A terrible fight arose over the hero’s body, with every Trojan determined to win for himself Achilles’ fabulous armor. Glaucus, the leader of the Lycians since Sarpedon’s death, beat back the Greeks, wounding even Diomedes in the fracas, and managed to attach a rope to Achilles’ leg; but even as he was dragging the body deeper into Troy, Ajax struck him dead with one mighty thrust of his spear. On and on the battle raged, until night was drawing near, and Zeus sent a thunderous storm to break it up. Then at last mighty Ajax managed to bear Achilles, armor and all, back to their camp.
Antilochus was buried with all honor, while Achilles’ body lay long in state. All the Greeks paid their respects, but Thetis and the Muses keened and wailed by the fair corpse, on which no mark of a wound could be seen. After his body had been cremated and his bones collected, they were placed in the same urn as those of Patroclus and covered by a great mound of earth. For the funeral games, Thetis extracted prizes from the gods themselves. And ever after Achilles is worshipped at the site of his tomb as a hero.
But a far more bitter contest awaited the Greeks as a result of Achilles’ death. Both Odysseus and Ajax coveted his armor, and each claimed a right to it on the same grounds: that he was the foremost warrior in the Greek army. In order to decide the quarrel, the army assembled and heard both Odysseus and Ajax state their cases. Trojan prisoners bore witness that Odysseus had done them more harm than Ajax, but even so the Greeks’ vote was exactly tied. There was nothing to tell between the two of them in terms of valor. But Athena was the presiding judge, and she decided for Odysseus, her favorite.
This loss was more than Ajax could stand; it drove him out of his mind. He left the assembly staggering like a drunkard, and everyone kept out of his way in fear. They watched as Ajax fell on a flock of sheep, butchering the defenseless beasts in their pen, for he saw them as his enemies, those who had cheated him out of his prize, and was determined to have his revenge. When the hero came to his senses and saw what he had done, the disgrace was the final straw. On the secluded beach, he planted his sword hilt in the sand and fell forward onto the blade.
Dishonored, Ajax planted his sword hilt-first and fell upon the blade.[74]
The Wooden Horse
Now Troy’s end was close, and the Greek army had complete control of the plain. The Trojans were bottled up inside the city, too scared to show their faces, anticipating death or slavery within a few days. Odysseus captured Helenus and forced the soothsayer to reveal the final conditions that would have to be met before Troy could fall. First, Neoptolemus would have to be fetched from the island of Scyros, and Philoctetes from Lemnos; second, the city’s magical talisman would have to be stolen.
Neoptolemus, the son Deidameia had conceived while Achilles was hiding, would act as a kind of substitute for his father, for though very young in years, the gods had smiled on his youth and had raised him well before his time to the prime of young manhood. Philoctetes was needed because he was the bearer of Heracles’ bow, passed down to him by his father Poeas, and it was foretold that Troy would not fall except with the help of Heracles’ bow. But more difficult than fetching either of these two was Helenus’ other condition: Troy could never be sacked as long as the Palladium was safe inside its walls. This was an effigy of Athena that had fallen long ago from the skies, and was the most sacred object in Troy. It was kept in the heart of the city, and cast a protective ring all around.
Odysseus fetched Neoptolemus from Scyros. On arriving, the young hero spent several hours of silent grief at the tomb of the father he had never known, and ended by swearing revenge. In battle, he performed great deeds of valor, and put heart into the Greek troops, for he was the very image of his golden father. Odysseus gave him Achilles’ armor, and the young man blazed on the battlefield like a savage new star.
With Neoptolemus in action, Agamemnon felt he could spare Odysseus and Diomedes to go and fetch Philoctetes. Now, Philoctetes was a mighty warrior, and had sailed as eagerly as any Greek to do battle at Troy. But on the way, when the fleet stopped at the island of Lemnos, he had been bitten on the foot by a snake, and the festering wound became so foul and smelly that the Greeks abandoned him there.
