Classics 10: Chapter 21 The Fall of Troy and Its AftermathTroy After AchillesSlide 3The Arms of AchillesSophocles’ Ajax (ca. 441 BCE)The Suicide of AjaxFurther Adventures After AchillesThe Trojan HorseSlide 9The Death of LaocoönSlide 11Slide 12The Fall of TroySlide 14The Escape of AeneasThe Homecoming of AgamemnonAeschylus’ Oresteia (458 BCE)Murder of AgamemnonThe Murder of AgamemnonSlide 20Orestes’ RevengeSlide 22The Trial of OrestesSlide 24From Furies to EumenidesAeschylus and AthensClassics 10: Chapter 21The Fall of Troy and Its AftermathI. Troy After AchillesII. The Trojan HorseIII. The Fall of TroyIV. The Return of AgamemnonThe Death of Laocoön, ca. 100 BCETroy After Achilles•Stories of Trojan War told by other epic poets around Homer’s Iliad•These poems are called the Epic Cycle, only fragments and summaries of them survive•The Fall of Troy recounted in full by the Roman poet Virgil (20 BCE)•Aeneas the only Trojan prince to survive, he will found the Roman race; and how he does so is the story of the Virgil’s Aeneid–Virgil modeled his epic poem on those of Homer, but wrote it for a Roman audience for a Roman purpose–The Aeneid explains the origins of Roman powerTroy After Achilles•The Trojan War resumes in full force after the death of Hector, in its tenth (and final) year•The Amazons arrive to help the Trojans, led by their queen Penthesilea•As Achilles kills her, their eyes meet …•Achilles soon after killed by an arrow from Paris in his heel (Achilles’ heel = symbol of weak spot)–How exactly this arrow was fatal is not clear, but Paris seems to have had help from Apollo–Did Thetis dip Achilles in the river Styx? (Homer: no)–The Iliad makes it clear that Achilles is to die soonThe Arms of Achilles•Ajax (son of Telamon, also called Greater Ajax), likely the best of the Greek warriors after Achilles, saves Achilles’ body•Achilles is given a great funeral and his ashes placed with those of Patroclus•His divine armor to be awarded to the next best warrior after him•Odysseus gives a better speech than Ajax and persuades the Greeks to judge him best•Ajax, humiliated, goes crazySophocles’ Ajax (ca. 441 BCE)•Ajax decides to kill Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus in retaliation•He goes and does so, only then to discover that he had gone mad and had been killing sheep while thinking the sheep were the Greek heroes•Now doubly humiliated, and his violent intentions clear, he kills himself by falling on his swordThe Suicide of Ajax•Attic jug, ca. 530 BCE•Note how he has removed his own armor to be his witness•Otherwise all alone and resolute on death before further dishonor•The only such heroic suicide in Greek mythFurther Adventures After Achilles•Odysseus sneaks into Troy disguished as a beggar in order to steal a statue of Athena–This said to to be necessary for Athena’s support•Achilles’ son Neoptolemus comes to fight in place of his father•Philoctetes, who had been left on the island of Lemnos with an odd disease, is cured and brought to Troy•His bow = the bow of Heracles, and with it Philoctetes kills Paris•Yet the Greeks still cannot decisively win the warThe Trojan Horse•Odysseus comes up with the strategy of the Trojan Horse•He has a huge wooden horse built, big enough to hide 50 men inside it (compare Jason’s 50 Argonauts)•The rest of the Greeks pretend they are giving up and sail away, just out of sight•One man is left behind, Sinon, to explain the situation to the Trojans•Our main account = Book 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid (written in Latin ca. 30-20 BCE)The Trojan Horse•Sinon pretends Odysseus had tried to kill him, but he had escaped•He owes the Greeks nothing, he says, and tells the Trojans the “secret” of the horse•The horse is a sacred offering to Athena, he says, so if the Trojans take it inside their city, they will secure Athena’s protection•Some do not believe him, especially Laocoön, a priest of Apollo, he shoots an arrow into the horse–“Beware the Greeks, even bearing gifts.”The Death of Laocoön•Two snakes come from the sea and eat Laocoön and his two sons•At right, from the 2nd-1st Centuries BCE, one of most famous works of ancient sculpture•Note the curvature and musculatureThe Trojan Horse•The death of Laocoön convinces the Trojans that he offended the gods by speaking ill of the horse•They then pull it right up into the middle of their city and party all day and night because at long last the Trojan War is over!•In the middle of the night, when all is quiet and unprotected in the city, the Greeks in the horse let themselves out•The rest of the Greeks sail back from just out of sight and the heroes from the horse open the city gates for themThe Trojan Horse•Cycladic storage jar, ca. 670 BCE•One of earliest references to myth in Greek art•Wheeled horse has windows in which we can see the heads of the Greeks insideThe Fall of Troy•Many outrages committed by the Greeks during the sack; 10 years of waiting made them angry•Priam murdered by Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, at the altar of Zeus in his palace–The brutality of the scene in sharp contrast with Achilles’ treatment of Priam at the end of the Iliad–Since the story is now told by Virgil (in which the Trojans are to become the Romans), the Greeks are the bad guys•Neoptolemus also captured Polyxena, the youngest of Priam’s daughters, and cut her throat over the tomb of Achilles as a blood offeringThe Fall of Troy•Hector’s wife Andromache is taken as a slave and their baby son, Astyanax, is thrown from the walls to his death•Ajax (the Lesser) rapes Cassandra (the prophetic daughter of Priam whom Apollo made unbelieved) while she clings to an image of Athena•Athena so angry she will ruin the homecoming of most of the Greek heroes–Ajax the Lesser drowns; Menelaüs, Odysseus wander•Menelaüs nearly kills Helen in anger, but relents and takes her back to Sparta as wife again–They tell tales on one another in the OdysseyThe Escape of Aeneas•Aeneas escapes to found the Roman race, with the help of his mother Aphrodite•He holds his son’s hand and carries his father Anchises on his shoulder, who in turn carries the household gods•Piety and patriarchyBernini, 1619The Homecoming of Agamemnon•The homecomings of the Greek heroes a significant part of the whole Trojan War story•Homecoming = nostos (plural = nostoi)•Greatest homecoming story is