Download Sean Flanagan Section A The Trojan War: Was It Worth It? The

Sean Flanagan
Section A
The Trojan War: Was It Worth It?
The Trojan war was a cornerstone of Achaean pride for centuries after it was fought, as
demonstrated by the fact that it lived on through oral tradition and literary works. One example
of its immortality comes in the form of ​The Iliad​, an epic poem written by Homer nearly five
hundred years after the war’s beginning. However, as Achaean civilization progressed and
became involved in new conflicts, the views held by the Achaean people seemed to change as
well. Euripides’ play, ​The Women of Troy​, written three centuries after ​The Iliad​, challenges
the glorified version of the Trojan War depicted in Homer’s work, through its description of the
Achaean invaders, its questioning of the legitimacy of the traditional Gods, and its disputing of
the need for the war.
In ​The Iliad​, Homer seeks to depict battle and the slaughter of men as glorious and a
source of pride for the people of Greece. One example of this comes from Book Six of the epic,
with Homer’s graphic depictions of the ensuing battle. First, he vividly describes the death of
Akamas as “the bronze spear-point fixed in his head forehead and drove inward through bone;
and a mist of darkness clouded both eyes.” Next, Homer switches to the Achaean general
Odysseus and his men as they “cut down Astyalos… slaughter[ed] one from Perkote, Pidytes,
and [killed] great Areataon.” Homer’s portrayal of Achaian strength prevailing over the Trojans is
meant to glorify the battles of the Trojan war. Homer, being Achaian, had a biased view of the
war. Because the invaders were of the same country, he shares the commonly held view that
the Achaeans were the noble heroes.
On the other hand, 300 years later, Euripides' play, T
​ he Women of Troy​, paints a
different picture of the Greeks. Euripides often refers to the Achaeans as “murderous” and
brutal. Even Odysseus, one of the Achaean “heroes”, is described as:
a perjured impious outcast, who defies Man’s law and God’s; monster of wickedness
whose tongue twists straight to crooked, truth to lies, friendship to hate, mocks right and
honours wrong!
Furthermore, Odysseus, is said to have given the order to throw Andromache’s son off the
battlements of Troy. Such a scathing description and barbaric portrayal of the Achaean general
illustrates Euripides’ view of the Greeks, as cruel, inhumane killers. This is very different from
Homer’s view of the Greeks as the righteous heroes of the war.
The view of the gods, and the commonly held ideas in Homer’s Iliad, is another aspect of
the Trojan War that Euripides challenges. In T
​ he Iliad​, the gods are made out to be very real
characters who could play important roles in warfare. This is evidenced when the Greek soldier
Diomedes asks an unknown enemy:
Who among mortal men are you good friend? … If you are some one of the immortals
know that I will not fight against any god of the heaven, since not even the son of Dryas,
Lykourgos the powerful, did not live long; he who tried to fight with the gods of the bright
sky.
This note is further emphasized when, the Trojan leader Hector orders his mother to go to the
temple of Athena and states:
Promise to dedicate within the shrine twelve heifers, yearlings, never broken, if only she
will have pity on the town of Troy, and the Trojan wives, and their innocent children, if
she will hold back from sacred Ilion the son of Tydeus, that wild spear-fighter, the strong
one who drives men to thoughts of terror.
Homer’s depiction of the gods as all powerful and necessary in the lives of all Greeks and
Trojans represents the feelings of the time period in which is was written. Deities with the power
to turn the tides of war or even participate in battle needed to be respected and worshiped.
However, in ​The Women of Troy​, Euripides frequently challenges the actions of the gods and
even their very existence. The first indicator of Euripides’ opinion of the gods comes in the
beginning of his play when two gods, Athena and Poseidon, make appearances as characters.
In the still smouldering ruins of Troy, Athena, a supporter of the Greeks in the war, has come to
talk to Poseidon, a supporter of the Trojans. She asks, “May our old feud be buried? I have
something to say to you.” Athena has come to ask Poseidon to become her ally, a rather
strange request after such a major conflict that both gods on opposing sides for. Even more
dumbfounding is Poseidon’s response, “Of course… My powers await your wishes, Athena.
