Olympus

by Devdutt Pattanaik

  Although the proposed marriage of Achilles and Polyxena is an attempt to make peace, the Greeks see it as a betrayal on the part of Achilles and a trap laid by the Trojans to take down their most powerful warrior. On being struck by Paris, Achilles blames Polyxena for his misery and even as a ghost demands that the Greeks punish her for betraying him.

  Paris is imagined mostly as a coward and weakling who is favoured by Aphrodite and Apollo. Once he is almost killed by Menelaus in a duel, but Apollo saves him.

  Teucer

  Ajax, the greater, son of Telamon, was sent to retrieve the body of Achilles from the Trojans. Ajax was a powerful defensive warrior, skilled in the use of shield and spear. During his duel with Hector both warriors impressed each other so much that they exchanged gifts after the fight ended.

  Most of the time, Ajax defended the Greek ships and in this he was helped by his half-brother Teucer the archer, son of Telamon’s Trojan concubine, Hesione. While Ajax protected Teucer with his shield, Teucer shot arrows that kept the Trojans at bay.

  Odysseus joined Ajax on the mission to retrieve Achilles’ body, fighting off the Trojans while Ajax carried the corpse on his massive shoulders. When they returned to the Greek camp both claimed Achilles’ divine armour, forged by Hephaestus. Agamemnon gave the prized armour to Odysseus who argued his case with clever words that simple Ajax could not counter.

  Feeling cheated, Ajax got drunk and spent the night attacking and killing the sheep penned in the Greek camp, thinking he was slaughtering the Greeks who had insulted him. In the morning, when his senses returned, he saw the dead sheep and heard the soldiers’ laughter, and realized what he had done. Embarrassed, he fell upon his own sword and killed himself.

  Despite opposition from Agamemnon and Menelaus, who were angry that Ajax had killed their sheep, Teucer demanded that he be given a decent burial. However, the Greeks ignored him for he was half-Trojan, the son of Hesione, Priam’s sister.

  After burying his brother, Teucer refused to fight and returned to Greece; but his father denied him entry inside their home in Salamis. ‘My son, born of a Greek wife, is dead. I have no use for my son born of a Trojan concubine,’ Telamon said, slamming the gates on Teucer’s face.

  There are no tales of fighting for a fallen body, or over a fallen warrior’s weapons and armour, in the wars described in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

  There are two warriors named Ajax in the Trojan War: ‘greater’ Ajax and ‘lesser’ Ajax. Greater Ajax is the son of Telamon, grandson of Aeacus, who built part of the Trojan wall. Lesser Ajax, son of Oileus, king of Locris, is said to have raped the Trojan princess Cassandra in the temple of Athena, thus incurring the wrath of the goddess, who created storms preventing the Greek ships from returning home.

  Teucer, son of Hesione and Telamon, is famous for his archery and the only reason his arrows don’t strike Hector is because Apollo protects him.

  Oenone

  Tired of war, the Greeks consulted their oracle Calchas who saw a vision that revealed to him that winning Troy would be impossible without the weapons of Heracles. These could only be wielded by Philoctetes, who had inherited them, and who had been abandoned on the island of Lemnos before the war began by the Greeks who could not bear the stench of his rotting injured leg.

  Odysseus and Diomedes were dispatched to fetch the injured warrior. ‘Let’s just bring back his weapons, not him,’ said Odysseus, disgusted by the sight and smell of Philoctetes’ leg. The upright Diomedes disagreed and insisted the warrior be taken to Troy along with his weapons.

  As soon as they landed, Philoctetes raised Heracles’s bow and shot an arrow at the walls of Troy. It struck a warrior standing on the walls. Paris!

  The arrow hurt Paris but did not kill him. He realized he could survive if he was given the right medication. That is when he thought of his first wife, Oenone, the mountain nymph, whom he had forgotten after meeting Helen.

  Paris begged Oenone to use her knowledge of herbs to save his life, but she refused; she had never forgiven his betrayal. ‘Do you remember we had a son whom we named Corythus?’ she asked. ‘It was he who showed the Greek ships the shortest sea route to Troy. He looked just like you and when you saw Helen gazing at him with eyes of desire, you killed him yourself. Paris, you abandoned your wife for Helen. You killed your own son for her. You do not deserve to live.’

