Background to The Odyssey
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The marriage of Peleus and Thetis,
mother of Achilles.
All of the Gods were invited…
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Angry that she had
not been invited, she
threw a golden
apple over the high
walls of the
reception hall.
On this apple, she
had engraved the
words “To the
Fairest.”
Hera, Athena, and
Aphrodite all
reached for it…
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They turned to Zeus to decide who
among them was the most beautiful, but
Zeus refused to name a winner.
Instead, he appointed pretty boy Paris, a
Trojan prince, as the judge.
Enticing party favors were offered:
• Hera bribed Paris with power over all nations.
• Athena bribed Paris with victory in war.
• Aphrodite bribed Paris with the love of the most
beautiful woman in the world.
Aphrodite!
Hera and Athena vowed revenge against
Paris and Troy.
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Aphrodite’s Party Favor, Helen, was the
daughter of Zeus and Leda, the queen of
Sparta.
Leda’s husband, Tyndareus was the king of
Sparta. He never knew he wasn’t Helen’s real
father.
When Helen came of age, she had scores of
suitors. Tyndareus was unwilling to choose one
for fear the others would retaliate violently.
Finally, one of the suitors, Odysseus of Ithaca,
proposed a plan to solve the dilemma.
He suggested that Tyndareus allow Helen to
choose her own husband. In return, all of the
suitors would promise to defend the marriage,
regardless of whom she chose.
The suitors duly swore.
She chose Menelaus.
Menelaus inherited
Tyndareus' throne
with Helen as his
queen when her
brothers Castor
and Pollux became
gods.
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On a diplomatic mission
to Sparta, Paris fell in love
with Helen.
Menelaus had to leave for
Crete, to bury his uncle
Crateus.
Paris, with Aphrodite's
help, kidnapped Helen
and sailed to Troy.
“Was this the face that launched a
thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of
Ilium?”
-Christopher Marlowe
Dr. Faustus
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Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, was
Menelaus’s brother.
He agreed to lead the Greek forces in
war against Troy.
He called on Helen’s old boyfriends to
defend her honor.
He encountered some resistance…
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He plowed a field, sowing salt.
The gig was up when Palamedes
threw Odysseus’s infant son,
Telemachus, in front of the plow.
Odysseus was then required to
recruit Achilles.
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Artemis, whom Agamemnon had
offended by killing a stag, stilled his
sails.
Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter
Iphigenia to make nice, causing marital
discord with his wife Clytemnestra.
First he sailed to the wrong place, but
that’s another story for another time. . .
Agamemnon
King of Mycenae
Commander-in-chief
Menelaus
King of Sparta
Husband of Helen
Achilles
Patroclus
Central Character
Achilles’s friend
Greatest Warrior
And Cousin
Odysseus
King of Ithaca
Most Cunning, Shrewd,
and Brave
Priam, King of Troy
Married to Hecuba
Hector, Trojan Prince
Commander-in-chief
Paris, Trojan Prince
Forbidden Lover of
Helen
Greek Side
Athena, Goddess of
wisdom
Hera, wife of Zeus
Hermes, ambassador
to the Gods
Poseidon, God of the
sea
Trojan Side
Aphrodite, Goddess of
love
Apollo, God of prophecy,
light, poetry
Ares, God of war
Artemis, Goddess of the
hunt
Zeus, sympathetic to the
Trojans
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The first nine years of the
war consisted of both war in
Troy and war against the
neighboring regions.
The Greeks realized that
Troy was being supplied by
its neighboring kingdoms.
As well as destroying Trojan
economy, these battles let
the Greeks gather a large
amount of resources and
other spoils of war,
including women.
by Homer
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Homer’s epic
begins in the tenth
year of the Trojan
War
Agamemnon stole
Achilles’ war prize,
Briseis
Achilles refused to
fight and withdrew
his warriors, the
Myrmidons
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Achilles’s cousin and friend.
He stole Achilles’s armor and wore it in
battle where he fell to the mighty
Hector.
Achilles swore vengeance and re-entered
the war.
His mother, Thetis, presented him with
new armor, crafted by Hephaestus.
Achilles donned his new armor, and
in a climactic scene of hand-to-hand
combat, he killed Hector.
After stripping the armor off, he tied
Hector’s body to the back of his
chariot and dragged it around the
walls of Troy.
This did not please the gods.
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When Achilles was born,
his mother, Thetis, tried to
make him immortal by
dipping him in the river
Styx.
As she immersed him, she
held him by one heel and
forgot to dip him a second
time so the heel she held
could get wet too.
Therefore, the place where
she held him remained
untouched by the magic
water of the Styx and that
part stayed mortal or
vulnerable.
Apollo then caused an
arrow, shot by Paris,
to land in Achilles’s heel
and kill him.
Odysseus was given the armor forged by
Hephaestus in remembrance of the mighty
Achilles.
The most formidable of all of the Greek captains
was Odysseus, Son of Laertes and King of Ithaca.
Wise beyond comparison,
Odysseus was a master of
disguise, of craftiness, of
cunning, and of guile—no
one could outwit this man
skilled in all ways of
contending.
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Still seeking to gain entrance
into Troy, clever Odysseus,
ordered a large wooden
horse to be built. Its insides
were to be hollow so that
soldiers could hide within it.
Built by the artist Epeius.
Trojans celebrated what
they thought was their
victory, and dragged the
wooden horse into Troy.
After most of Troy was
asleep or in a drunken state,
Sinon let the Greek warriors
out from the horse, and
slaughtered the Trojans.
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Achilles’s son Neoptolemus killed Priam,
whose daughter, the seër Cassandra,
was raped at Athena’s altar and became
Agamemnon’s concubine.
The children of Priam and Hector are
sacrificed at Achilles’ tomb.
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Aeneas, a Trojan prince, escaped (The
Aeneid) with the help of Aphrodite. He
became the founder of Rome.
Odysseus convinced Philoctetes to kill
Paris with a magic arrow.
Trojan women were divided as plunder.
Helen’s beauty spared her death.
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The Greeks burnt Troy and sailed home,
meeting various miserable fates
themselves.
Angered about Iphigenia’s death,
Clytemnestra cozied up to Aegisthus,
who killed Agamemnon upon his return.
Orestes murdered his mother and her
lover to avenge his father’s death.
It took Odysseus another ten
years to make it home to his
family. . . .
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Legendary city built under
Zeus’s protection.
Huge protective wall built with
the divine aid of Poseidon.
Trojans refused to pay tribute
to Poseidon, who withdrew his
protection.
Dardanelles
Modern-day
Turkey
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Heinrich Schliemann (19th cent.)
uncovered nine successive cities on the
same site in modern-day Turkey.
Schliemann declared the second level
Priam’s Troy (aka Ilium), a burnt city.
Greeks may have wanted control of the
Hellespont Strait (Dardanelles) for
access to the Black Sea.
The archaeological dig is still active but
inconclusive.