resulted in the king's death. Achilles
killed many of Trojan
leaders (including many of Priam's sons) as well as their
allies. The most
notable were Cycnus, son of Poseidon in the earlier year of
war. In the
last year of the war, he killed Hector, the Amazon Penthesileia and the Aethiopian prince Memnon, son of Eos and
Tithonus.
Achilles became involved in
a bitter quarrel with his commander-in-chief, Agamemnon, over the concubines, causing the young
hero to withdraw from the fighting. When the Agamemnon send Nestor,
Odysseus and
Ajax, to entreat him to return the fighting, his pride and
bitterness made him
to stubbornly refuse. His pride, however, caused him to
lose his beloved
companion (and lover?), Patroclus. He returned to combat,
avenging his friend by
killing the Trojan champion, Hector. (See the Iliad.)
Achilles' own death came very quickly after killing Memnon. As he pursued the
retreating Trojans back to the city gate, Paris shot an arrow at Achilles; the god Apollo
had guided the arrow to one of his heel. Dying, Achilles managed to kill
with
his spear one last Trojan. Fierce fighting erupted around his body.
His cousin
Ajax managed to carry his body away while Odysseus held the Trojans at
bay.
During the funeral games of Achilles,
his armour resulted in bitter dispute
between two comrades – Ajax and
Odysseus – both heroes claiming to be the
bravest warrior next to Achilles.
The armour was awarded to Odysseus, resulting
in Ajax's death. (See Death of
Achilles.)
When Odysseus
captured Helenus, the Trojan seer foretold that Achilles' son
need to fight
at Troy, in order for the city to fall. Odysseus brought
Neoptolemus to
Troy. Odysseus gave his Achilles' armour to
Neoptolemus.
There are few other different
accounts of his death. One of them involved
Achilles falling in love with
Priam's daughter, Polyxena. The Trojans promised
him to arrange a secret
meeting with the girl, alone that night. Achilles was
ambushed and killed
by Paris and Deïphobus (Deiphobus). According to Dares of
Phrygia,
Antilochus was killed with Achilles, so Paris was Anticholus' killer,
not
Memnon.
Odysseus later met Achilles'
shade in the Underworld, in the Odyssey. While different accounts by Apollodous
and Apollonius of Rhodes say that he lived in White Island (also known as
the Isles of the Blessed or the Elysian Fields), and
he was married to the sorceress Medea.
AGAMEMNON
According to Homer, Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων) and his brother Menelaüs (Menalaus) were the sons of Atreus
and Aerope, the daughter of Catreus of
Crete. The two sons of Atreus were
known as the Atreides.
However, in the Catalogues of Women and Aeschylus' Orestei, Atreus was the father of Pleisthenes. Pleisthenes married Cleolla, the daughter of Dias, and that he became the father of Agamemnon, Menelaüs and Anaxibia. Therefore Atreus was the grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaüs. (Anaxibia had married Strophius and became the mother of Pylades.) The parentage Agamemnon and his brother caused confusion among the later writers.
Though, Apollodorus in his Library, sometimes listed Agamemnon and Menelaüs as the sons of Atreus and Aerope, he also had listed them as the sons of Pleisthenes and Aerope. In this last case, Pleisthenes was listed as the son of Pelops, not of Atreus.
Agamemnon became king of Mycenae, the most powerful kingdom during the war against Troy, while his brother, Menelaüs, who married Helen, became king of
Sparta.
Agamemnon married Clytemnestra (Κλυταιμνἠστρα), Helen's half-sister, only after he killed her first husband, Tantalus or Broteas, the son of Thyestes, and their baby. Agamemnon seized her baby from Clytemnestra and dashed the infant's brains out. (This is definitely not way to start a relationship with your wife). This would have further tragic consequences.
Clytemnestra bore him Iphigeneia, Electra, Chrysothemis and Orestes. Some say that Iphigeneia was actually daughter of Helen and Theseus, and that Clytemnestra raised the girl as her own, since Helen was too young. (Homer only knew Iphigeneia and Electra by other names, as Iphianassa and Laodice.)
With the outbreak of the Trojan War, Agamemnon became commander-in-chief of the Greek army, and led a hundred ships from Mycenae and Corinth, to Troy,
while his brother, led eighty ships from Sparta.
All the Greek forces with their fleet were gathered at Aulis, a coastal town in Boeotia, but the fleet could not leave for Troy, because the goddess Artemis kept the fleet stranded with strong, unfavourable winds for months.