  Paris died in Oenone’s arms. Soon after, Oenone took her own life, for she could not bear the thought of living without Paris.

  While Hindu epics speak of kings with many wives as well as many concubines, Greek epics tend to speak of one wife and many concubines. So while Arjuna has many wives besides Draupadi, Paris abandons Oenone to make room for Helen.

  When Philoctetes is finally taken to Troy, ten years later, his wound is finally healed by the sons of Asclepius: the surgeon Machaon and the physician Podalirius.

  In some versions, Oenone burns herself on Paris’s funeral pyre, suggesting that roots of the practice of widow-burning or sati that was glamorized in many Hindu tales may have been found in Indo-European tribes.

  The story of Oenone and Paris comes from Posthomerica.

  Oenone was a nymph on Mount Ida and a priestess of the Mother Goddess Cybele.

  Helenus

  Following the death of Paris, two sons of Priam, Helenus and Deiphobus, fought to claim Helen. When Priam gave her to Deiphobus, an angry Helenus left the city and went over to the Greek side. He revealed that he was an oracle and he knew what needed to be done for the Greeks to breach Troy. They would have to fetch the bones of Agamemnon’s grandfather, Pelops; secure the services of Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles sired on a woman on the island of Scyros when Achilles was hiding in the women’s quarters disguised as a girl; and steal the Palladium, a sacred image of Athena, located within Troy.

  The first two tasks were easy. For the third, Odysseus and Diomedes slipped into the city disguised as beggars and stole the image of Athena under the cover of darkness. As they were escaping, they were spotted by Helen but she did not raise an alarm. Instead she said, ‘Tell my husband that I stay true to the Greeks and pray for his success. That I do not betray you to the Trojans is proof of where my loyalties lie.’

  A palladium is similar to the ‘grama-devata’ or village deity of Hindu mythology that holds the power of the kingdom, and hence must be guarded by the king. Conquest of other kingdoms meant seizing these devatas and bringing these images to the capital city temple.

  The original Trojan Palladium was an image of Pallas created by Athena. Pallas was Athena’s childhood friend whom she accidentally killed during a friendly duel. To keep her alive in memory, she created the statue and also took on the name Pallas Athena. The image was given by Zeus to the Trojan kings for safekeeping. After Odysseus and Diomedes stole it, it eventually made its way into the hands of Aeneas, the Trojan, who took it to Italy where it was enshrined in Rome in the temple of Vesta.

  Oracles play a key role in the Trojan War. Calchas is a Greek and Helenus is a Trojan. In medieval times, Calchas was believed to be a Trojan who had defected to the side of the Greeks.

  In some tales, Pelops was driven out of Lydia by Ilus of Troy and so the return of his bones (or specifically the shoulder bone of ivory) marked his symbolic return home. Many of the Greeks who fought at Troy were descendants of Pelops.

  Odysseus and Diomedes contrast each other. Odysseus is cunning and manipulative, while Diomedes displays patience, maturity and nobility.

  In the Little Iliad of the Epic Cycle, Odysseus tries to stab Diomedes in the back so that he can take the credit for stealing the Palladium, but Diomedes catches him in time. Instead of killing Odysseus, Diomedes simply binds his hands and makes him walk ahead, hitting him with the flat of his sword, humiliating him. He does not kill the Ithacan as he knows Odysseus’s cunning is needed if the Trojan War has to be won. The phrase ‘Diomedian necessity’—for a job that needs to be done under compulsion—comes from here.

  Trojan Horse<
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  Finally, Odysseus managed to come up with an audacious plan to breach the city of Troy. He got the Greeks to build a hollow horse out of wood taken from old crumbling ships. Then Diomedes, Menelaus, a few other Greek soldiers and Odysseus himself hid within it. The rest, led by Agamemnon, pretended to set sail towards Greece. They stopped when they were beyond the horizon, ready to turn back and return to Troy in the darkness.

  When the sun rose, the Trojans were surprised to find that the Greek camps were empty, and the enemy ships were sailing away. All that was left on the beach was a giant wooden horse, and Sinon the Greek, who explained what had happened.

