“But when, as I said, Paris married Helen and departed with her, Menelaus brooded over the failure of his suit and upbraided his brother, declaring that he had been betrayed by him. [62] But Agamemnon was not so much concerned about him as he was fearful of Paris, who, he suspected, might interfere some time in the affairs of Greece, which concerned him now on account of his marriage with Helen. For this reason he convoked the others who had been Helen’s suitors and declared that they had one and all been outraged and Greece treated with contempt, and that the best woman among them had been given in marriage to barbarians and was gone, as though there were no one among themselves who was worthy of her. [63] In such terms, he sought to excuse Tyndareus and urged them to forgive him as having been blinded by the gifts; but he laid the entire blame upon Paris and Priam and exhorted his countrymen to make war together upon Troy, declaring that he had great hopes of taking it if they would all join in, and of their reaping a rich harvest of booty in that event and securing dominion over the fairest of countries; for of all cities, he said, Troy was the wealthiest, and its people had been enervated by luxury. Besides, he had many relatives in Asia who belonged to the house of Pelops and would make common cause with him because they hated Priam.
[64] “Now some of the suitors were furious on hearing these words, feeling that the occurrence was indeed a disgrace to Greece, while others expected to profit from the campaign; for the notion prevailed that Asia was a land of big things and of wealth untold. Now had it been Menelaus who had defeated them in the suit for Helen’s hand, they would not have cared themselves; nay, on the contrary, they doubtless would have rejoiced in his happiness. But as it was, they all hated Paris, each man feeling as though his own bride had been torn from him. Thus it was that the campaign began, and Agamemnon sent to demand the return of Helen on the ground that she, a Greek woman, should be married to some one of the Greeks.
[65] “When they heard this message, the Trojans were indignant and so was Priam, but Hector in particular, since Paris had lawfully received her at her father’s hand, and Helen had consented to be his wife, and yet the Greeks dared to use such impudent language. They perceived, they said, that the Greeks were seeking a pretext for war, and that they were not the aggressors, stronger though they were, but were defending themselves from attack. This is why the Trojans held out although they were assailed a long time and suffered many hardships — not so many as Homer says, but none the less their land was being wasted and numbers of their people were perishing — because they knew that the Achaeans were in the wrong and that Paris had done nothing improper. [66] If this had not been the case, would any of them, would any of the brothers or the father have endured it while their fellow-countrymen perished and the city was in danger of total destruction on account of Paris’ lawless act, when by the surrender of Helen they might have saved themselves? Yet according to the story, they even afterwards upon the death of Paris kept her and married her to Deïphobus, as though it were a very great boon to have her in the city and they feared she might desert them. [67] And yet if at first it was for love of Paris that she stayed in Troy, why did she consent to stay on as the story goes, she came to love Deïphobus too? For the Trojans in all probability could have been induced to surrender her, since they were ready to do that. If she, however, had reason to fear the Achaeans, it would only have been necessary to arrive at terms of peace first. Indeed, the Achaeans would have been glad to get out of the war, since they had lost many of their best men. Enough! There was no truth in the tale of Helen’s abduction, nor were the Trojans responsible for the war, and therefore they confidently expected victory. For men fight to the last ditch when they are being wronged.
[68] “I assure you,” the priest continued, “these things happened just as I have described them. For it is much more plausible that Tyndareus voluntarily formed a marriage alliance with the kings of Asia, that Menelaus was angered by having to give up his suit, that Agamemnon was alarmed lest the descendants of Priam should get control of Greece, hearing, as he did, that his own forefather, Pelops, who came from that same Asia, gained control of the Peloponnesus by his connection with Oenomaüs, and that the remaining leaders took part in the war, each with revenge rankling in his heart because he had not been the accepted suitor — this, I say, is much more plausible than that Paris fell in love with a woman he did not know and that his father permitted him to sail on such an enterprise, although, according to the story, Troy had but recently been taken by the Greeks and Priam’s father, Laomedon, slain; [69] and that afterwards in spite of the war and their countless hardships the Trojans refused to surrender Helen either when Paris was living or after he died, although they had no hope for safety; much more reasonable than that Helen gave her affection to a stranger with whom she had probably never come in contact at all and shamefully abandoned her fatherland, relatives, and husband to come to a people who hated her. How incredible too that no one should have nipped all these doings in the bud, or sought to catch her while she was hurrying to the sea, and on foot too, or pursued after she had embarked, and that the mother of Theseus, an elderly woman, who certainly hated Helen, should have accompanied her on the journey. [70] Afterwards too it is just as unlikely that on the death of Paris, whom they say Helen loved, she should have been the wife of Deïphobus — I suppose because Aphrodite had promised her to him also — and that not only she should have been unwilling to return to her husband, but that the Trojans should not have been unwilling, until their city was captured, to surrender her through compulsion. All that is improbable and indeed impossible. The same applies also to the following.