There was all sorted of reasons why Artemis was punishing the Greek forces, and they are usually linked with Agamemnon, who had offended the goddess in some
ways.
According to the Cypria and Apollodorus' Library, Agamemnon had killed a stag in Artemis' sacred grove, and then he boasted that he not even the goddess was a better hunter than him. Another version says that he failed to sacrifice to her, when he sacrificed to the other gods and goddesses. Or it was that Atreus, Agamemnon's father, had failed to sacrifice his finest lamb to the goddess as Atreus had promised to do.
Whatever the
reason, the Greek fleet cannot leave the harbour, the Greek
prophet Calchas
revealed that the only way for Agamemnon to atone for his sin
and appease
the goddess, he had to sacrifice Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigeneia.
With his reputation as commander-in-chief at stake, he tricked his wife in
bringing her daughter to Aulis, to marry Achilles. Achilles was offended that he
was being used as bait; the hero would have defended Iphigeneia against the
other Greeks, despite being greatly outnumbered. The girl, however admiring
the
young reckless hero, agreed to allow herself to be
sacrificed.
Before she was to be kill,
Artemis spirited Iphigeneia away (possibly to Tauris, according to
Euripides, who wrote a play on Iphigeneia among the Taurians), and
replaced the maiden with a deer. Favourable wind allowed the fleet to set
sail.
But according to the original story, Artemis did not rescue
Iphigeneia;
Iphigeneia had died under sacrificial
knife.
In the war against the Trojans,
Agamemnon was a skilled warrior, but he was
outclassed by many other Greek
leaders. Agamemnon was also easily discouraged,
when the tides of battle go
against him.
In the last year of war, he
had a terrible quarrel with Achilles over the concubines, which resulted in
Achilles' withdrawal from the war and caused many deaths of both Greeks and
Trojans, especially Hector. (See the Iliad or the Trojan
War.)
Murder of Agamemnon
During Agamemnon's absence in the war, Clytemnestra was determined to get rid
of her husband. When Agamemnon became responsible for the death of second
child
of Clytemnestra, his wife secretly took Aegisthus (Aigisthos,
´Αιγςθου),
Agamemnon's cousin, as her lover. Together they plotted to
murder her husband
upon his return from
Troy.
Unlike most of Greek leaders in the
war, Agamemnon's ships return quickly and
safely to Greece. Agamemnon
returned to Mycenae with the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, as his concubine and
mistress.
In Aeschylus' play,
Agamemnon, when Agamemnon entered the palace with
Clytemnestra, to
sacrifice to the gods for his safe return, Cassandra realised
that
Agamemnon, as well as herself, would be murder that night. Yet, rather than
flee, she resigned herself to her death and walked into the
palace.
Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon,
while Clytemnestra killed Cassandra. According
to Pausanias, Aegisthus had
also slaughtered the twin sons of Cassandra –
Teledamus and Pelops.
However, Pausanias was the only author to say that
Agamemnon and Cassandra
had children together.
Aegisthus would
have murder Orestes, Agamemnon's son by Clytemnestra, had Electra not secretly send her brother to their
uncle in
Phocis.
MENELAUS
Menelaus was the son of Atreus and the brother of Agamemnon. He was married to Helen, and became the ruler of Helen's homeland,
Lacedaemon; the couple had a daughter, Hermione. Helen's abduction by Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, was the cause of the Trojan War.
Menelaus fought bravely
at Troy, although he did not occupy as important a position as his brother
Agamemnon, who was the commander-in-chief of the Greek forces. At one point he
agreed to settle the conflict by single combat with Paris, but Aphrodite interfered to prevent the duel from
being decisive, and Athene prompted a resumption of hostilities.
During his return from Troy, Menelaus' ships were becalmed on the island of
Pharos, near Egypt. In order to discover what he should do to obtain fair winds
for the journey, Menelaus had to consult Proteus, the old man of the sea. He waited until
Proteus had gone to sleep among his herd of seals and then seized him tightly.
Proteus changed into many shapes in an attempt to escape, but Menelaus
perservered, refusing to let go. Finally Proteus, unable to get free, agreed to answer Menelaus' questions
truthfully. He described the sacrifices necessary to appease the gods and gain
safe passage across the sea, as well as revealing that the gods would transport
Menelaus to Elysium at the end of his mortal life.
Menelaus eventually
returned safely to Lacedaemon, where he and Helen apparently settled back into
happily married life.