  ‘My fellow Greeks packed up. In their haste, or maybe in malice, for Odysseus never liked me, they forgot to take me. They have returned home having concluded that Troy is impregnable. This horse is a votary offering to Athena to ensure their safe journey home.’ He then added, ‘It has been built tall so that you Trojans cannot take it inside the walls and claim favour from Athena.’

  This information intrigued the Trojans who wanted to claim Athena’s favour for themselves. They decided to take the wooden horse inside their city walls. They opened the gates of their city, dug up the base and broke the top to ensure the horse would pass through; they then prepared to drag it into the city square.

  Cassandra, Priam’s daughter, who could see the future, warned the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse into the city, for she sensed it would bring bad luck. But no one believed her.

  Laocoon, a Trojan priest, also declared the wooden horse was dangerous and should not be taken into the city, but even as he spoke a serpent came from the sea and attacked and killed Laocoon and his sons. This was seen as a sign that the wooden horse had the protection of the Olympians and so was not only safe but also a bearer of good luck. So the Trojans dragged the horse into the city and decorated it with flowers and danced around it all day until it was time to go to sleep.

  In the dead of the night, Odysseus and the other Greek warriors slipped out the wooden horse and unlocked the gates of Troy. The Greek ships had returned by then and the soldiers quietly entered the city. With all the enemy guards asleep after the celebrations, the Greeks faced no resistance as they spread across the city, waiting for the signal to begin the rape and plunder of Troy.

  Jainism is an ancient monastic order based on rebirth, plurality and non-violence that emerged in the Indian subcontinent. The Jain Tirthankara Mahavira is believed to have been a contemporary of the Buddha. In Jain chronicles we find a story where a strategy similar to the Trojan Horse was used to prevent a war. Six princes who wanted to marry the princess Malli threatened to attack her kingdom if she did not agree. So Malli invited them to her palace and showed them a beautiful statue, the very likeness of her. But when the princes came near the statue, they encountered a foul stench. The princess explained, ‘Ever since you threatened war, I have stopped eating and been putting all my food inside this hollow statue. Over time, it has started rotting, hence the foul odour. This body of mine that you find so beautiful is made of this garbage. In your lust, you do not realize it and are willing to kill for it. Is it worth it?’ Hearing the words of the princess, the princes withdrew their army. Ashamed, they became hermits. Malli became the Tirthankara called Malli-nath, the one who shows the path to those lost in materialism.

  Cassandra can see the future but no one believes her. A similar character is found in the Mahabharata: Sahadeva can see the future, but he cannot give any information unless someone asks for it. If he speaks without being questioned, no one will believe him.

  The story of the Trojan Horse comes to us from Homer’s Odyssey, Euripides’s play The Trojan Women and Virgil’s Aeneid.

  The builder of the horse was one Epeius, inspired by Athena.

  The number of soldiers who hid inside the horse vary from twenty to fifty across different accounts.

  The common list of Greeks who hid in the horse includes Odysseus, Diomedes, Teucer, Menelaus, Protesilaus, Epeius, Pyrrhus and Idomeneus. Agamemnon is conspicuous by his absence as he is with the ships waiting by an island beyond the Trojan horizon.

  The Trojan Horse has become a metaphor for the safe-looking container of a lethal consignment. The metaphor is even used for malicious computer programs that contain a virus.

  In one story, Helen goes around the Trojan Horse and mimics the voices of the wives of the Greek warriors who hide inside, hoping that they will reveal themselves. Is she then helping the Trojans, or simply testing the will of the Greeks? Her loyalty remains ambiguous throughout.

  Astyanax

  At the sound of the war trumpets, the Greeks began their pillage. Houses were set aflame, men killed, and women raped.

  Hector’s infant son, Astyanax, was thrown from the high walls of Troy. His widow, Andromache, was raped, as were his sister Cassandra and his mother, Hecabe. Priam, king of Troy, who witnessed the abuse of his city, and his family, wept and begged to be killed. The Greeks obliged.