Ten years later, then, Diomedes and Odysseus returned to Lemnos to bring Philoctetes to Troy. They found him still in agony, with his foot still oozing evil-smelling slime. Nor was he pleased at having been left for so long on his own, and over the long years of bitter waiting he had fanned the flames of resentment of Agamemnon and the other Greeks. So while Diomedes hid, Odysseus appeared to Philoctetes as a stranger, with Athena’s help. He won Philoctetes’ trust and sneaked the bow away to Diomedes when the opportunity arose. Philoctetes was furious at the deception, but Odysseus, now revealed in his true form, assured him that, if he accompanied them to Troy, he would win great fame, and his foot would be healed.
And so it happened. Philoctetes was greeted with great joy by the Greeks, and once Machaon had healed his wound, he was put immediately to work. In the course of their very next assault on the city, the two great bowmen, Philoctetes and Paris, squared off against each other. Thick and fast their arrows flew through the air. But in the hands of Philoctetes Heracles’ bow was invincible, and Paris fell, his corpse bristling with arrows. There were those, even in Troy, whose tears were blended with relief that the cause of the war had been punished. At any rate, with Paris’ death, the heart went out of the Trojans. Heracles’ bow had effectively brought the war to an end.
Troy was now under close assault, the end inevitable and imminent. But first the Greeks had to gain the sacred Palladium. Odysseus and Diomedes volunteered to enter the city and try to steal it. Their disguises had to be perfect: they both dressed in rags as beggars, and Odysseus even had himself beaten up for the occasion. They approached the city by night and, while Diomedes kept watch outside, Odysseus crawled through a drain that ran out under the walls.
But fear of the future was keeping Helen awake, and she too was out in the streets at night. She bumped into Odysseus and recognized him in spite of his disguise. But she saw a way to ingratiate herself with the Greeks, into whose hands she was sure she would soon fall, and directed Odysseus to where the sacred relic was kept. First and last, Helen was the bane of Troy. Odysseus carried the effigy out to Diomedes and together they bore it in triumph back to the Greek camp. Trojan morale plummeted even further at the theft, but in order to calm their fears, Priam gave out that it was not the real Palladium that had been stolen, but a fake.
Wounded Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles were retrieved from Lemnos.[75]
Now the Greeks were ready for their final ruse; now Zeus’ will would be fulfilled. It was Athena’s idea, whispered in the mind of Odysseus. The Greeks constructed an enormous horse out of wood, big enough to hold the cream of the Greek heroes. Odysseus, Diomedes, Neoptolemus, Menelaus, and many others took their places inside, in eager anticipation. The Greeks then burned their camp and sailed away out of sight—but only just out of sight: they hid on the far side of the nearby island of Tenedos, and waited for the signal.
After some hours of inaction, the Trojans cautiously emerged from the city to see what was going on. They were astonished to find the Greek camp abandoned and destroyed. The only solid structure standing amidst the litter was this enormous wheeled horse. What was it? What should they do with it? Now the next part of the trap was sprung. The Greeks had left behind a man called Sinon, who was, as planned, taken prisoner by the Trojans.
Feigning terror, Sinon told them that he hated the Greek nobles, and was so hated by them in return that they had left him behind. To the Trojans’ questions about the horse, he replied that it was an offering to Athena, and that the Greeks had made it so large to prevent its being taken into the city. An oracle had told them, he lied, that if the horse entered the city of Troy, it would keep the city safe forever.
The Trojans debated what to do. The majority wanted to bring the offering inside, to keep the city safe, but there were dissenting voices
. Cassandra knew it for what it was, and tried to warn her fellow citizens, but as usual her truths were taken for the ravings of a madwoman. And Laocoön, Antenor’s son and the priest of Apollo, was so suspicious that he hurled a spear into the side of the horse. It stuck there, quivering, and the structure emitted a hollow clang, but nobody recognized what that meant.
Then two vast serpents emerged from the sea and coiled their sinewy strength around Laocoön and his two sons, crushing them to death. That seemed decisive. Laocoön had died, people supposed, because he had opposed the will of the gods. No more talk of setting fire to the horse, or pushing it over a cliff. Now they were resolved to bring it into the city. They pulled down a section of the walls to allow the thing to be trundled inside—that is how sure they were that the war was over. In actual fact, what had been foretold was that the city would never fall unless by a kind of suicide. The Trojans themselves had to be responsible for their city’s fall.
