Mellon Presentation Draft
Imagine a beautiful woman working silently at a loom. She is tucked away in the inner
rooms of a household, weaving a blood-red tapestry that depicts images of struggle. Her craft is
by nature a domestic act and her tapestry a domestic item; yet, it is stained by the blood of war
and hardship of battle. This kind of obscuring of domesticity and war occurs repeatedly
throughout The Iliad, leading to questions about their interaction with the other.
In my presentation today, I will look at how the Trojan wall serves as an amplifier of the
tension between war and domesticity. We will look at three moments in the epic that center
around interaction within, on, or through the Trojan walls. The key question in these moments
will be: What does each character’s interaction with the Trojan wall communicate about the
interplay between war and domesticity in The Iliad? To answer this question, I will examine
three scenes that take place along the wall: the first is Helen’s call to the wall in Book 3, the
second is Hector and Andromache’s interaction in Book 6, and the third is Priam’s plea to
Achilles in Book 24.
But before we begin, I will give a brief background on the epic. The Iliad is an ancient
Greek poem likely dated back to the end of the 8th century B.C. and traditionally attributed to
Homer. The epic takes place in the final year of the Trojan War—a war between the Achaeans
and Trojans, instigated by the beauty of Helen. The Iliad specifically follows the events and
conflicts that take place during the quarrel between King Agamemnon and Achilles and the
devastating affects the quarrel has on both sides.
In the midst of this, Homer presents several scenes that center on the wall as a marker between
war and domesticity and we will make an attempt to delve into the depth of a couple of these
moments today.
Let’s begin with Helen
When we first meet her, it is after Paris and Menelaus have decided to “fight it out for
Helen and all her wealth” at the beginning of Book 3. Up until this point in the epic, the audience
has only heard tidbits about the woman who caused the war. In this moment, we not only meet
the infamous Helen of Troy, but we also receive our first glimpse of life within the walls of Troy.
The messenger of the gods, Iris, rushes to beckon Helen to come watch the match that will
decide her fate. It is then we meet, what classicist Hannah Roisman calls, the Causa Belli – or
,Helen, the justification for war. The epic tells us:
And Iris came on Helen in her rooms...
weaving a growing web, a dark red flowing robe,
working into the weft the endless bloody struggles
Stallion-breaking Trojans and Argives armed in bronze
had suffered all for her at the god of battle's hands.1
Many feminist scholars have explored the depth and importance of weaving for the Homeric
woman. Maria Pantelia distinguishes the spinning of Helen in the Odyssey with the weaving of
Helen in the Iliad. She describes Helen’s weaving in Troy as “a painful search for domestic
harmony and order.” She sits at the loom, hoping to obtain some sense of domestic stability, but
the nature of her artwork makes it clear that is not possible. The elements of war are naturally
woven into her craft, with her robe stained by “endless bloody struggles.”
The blood of war not only stains Helen’s attempts at domestic tranquility, but also pulls
her out into its midst. The messenger Iris calls to her:
‘Come, dear girl, come quickly—
so you can see what wondrous things they’re doing,
stallion-breaking Trojans and Argives armed in bronze!
1
Fagles, Iliad, III.150-154.
A moment ago they longed to kill each other, longed
For heartbreaking, inhuman warfare on the plain…
…Think of it: Paris and Menelaus loved by Ares
go to fight it out with their rugged spears—
all for you—the man who wins the duel,
you’ll be called his wife!’2
Iris lingers on the exhilaration of war, aiming to lure Helen to come and see for herself the
combat being done “all for [her].” However, Helen’s withdrawal to the wall isn’t stirred by
battle, but instead by the domestic connection that she desperately desires. The text says Iris
“filled [Helen]’s heart with yearning warm and deep/for her husband long ago, her city and her
parents.”3 While Iris is aiming to convince by an appeal of war, Helen is convinced by her desire
for domestic belonging; and since she has not been able to find that within the walls of Troy, she
goes to search for it outside of them.
When Helen arrives on the wall, Priam welcomes her, unlike the old chiefs of Troy who
exchange excluding murmurs. Priam interrupts the chiefs as Helen arrives, and calls to her:
Come over here, dear child. Sit in front of me,
so you can see your husband of long ago,
your kinsmen and your people.4
He calls her “child,” addressing her in an endearing and almost familial manner. And unlike the
men who murmur about her, he calls to her and invites her to tell the story of her kinsmen.
2
Fagles, Iliad. III.155-159 & 163-166.
Ibid., III.168-169.