“According to Homer, all the other Greeks, in spite of the fact that they had but a secondary interest in the dispute, took part in the expedition, while Castor and Pollux, who had been most deeply injured, did not go. [71] Homer in veiling this blunder has represented Helen as expressing her astonishment and then, made excuse for them himself by saying that they had died before this. Hence it is evident that they were still living when she was carried off. And yet did they wait ten years for Agamemnon to waste time and muster an army instead of pursuing their sister at once in the hope of taking her on the voyage if possible, or else waging war with their own force if they failed? [72] I cannot believe that they would have proceeded at once against Theseus, a man of Greek blood and peerless in valour, a ruler also of many and a comrade of Heracles and Peirithoüs with Thessalians and Boeotians to help him, and yet would not have proceeded against Paris but would have waited ten years for the Atreidae to muster their forces. Why, perhaps we should have expect Tyndareus himself to go and to find his years no hindrance. [73] He certainly was not older than Nestor or Phoenix either, nor was it any more fitting for them to feel resentment than for the father himself. Yet neither he nor his sons came nor did they approve of the expedition. The reason was, in fact, that they had voluntarily given Helen in marriage since they preferred Paris to the other suitors on account of the greatness of his kingdom and his manly qualities, for he was no man’s inferior in character. So neither did those men come to fight nor anyone from Lacedaemon; nay, it is also untrue that Menelaus led the Lacedaemonians and was king of Sparta while Tyndareus was yet alive. [74] It would have been strange indeed if Nestor, neither previous to his departure nor afterwards on his return from Troy, ceded his royal power and realm to his sons because of his age, and yet Tyndareus made way for Menelaus. These considerations also certainly raise serious difficulties.
“Now when the Achaeans arrived, they were at first prevented from making a landing, and Protesilaüs with many others was slain in trying to force one. They therefore sailed across to the Chersonese after recovering their dead under truce, and there Protesilaüs was buried. After this they sailed around, effected a landing in the country, and sacked some of the towns, [75] whereupon Paris and Hector brought all the country folk into the city, but left the small towns on the coast to their fate through inability to furnish help everywhere. The enemy then sailed back t
o the harbour of the Achaeans and landed under of darkness, built a wall about their ships, and dug a trench because they feared Hector and the Trojans, and made preparations as if it were they who expected a siege.
[76] “Now while the Egyptians agree with Homer on the other points, they insist that he does not speak of the wall as having been finished, their reason being that he has represented Apollo and Poseidon as having at a later time sent the rivers against it and swept it away. The most plausible explanation of it all was merely the foundations of the wall that were inundated. Indeed, even in our day the rivers still make a marsh of the place and have deposited silt far out into the sea.
[77] “In the years that followed, the Greeks both did and suffered damage. However, not many pitched battles were fought, since they did not dare to approach the city because of the number and courage of the inhabitants. Skirmishes and forays there were on the part of the Greeks, and it was thus that Troïlus, still a boy, perished, and Mestor and many others; for Achilles was very skilful in laying ambushes and making night attacks. [78] In this way he almost caught and slew Aeneas upon Mount Ida and many others throughout the country, and he captured any forts that were poorly guarded. For the Achaeans had only a foothold for their camp and did not control the country. Here is a proof: Troïlus would never have ventured outside the walls for exercise, and far from the city too, nor would the Achaeans have tilled the Chersonese, as all agree they did, if they had been in control of the Troad, nor would they have gone to Lemnos for wine.