Laocoön and his sons were destroyed for doubting the Wooden Horse.[76]
The Fall of Troy
The horse was left for the night in the main square of the city. Among the curious sightseers were Helen and Deiphobus. Three times they circled the strange structure, and Helen called out to each of the Greek leaders by name, making her voice sound like those of their wives. But inside the horse, under Odysseus’ leadership, the men maintained strict silence. They were not even wearing metal armor. The Trojans, all unsuspecting, gave themselves over to wine and celebration, and slept well. But Helen knew what would happen on the morrow, and spent the night with her maids, preparing for departure.
In the silence of deep night, the Greek fighters silently opened the secret doorway set into the horse’s side, let down a rope, and slipped into the dark streets of the city. Stealthily, the assassins went their separate ways. Meanwhile, alerted by the beacon Sinon lit at the tomb of Achilles, the Greek forces silently returned from Tenedos. As the numberless stars wheeled overhead, the Greeks poured in through the new, self-inflicted breach in the walls.
Neoptolemus sneaked into the royal palace, and found everyone asleep, from the king down to his servants, whom he cut down at their posts. Alerted by the noise, Priam raced on aged legs to take refuge at the altar of Zeus, but Neoptolemus dragged him away. He forced the old man to his knees, pulled back his grizzled head, and drew his blade sharply across the exposed throat.
Meanwhile, Odysseus and Menelaus went to Deiphobus’ house. They would find Helen there, for, in accordance with Trojan custom, she had been awarded to Paris’ brother after his death. While Odysseus engaged Deiphobus, Menelaus drew his sword to dispatch his former wife—but in her terror she let her robe slip from her creamy shoulders, and lust stayed his hand. He dragged her instead back to his ship—and the same thing happened all the way down to the beach: any who took up stones to harm her let them fall from slack hands at the sight of her loveliness. After a hard fight, Deiphobus succumbed to his wounds and bled to death on the floor of the chamber that he had shared so briefly with the most desirable woman in the world.
The Greeks gave themselves over to bloodlust. The frustration and fear of ten long years of warfare awarded them terrible energy. This too was justice: the Trojans had to pay. Very few survived the slaughter. One was Antenor, his door marked by Agamemnon for safety, in gratitude for his protection of the ambassadors ten long years before, and for his known opposition to Paris.
Another was Aeneas, who escaped with his crippled father on his back. He had taken Laocoön’s suspicions to heart and fled early to the hollows of Mount Ida, from where he looked down on the burning city and dimly heard the screams of the dying.
Neoptolemus snatched Hector’s son Astyanax from his screaming mother’s arms and hurled the innocent baby to his death from a high tower: Andromache was his prize, and he wanted no whelp of Hector’s in his household. The women were spared, but not out of mercy: they were hauled off to captivity and slavery and unwelcome concubinage. Cassandra sought refuge at the altar of Athena, and was raped in the very sanctuary by Ajax of Locri, a crime for which the Locrians are still paying. Then she became the prize of Agamemnon.
Ajax of Locri angered Athena when he raped Cassandra in the goddess’s sacred precinct.[77]
The most terrible fate awaited Polyxena, the fairest of the daughters of Hecuba and Priam. After the sack of the city, she was not assigned as booty to any Greek chieftain, for the ghost of Achilles appeared to the senior Greek officers in a dream, demanding that she be sacrificed to him, as the price of their departure, just as Iphigeneia’s death had released them from Greek shores ten years earlier. Ruthless Neoptolemus eagerly slaughtered the innocent maiden on his father’s tomb.
Aethra, the mother of Theseus who had been forced to serve Helen, was found safe and returned to the bosom of her family after so many years.
Hecuba joined the entourage of Odysseus, but she and some of the other women escaped at the first stop of the Greeks’ journey home, in Thrace. She had sent her youngest son Polydorus to King Polymestor there for safety during the war, so that Priam’s line should not altogether die out in case of disaster; but on hearing of the sack of Troy Polymestor murdered the young man, and now Hecuba found his corpse washed up on the shore. Feigning ignorance, and knowing the Thracian king’s greed, Hecuba enticed him and his children into an ambush with a tale of Trojan gold.
She and her friends slaughtered his children before his eyes, and then blinded him with their brooches. For this she was turned into a dog—but the former queen found this preferable to servitude, and thus she was saved from the hazards of Odysseus’ tortuous journey home.