4 Ibid., III.196-198.
3
Although Helen obliges Priam’s request, she respectively communicates her discomfort
in Troy, acknowledging that her true family and home is not in Troy. Helen answers Priam with:
I revere you so, dear father, dread you too—
if only death had pleased me then, grim death,
that day I followed your son to Troy, forsaking
my marriage bed, my kinsmen and my child,
my favorite, now full-grown,
and the lovely comradeship of women my own age.5
In this, Helen communicates the true domestic ties that she once had and lost. She was once a
wife and a mother, but now she is a foreign outcast who would rather be dead then separated
from her genuine Achaean family.
Furthermore, Roisman points out that Helen’s preoccupation with her missing blood brothers
out in the battle emphasizes that while she feels dependent on Priam, she does not see his family
as her own. 6 She anxiously notes while talking to the Trojan king:
…two I cannot find, and they’re captains of the armies,
Castor breaker of horses and the hardy boxer Polydueces.
My blood brothers. Mother bore them both.7
Despite the warmth of Priam’s concern for Helen, it is counterfeit and cannot meet her domestic
needs, especially when she looks out into combat and sees her true kinsman. And again, the
blood of war is saturating Helen’s domestic identity. So while before, war stained her attempts at
Ibid., III.208-213.
Roismam, 15.
7 Ibid., III.282-284
5
6
domestic stability, now Helen’s interaction with war on the wall is preempted and permeated by
domesticity.
From Helen’s dichotomous tapestry to her domesticized view of battle, it is obvious that she is
unable to be in the domesticity she desires without war pulling her out.
Now we will move on to Hector & Andromache in Book 6
If Helen represents a figure displaced by war and unable to fully participate in domestic
life, then Hector’s devoted wife, Andromache, serves as her counterpart. Like Helen,
Andromache is herself not from Troy. And while Helen holds a precarious place in Trojan
society, Andromache becomes the embodiment of domestic life for her husband Hector.
After Hector passes through the walls of Troy to ask for intercession from his mother, he
searches his household for his wife. But Hector is surprised to not find her inside, and asks the
servants where she has gone. A servant quickly answers Hector’s inquiry:
Up to the huge gate-tower of Troy she’s gone
because she heard our men are so hard pressed,
the Achaean fighters coming on in so much force.
She sped to the wall in panic, like a madwoman—
the nurse went with her, carrying your child.8
And sure enough, as Hector approaches the wall, “his warm, generous wife came running up to
meet him.”9
Andromache’s misplaced presence on the wall demonstrates wars invasion into her mind. She is
not able to stay at peace within her domestic residence because while the walls block out the
8
9
Ibid., VI.457-461
Ibid., VI.466.
physical implications of war, they are unable to block out the emotional ones—after all, the
heresay of battle still reached Andromache’s ears and was enough to pull her out onto the brink
of it. Kenneth Atchity asserts that her motivation in moving to the wall is purely familial, as she
is absorbed in the fate of her husband and home.10 This is comparable to Helen’s movement to
the wall – and while both women are affected by war within the domesticity of Troy, they are
pulled out to look onto war because of their desire for domestic peace. The disruption is so deep
that it pushes the female physically into the sphere of war that is already dominating her
thoughts, emotions, and security.
War’s effect on Andromache is further demonstrated in her offering of battle advice to
her husband. She says:
Draw your armies up where the wild fig tree stands,
there, where the city lies most open to assault,
the walls lower, easily overrun. Three times
they have tried that point, hoping to storm Troy.11
This complete inundation of war over women and their domestic setting. However, we will
revisit Atchity’s point that Andromache’s association with war is purely familial. Prior to this
passage, Andromache’s speech to Hector relies heavily on familial responsibility and
relationship. In the same breath, she is implementing war strategy and communicating the
urgency of domesticity—a genuine paradox. However, Andromache recognizes the reality and
demand of war, and tries to use it to restore the order of her household. She seems to be utilizing
the action of war as a means to the end of domesticity. No matter how much war disrupts her
10
Atchity, Kenneth John. Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1978.
11 Fagles, III.513-516.
within her domestic context, she knows that if war breeches the wall, her domestic existence will
be completely compromised.
It can also be noted that Hector’s unexplained visit to his family may communicate that
domesticity has a hold on the warrior. And it is not simply war that disturbs domestic duty, but
domesticity disturbs the duty of war as well. Hector’s visit to his family, although not explicitly
explained, is given unspoken justification as he encounters his son, the darling of his eye. The
poet uses these words to explain Hector in this moment:
The great man of war breaking into a broad smile,
his gaze fixed upon his son, in silence.12
This great man of war succumbs to the power of domestic relation, not only pulling him away
from the battlefield, but breaking his warrior disposition in a touching moment of fatherly
admiration.
So far we have seen war’s effect on the domesticity of women in the Iliad, and how it’s
emotional and mental effects evoke a physical movement to the Trojan wall. While this
movement is toward the sphere of war, it seems to be rooted in a desire for domestic relation and
peace. We also saw glimpses of domesticity’s effect on war when we considered Hector’s
reunion with his wife and son.
