Why No Wooden Horse?
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:59 pm
How could the Illiad leave out the best part of the story? Why no wooden horse? Almost as strange as Moses not crossing the Jordan in the Pentateuch.
Investigating the roots of western civilization (ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
The Illiad leaves out the fall of Troy altogether.Secret Alias wrote:How could the Illiad leave out the best part of the story? Why no wooden horse? Almost as strange as Moses not crossing the Jordan in the Pentateuch.
Because that part was invented after the Illiad had been written?Secret Alias wrote:How could the Illiad leave out the best part of the story? Why no wooden horse? Almost as strange as Moses not crossing the Jordan in the Pentateuch.
The whole cycle from the golden apples to the adventures of Odysseus' sons are represented in several works: Cypris, Iliad Aethiopis, "Little Iliad," Iliou Persis, Nostoi, Odyssey, and then Telegony. Add on the hymns and Hesiod and that's the closest you'll get to the Greek religious canon.Next come two books of the "Sack of Ilium", by Arctinus of
Miletus with the following contents. The Trojans were suspicious
of the wooden horse and standing round it debated what they ought
to do. Some thought they ought to hurl it down from the rocks,
others to burn it up, while others said they ought to dedicate it
to Athena. At last this third opinion prevailed. Then they
turned to mirth and feasting believing the war was at an end.
But at this very time two serpents appeared and destroyed Laocoon
and one of his two sons, a portent which so alarmed the followers
of Aeneas that they withdrew to Ida. Sinon then raised the fire-
signal to the Achaeans, having previously got into the city by
pretence. The Greeks then sailed in from Tenedos, and those in
the wooden horse came our and fell upon their enemies, killing
many and storming the city. Neoptolemus kills Priam who had fled
to the altar of Zeus Herceius (1); Menelaus finds Helen and takes
her to the ships, after killing Deiphobus; and Aias the son of
Ileus, while trying to drag Cassandra away by force, tears away
with her the image of Athena. At this the Greeks are so enraged
that they determine to stone Aias, who only escapes from the
danger threatening him by taking refuge at the altar of Athena.
The Greeks, after burning the city, sacrifice Polyxena at the
tomb of Achilles: Odysseus murders Astyanax; Neoptolemus takes
Andromache as his prize, and the remaining spoils are divided.
Demophon and Acamas find Aethra and take her with them. Lastly
the Greeks sail away and Athena plans to destroy them on the high
seas.
If Achilles was the greatest of the heroes (Zeus had him born to a human father knowing that he would usurp his own place as head of the gods if he himself mated with Thetis), his killing of Hector marked his (Achilles') doom. He knew from the prophecy of his mother that once he killed Hector he himself was destined to be slain.'There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing earth of men by causing the great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world. And so the heroes were slain in Troy, and the plan of Zeus came to pass.'
Achilles' wrath itself can thus be understood as part of Zeus's plan to hold him back from the battle to allow many more heroes to die before he himself intervened and thus sealed his own end.Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so was the will of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.
There is an interesting discussion of this fragment from the Cypria at Momos Advises Zeusneilgodfrey wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:33 pm
From the Hesiod-Homerica collection:
'There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing earth of men by causing the great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world. And so the heroes were slain in Troy, and the plan of Zeus came to pass.'