[79] “As the Achaeans met with misfortune in the war and realized none of their expectations, while more and more allies were flocking to the Trojans, hunger and disease began to oppress them and dissension broke out among their leaders, as generally happens to the unsuccessful side, not to the victors. [80] Even Homer acknowledges this, since he could not hide all the facts. For example, he tells how Agamemnon called an assembly of the Greeks as though intending to withdraw his army, undoubtedly because the troops were dissatisfied and wished to go home; how, too, the mob rushed to the ships, and Nestor and Odysseus barely managed to restrain them by invoking an old prophecy and declaring that their patience was required but a little while longer. [81] Yet in an earlier passage Agamemnon affirms that the seer who made this prophecy was never a true prophet.
“So far in the order of events Homer evidently does not treat his readers so cavalierly, but adheres to the truth fairly well except in regard to the abduction; this he does not relate in his own person as having taken place, but depicts Hector as upbraiding Paris, Helen as lamenting to Priam, and Paris himself as alluding to it in his interview with Helen, although this fact should have been presented with especial clearness and the greatest care. A further exception is the account of the single combat. [82] For since Homer cannot say that Menelaus slew Paris, he favours him with an empty honour and with a victory that is ridiculous by saying that his sword broke. Pray was it impossible for him to use Paris’ sword — when he was at any rate strong enough to drag him alive to the Achaeans, armour and all — but did he have to choke him with the strap of his helmet? [83] The single combat between Ajax and Hector is also a pure fabrication, and its ending is very absurd. Here again Ajax conquers, but there is no finality, and the two make gifts to one another as if they were friends!
“But immediately after this Homer gives the true account, telling of the defeat and rout of the Achaeans, Hector’s mighty deeds, and the numbers of the slain, as he had promised to do, and yet with a certain reluctance and a desire to enhance Achilles’ glory. [84] Still he calls the city ‘beloved of the gods,’ and has Zeus say frankly that of all the cities beneath the sun he had loved Ilium best, and Priam and his people. Yet afterwards when the shell fell other side up, as the expression is, he made such a complete volte-face as to destroy that most beloved of cities most miserably on account of one man’s crime, if crime there was. However, Homer cannot ignore the story of Hector’s exploits when he routed and pursued the enemy even to the ships, and all the bravest were terror-stricken at the sight of him. Now he compares him to Ares, and again he says that his strength is like that of fire and not a single one dares to confront him, while Apollo stands at his side and Zeus from above signals his approval with wind and thunder. [85] Homer is reluctant to state these things so frankly, yet since they are true, he cannot refrain when once he has started. Then there is that dreadful night of discouragement in the camp, Agamemnon’s panic fear and lamentation, that midnight council, too, at which they deliberated on the method of flight, and that appeal to Achilles in the hope that he might find it possible after all to give them some aid.
[86] “For the following day Homer does grant some ineffectual display of prowess to Agamemnon, and to Diomede, Odysseus, and Eurypylus, and he says that Ajax did fight stoutly, but that the Trojans straightway gained the upper hand and Hector pursued them to the Achaean rampart and the ships. In this part of his narrative he is also evidently telling the truth and what really occurred, carried away as he is by the facts themselves. But when he glorifies the Achaeans, he is terribly embarrassed, and anyone can see that he is dealing in fiction: when, for instance, he has Ajax conquer Hector twice, but both times without result, once in the single combat and once again with the stone; again when Diomede conquers Aeneas, this time too without any result beyond merely capturing his horses, a statement that could not be disproved. [87] So not knowing what to credit the Achaeans with, he tells how Ares and Aphrodite were wounded by Diomede. In all such accounts it is clear that he is partial to the Achaeans and eager to extol them, but that, not knowing of anything to say that is true, he is led in his embarrassment to mention impossible and impious deeds — the usual experience of all who oppose the truth.