  Pyrrhus claimed Andromache as his concubine, while Agamemnon claimed Cassandra as his. The women tried to take shelter in temples, but the Greeks dragged them out, or even raped them within, unmindful of the gods.

  The horror and grief of the unfolding tragedy drove Hecabe mad and she started barking and whining and weeping like a dog. It was decided to leave the old mad queen behind.

  Menelaus rushed through the palace looking for Helen, and found her in bed with Deiphobus. He killed the Trojan prince and was about to kill Helen when she bared her breasts. The sight of such beauty dissolved all his rage, and he led her back to his ship as his lawfully wedded wife.

  In the Ramayana, Ram storms Lanka with an army of monkeys to rescue his wife, Sita, who has been abducted by the rakshasa-king Ravana. After Ravana’s defeat, his kingdom is not plundered and the Lankan women are not mistreated. The treatment of the conquered land and women in the Greek epics is remarkably different, and quite barbaric, angering even the Olympians.

  Euripides’ play The Trojan Women was a commentary on the fate of the Greek island of Milos that was laid waste by the Athenians during the Peloponnesian wars of the fifth century BCE. Conquered after a long siege, the resident men of the island were butchered and the women and children sold into slavery.

  The Trojan War is seen as historical by some scholars as there are Hittite cuneiform texts dated to around 1300 BCE, which mention an unruly Anatolian warlord named Piyama-Radu (possibly Priam) and his successor Alaksandu (possibly Alexander, the nickname of Paris) both based in Wilusa (possibly Ilios), as well as the god Apaliunas (possibly Apollo).

  Aethra

  With Helen was an old woman, Aethra, the mother of Theseus, who had been enslaved and forced to serve as Helen’s maid, first in Sparta, then in Troy.

  When Acamas, son of Theseus, came to rescue her, she presented a young boy to him. ‘This is your son, Munitus, borne by the Trojan princess Laodice,’ she said. ‘Do you remember her? You met when you came to Troy before the war, to negotiate peace, and take Helen back to her husband. Your mission failed, but your brief affair with the Trojan princess has borne this delightful fruit. Take care of it. In his veins flows the blood of Greeks and Trojans. Of love. Not hate.’

  ‘Where is Laodice?’ asked Acamas.

  ‘That most beautiful of Priam’s daughters prayed to the gods that she not be raped or killed or taken away in concubinage. For her the earth opened, and she descended with Persephone to Hades.’

  Aethra then climbed aboard her grandson’s ship, ready to sail to Greece along with her great-grandson, Munitus.

  Demophon, brother of Acamas and son of Theseus, joined his grandmother and returned home to learn that his beloved wife Phyllis had died while he was away. In death, she had transformed into a lifeless almond tree. Demophon hugged it and wept; the tree bloomed.

  The story of Laodice’s descent to Hades comes from Bibliotheca. It reminds us of Sita’s descent to earth in the final episode of the Ramayana. In fact, many scholars have tried to lin
k the story of Sita’s birth from the earth and eventual return to the earth with the story of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, who is abducted and taken by Hades to the underworld. Persephone is responsible for Laodice’s descent too.

  Return

  With the plunder of Troy satisfying their pent up rage and bloodlust, the Greeks prepared to return home. But before they could leave, the ghost of Achilles demanded that they sacrifice Polyxena over his grave, for it was her betrayal that had caused his death. Until that was done, he warned that the winds would not let the Greek ships leave Trojan shores. So Polyxena was brought to his grave and her throat slit.

  The gods demanded that the Greeks also sacrifice the lesser Ajax for he had raped Cassandra inside Athena’s temple. When the Greeks refused, Athena caused the winds and storms to further delay the return of the Greeks. Ajax the lesser was shipwrecked but he managed to find shelter on a rock. Then, consumed by hubris, he said, ‘I will survive despite the Olympians.’ Hearing this, Poseidon hurled his trident and broke the rock that had given Ajax shelter, causing him to drown.

  Calchas, the oracle, decided not to travel by ship as he could foresee that most of the ships would crash against rocks and sink in the sea. He chose to travel by land instead, but still did not reach home. He met another oracle who foretold the day of his death. When the day passed and death did not come, Calchas started to laugh, and could not stop laughing until he died of laughter.