What is your plan?” Poseidon, a defender of the Trojans, deserts his sponsored people in the
ashes of their city to help the goddess who supported those who led to their downfall. In this
example, Euripides clearly points out the baffling actions of gods who have little regard for the
lives of mortals. This is just one example of many that display Euripides’ skeptical view of the
gods. Near the end of the play, Euripides questions the existence of the gods entirely. When the
chorus of Trojan women states:
So, Zeus, our God, you have forsaken us… Zeus, God, farewell! Now with your going
goes the music of prayer, sweet singing… While the destroying Fury gives our homes to
ashes and our flesh to worms. We ask, and ask: What does this mean to you?
Proposing this rhetorical question to the audience allows the audience to think about the actions
of the gods. Why would such gods switch sides so soon after the destruction of their side? How
can any rational god rain destruction on a city that had worshiped it for so long? In doing this,
his opinion that such gods may not exist, is very apparent. In addition, the gods never appear in
the same scene with human characters. This sharply contrasts the view of Homer that the
Greek gods that are so real, they can appear in battles with mortals and indeed have.
Finally, Euripides questions the very validity of the Trojan war. His views clash in every
way with the views of Homer and the people who had held the war as the pinnacle of Greek
pride. Homer, through the actions of Agamemnon, definitively portrays the view of the Greeks at
the time. This is seen when Menelaus attempts to spare the life of a Trojan and Agamemnon
responds:
Dear brother, o Menelaus, are you concerned so tenderly with these people? Did you in
your house get the best of treatment from the Trojans? No, let not one of them go free of
sudden death from our hands; not the young man child that the mother carries still in her
body, not even he, but let all of Ilion’s people perish, utterly blotted out and unmourned
for.
Agamemnon is so utterly offended by the actions of his brother, whose wife was stolen by the
Trojans, that he goes so far to say that all Trojans should die, even the mother’s babes in their
bellies. Homer’s message is clear, the Trojans took Helen and therefore attacked Greece, and
the war is just and necessary. However, Euripides believes the exact opposite. When, in T
​ he
Women of Troy​,​ ​Cassandra states:
[The Greeks] for the sake of one woman and her unlawful love, unleashed the hunt for
Helen and sent ten thousand men to death. Their sage leader, to win what he most
loathed, destroyed what he most cherished; sacrificed the joys of home, and his own
child’s life, to his brother for a woman who was not plundered from him who went
willingly.
Euripides’ powerful opinion challenges all the previous beliefs of the Greeks had about the
Trojan war. Ten thousand men, sent to their graves to avenge a woman who was not captured,
went willingly, only to take her back to Sparta and kill her. However, it does not stop there; as
seen when Euripides questions:
What did they die for? To thrust invasion from their borders or siege from the town walls?
No! When a man was killed, he was not wrapped and laid to rest by his wife’s hands, he
had forgotten his children’s faces; now he lies in alien earth.
Euripides compares the cause for war to some usual causes and because the Achaeans were
not protecting themselves, and decides their was no reason to attack the Trojans. Furthermore,
the dead cannot be laid to rest in their usual manner. Men were lost overseas never to be seen
by their families again. As if he was done, Euripides ends his statement with a vivid finish:
At home, things were just as bad; women died in widowhood; fathers sank to childless
age, missing their sons they brought up who will not be there to pour loving libation on
their graves… Even in Hector’s death, I can see more sorrow, for he did not die till he
had made himself a hero’s name; and this came through the Greek invasion. Had they
stayed at home, what would be Hector’s glory?
Euripides actually goes so far to portray the Trojans as the more glorious fighters. Additionally,
the vivid description of the effects of the war and the unnecessary death and suffering of the
Greek people shows Euripides scorching view of the war. His view is in direct contrast to
Homer’s triumphant proud view of the Greeks and their victory in the war.
Euripides clearly challenges the glorified version of the Trojan War depicted in T
​ he Iliad
by painting Achaean invaders in a barbaric light, questioning the traditional Gods, and disputing
the need for the war in the first place. Euripides wrote ​The Women of Troy ​nearly 300 years
after ​The Iliad ​was written. During this time in Greek history, many people were witnessing the
atrocities of the Peloponnesian war, questioning how the gods could let such catastrophe
happen, and perhaps even challenging the need for the war. T
​ he Women of Troy ​exemplifies
these evolving views in Greek society and highlights one of the most important cultural shifts in
history.