Chapter Ten
ODYSSEUS’ RETURN
Trouble on Ithaca
Wily Odysseus, king of Ithaca, was the most resourceful of the warriors who assaulted the walls of Troy. His was the clever trick that opened the wide gates of the city in the tenth year of the conflict. The story of his return voyage is one of woe and disaster at every turn, with Death his constant companion. But for the protection of the gray-eyed goddess Athena, Odysseus would have fed the fishes many times over.
In assembly with the other immortals who dwell on high Olympus, Athena made her case before almighty Zeus for the son of Laertes. She argued that now, after twenty years away from home, he should be allowed to return to the arms of his devoted wife Penelope. In the absence of Poseidon, who nursed a grievance against Odysseus, the assembled gods decided in favor of Athena’s suit. Swift Hermes was dispatched to Ogygia, isle of golden-haired Calypso, divine daughter of Atlas. On behalf of the cloud-gatherer, Hermes commanded her to release Odysseus from the island where she had held him for seven long years. In fear of the almighty father of gods and men, the nymph Calypso reluctantly obeyed. “You Olympians!” she complained. “You can’t stand it when any other immortal takes a mortal lover.”
Divine Calypso thought she gave Odysseus all he could want; yet still he pined for home.[78]
Odysseus was sitting slumped on the shore, looking out over the restless sea with tears streaming down his cheeks as he prayed unceasingly to be allowed to return home. His wife Penelope was nothing compared to Calypso—a mere mortal beside a nymph endowed with eternal youth and beauty—and yet he was compelled by his love and his duty to return to her. Calypso approached and sat down beside him in the sand, the long plaits of her golden hair brushing her shoulders. Speaking gently, she told him to lay aside his cares, for she would help him leave at last. “Come,” she said, “build a raft, and I will see that it is well stocked with provisions.”
At first Odysseus suspected another trick, but she reassured him. The raft he built was frail enough, but he trusted in his skill and in the favor of the gods to see him safely home to distant Ithaca. After one last night of divine passion, he set sail. For seventeen days he traveled over friendly seas, and his spirits rose. But then the lone sailor caught the attention of Poseidon, who had been away receiving the worship of the Ethiopians. The earth-shaker was annoye
d by the sight of this hated mortal boldly pitting himself against his watery realm. With a growl he lowered his trident and stirred up the seas around Odysseus, tossing him to and fro on rising waves until the raft was in danger of breaking up.
But the nymph Leucothea, who had once been Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, saw Odysseus’ distress and came to him, alighting on his storm-tossed wreck. She warned him to strip his clothes off and abandon the raft. It was better, said the White Goddess, to strike out for the shore of Scheria, island of the seafaring Phaeacians. She loaned him a magic scarf, which she said would protect him from injury or death. Odysseus hung on to the failing raft as long as he could, but finally wound the scarf about his waist and dived into the raging sea, trusting in Leucothea’s words. Poseidon laughed, sure that he had seen the last of the puny man.
After two days and nights, clinging to a timber from the raft, Odysseus reached the safety of dry land by a river delta. Naked, exhausted, and uncertain where he was, he found a copse of trees near the water’s edge. He made a bed of leaves beneath the trees and covered himself with more leaves for warmth in his nakedness. At once he fell into a deep sleep.
Meanwhile, back on Ithaca, trouble was brewing in the house of noble Odysseus. For some time the palace had been occupied by a gang of local noblemen who daily saw fit to demand that they be fed the good things provided by Odysseus’ royal estates. Droves of livestock were slaughtered and sweet wine drunk by the cask, all at the expense of the absent king, whom they believed dead. The aim of each young man was to take for his bride Penelope, Odysseus’ queen. To keep the suitors at bay, the lady made excuses and tried to trick the men so that she could delay making a choice.
For three years she had kept them waiting with a single ploy. She claimed it was necessary before she left the home of her first husband to weave for her aged father-in-law Laertes an elaborate shroud, so when he should pass none could say he had not been given the honor due to a well-loved patriarch. Daily she and her women sat at the loom, weaving the marvelous cloth, and every night in the upper chamber they unraveled by lamp-light all the fine work of the day. But a disloyal maid revealed the trick to the suitors, and once again Penelope was pressured to make a choice.
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