[88] “In the case of Hector, however, he shows no such a loss for something great and splendid to say — because, I believe, he is telling of actual events. Nay, he says that all fled pell-mell, even the bravest, whose names he gives, that neither Idomeneus stood his ground, nor Agamemnon, nor the two Ajaxes, but only Nestor, and he because he was forced to do so, and that he was almost captured; but that Diomede came to his relief, put on a bold front for a short time, then straightway wheeled about and fled — because, forsooth, some thunderbolts deterred him! [89] Finally, Homer tells how the trench was crossed, the ship-station besieged and the gates broken down by Hector, how the Achaeans were now crowded into their ships and all the war centred around the huts, how Ajax fights above on the ships and is finally dislodged by Hector and retires, while some of the ships are set on fire. [90] For here there is no Aeneas snatched away by Aphrodite, no Ares wounded by a mortal, nor any other such incredible tales; nay, here are true events, and they resemble actual occurrences. After this defeat the men who had been so completely crushed could by no possibility have renewed the struggle or even regained courage so as to be helped at all by the trench or the rampart, or even so as to save their ships. [91] For where now was any such strength to be found or any hero so invincible and possessed of a god’s might, that they who were already lost could have been saved by his appearance? How insignificant, for instance, was the number of Myrmidons compared with that of the entire Trojan army! — or the strength of Achilles, who was certainly not going to fight then for the first time, but had time and again in the many years preceding engaged in conflict, and yet neither slain Hector nor performed any other great exploit beyond capturing Troïlus, who was still a boy in years!
[92] “However, on reaching this point in his narrative Homer had no further concern for the truth but carried his shamelessness to extremes. He simply turned all the events topsy-turvy and reversed them, holding his hearers in contempt because he saw how easily they were duped in other matters, and particularly about the gods. Besides, there were no other poets or authors where one could read the truth, but he was the first who applied himself to the recording of these events, though he composed his poem many generations after the actual occurrences, when those who had known the facts had p
assed away along with their descendants, and only an obscure and uncertain tradition survived, as is to be expected in the case of events that have occurred in the distant past. Moreover, he intended to recite his epics to the masses and the common people, at the same time overstating the achievements of the Greeks, so that even the wiser persons would not refute him. [93] Thus it was that he went so far as to represent the opposite of what actually occurred.
“For instance, when Achilles came to their aid during the assault on the ships, of necessity for the most part and to save his own skin, there was,” so the Egyptian claimed, “a partial rout of the Trojans, who withdrew from the ships forthwith, and the fire was quenched because Achilles had fallen upon them by surprise; and, in addition to the general retreat, Hector himself withdrew beyond the trench and the narrow space about the encampment, stoutly contesting each step, however, as Homer himself admits. [94] Then when they clashed and engaged again, Achilles and his followers fought most brilliantly and slew great numbers of the Trojans and their allies, notably Sarpedon, king of the Lycians and a reputed child of Zeus; and at the river ford there was a great slaughter of the fleeing Trojans, not fleeing in headlong confusion, however, but repeatedly turning to make a stand.
[95] Meanwhile Hector, experienced as he was in discerning the critical moment in a fight, kept on his guard, and as long as Achilles possessed his full strength and fought with youthful vigour, avoided him, contenting himself with cheering the others on. But later he noticed that Achilles was at last growing fatigued and had lost a great measure of his original impetus because he had not spared his strength in that struggle, and that he was exhausted by his reckless plunge into the river, swollen beyond its wont, and had been wounded by Asteropaeus, the son of Paeon. Then he saw, too, that Aeneas had engaged Achilles and, after a prolonged fight, had come off in safety at the moment he desired, and that the latter, rushing in pursuit of Agenor, had not been able to overtake him — and yet it was in this very point that Achilles chiefly excelled, in that he was reckoned the swiftest of foot. [96] And so it had become clear to Hector, a master in the art of war, that in view of all these conditions Achilles was an easy prey. Accordingly he boldly confronted him in the open plain. At first he gave way as if in open flight, but with the real purpose of testing him and, at the same time, wearying him by now making a stand and now fleeing. Then when he noted that he lagged and fell behind, he himself turned and fell upon Achilles, who was no longer able even to support his arms. He gave him battle, slew him, and, just as Homer has told it, possessed himself of his arms. He pursued the horses of Achilles too,” said the Egyptian priest, “but he did not bring them in though they too were caught. [97] The two Ajaxes with great difficulty managed to bring back the body of Achilles to the ships; for the Trojans, now feeling relieved and believing that they were victorious, were pressing on with less energy; while Hector, after donning the emblazoned arms of Achilles, continued the slaughter and pressed on in pursuit to the sea, just as Homer admits. Night fell, however, and prevented the burning of all the ships.
Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom Page 20