Up until now, the wall has attempted to serve as a separation between domestic life and the
war, however Homer concludes his poem with a crossing of the wall that brings these two
spheres together peacefully.
12
Ibid., VI.474-480,
After Achilles kills and defiles Hector’s body outside of the Trojan walls, Priam ventures
out to Achilles’ camp in the night. The king bows in front of his son’s murderer and makes a
paternal plea for his son’s body to be returned to him.
The movement of Priam through the wall stands apart from all other instances we have
looked at in the poem. Unlike all of the other warriors who passed outside the walls of Troy,
Priam roams into the war zone brandishing nothing more than paternal desperation. He passes
the walls, but in a way unlike the previous characters. The women have merely waited on the
barrier, looking out into the havoc because that havoc has compromised their peace in their
homes. The men cross back and forth, entering the city to replenish their war supplies and
familial connection, but always going back out into the battlefield. Priam, however, goes out into
the war zone, penetrating it with the pathos of domestic demand. He forces the peaceful love of
father and son into the violent camp of fierce Achilles.
When he arrives at Achilles’ tent, the epic tells us:
Priam found the warrior there inside…
…and kneeling down beside Achilles, clasped his knees
and kissed his hands, those terrible, man-killing hands
that had slaughtered Priam’s many sons in battle.13
Achilles and his men marvel at this sight, in awe of the enemy king prostrate before them. The
text goes on:
But Priam prayed his heart out to Achilles:
Remember your own father, great godlike Achilles—
As old as I am, past the threshold of deadly old age!...
…Revere the gods, Achilles! Pity me in my own right,
remember your own father! I deserve more pity…
I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before—
I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.14
13
14
Ibid., XXIV.552-552 & 560-562
Ibid., XXIV, 570-571 & 588-591
In this moment, domestic affection literally kisses the epitome of warrior violence – the hands of
Achilles. Domesticity presses itself into the sphere of war. And what is astounding is it puts the
violence of war into submission. The epic relays Achilles response in this way:
Those words stirred within Achilles a deep desire
to grieve his own father. Taking the old man’s hand
he gently moved him back.
The same hands that are notoriously characterized by violence in the Iliad are turned to the gentle
hands of a son toward a father. Achilles looks into the face of Priam and his rage subsides,
making way for grief. He sees the future woe of his father mirrored back at him in the
supplication of Priam. The boundaries of war then disintegrate as the men weep together.
Dedication to carrying out revenge against the enemy fades as each man recognizes his own
domestic duty in terms of the other. Their mourning of war’s effect on their individual domestic
context leads to an adoption of the other as a father/son.
Domesticity’s transition outside of its own domain and into a violent environment does not
have the negative implications that war’s invasion into the domestic environment does. This is
not like Helen’s inability to be in domestic harmony because war’s chaos. Instead, this is
domesticity overpowering the dominance war has had over peace.
Priam’s application of domestic plight demolishes the conceptual walls between the enemies.
The boundaries built by war are demolished by familial bond, allowing them to see their shared
humanity. Familial bond is enough to overcome the bloodiness of war; however, this is possible
only after blood has been spilled. War is infiltrated by domestic connection, but only once an
expense of war has been paid.
In CONCLUSION, war and domesticity are in a dichotomous existence in the Iliad. When there
is war, a man is surely confused by domestic connection. And where there is domesticity, a
woman is surely trying to get a grip on the war that threatens her household.
With Helen, her irreparable associations with war interrupt her intense desire for domestic
stability. Yet, even when she goes out to look on this war, she cannot survey the battle void of
familial connection.
We see a similar effect in Andromache. She cannot peacefully stay in her home because the
mental havoc of war draws her into its midst. Yet even when she is looking out on war, she is
motivated by a desire for domestic security.
Hector’s interaction with the wall begins to hint at domesticity’s collapse into the world of war,
which culminates in the scene between Priam and Achilles. And it is this moment that
demonstrates the calming effect domesticity has on the sphere of war—a calming affect that can
only happen once a tragedy has destroyed domestic relation.
The wall’s presence in the epic at first appears to be a communication of the separate existence
of war and domesticity; however, upon further examination, it shows just the opposite. It reveals
the mingling of war with domesticity and vise versa. The psychological and emotional
implications of one over the other cannot be prevented by physical boundary—whether it’s a
wall, expanse of land, or a body of water.
And while the The Iliad climaxes in a moment of familial peace, it will pass by quickly—with
the peace offering between Achilles and Priam lasting just twelve days, twelve days before the
leveling of Troy scorches the peace. In a cruel reversal of Priam’s permeation of war with
domestic tranquility, war will now invade the peace of the city. The walls will be brought down,
finalizing the conceptual confusion between war and domesticity in a very tangible way.