Beneath the walls of Troy some hairy-chested hyper-moron[i] tried to kill Aeneas
before his time. Consequently, the gods
snatched up the Trojan prince and took him to safety (Iliad XX 336) in accordance
with a prophecy made to Aeneas’ father;
“And you will have
a dear son, who will be king among the Trojans.
And following him will be generations after generations for all time to
come”
Homeric Hymn to
Aphrodite 196-197
The ultimate fulfillment of that prophecy was founding of
London by Aeneas’ great-grandson King Brutus.
Following Milton’s “History of England”; Brutus was the son of Silvius
and he of Ascanius, the son of Aeneas who famously fled from Troy and settled
his people in Italy. Like Oedipus before
him, [ii] Brutus accidently killed his father. It happen this way according to Milton, at
age of fifteen Brutus accidently shot and killed his father with an arrow while
out hunting. Like Peleus (Apollod. iii.
12. § 2) and Patroclus (Hom. Il.
xxiii. 85) Brutus was banished by his
kindred and he went in search of purification.
He headed east and ended up according to Milton as the leader of a group
of Trojan refugees enslaved by a local king in Greece. Brutus withdrew into the
wilderness with his countrymen and King Pandrasus pursued. The forces met on the banks of the river
Achelous. Brutus conquered and captured
Pandrasus. The concessions demanded were
the freedom of the Trojans, a massive fleet for their departure and the hand of
the king’s daughter Innogen.
So
the brute Brutus took the maiden Innogen[iii] wife
and the Trojan fleet departed. One the
third day they land on a deserted island and discover a temple to Artemis. After performing the proper rituals, Brutus
falls asleep in the temple and dreams of the goddess;
“Brutus! There lies beyond the Gallic bounds an island
which the western sea surrounds by giants once possessed, now few remain to bar
they entrance or obstruct thy reign. To
reach that happy shore thy sails employ.
There fate decrees to raise a second Troy and found an empire in thy
royal line, which time shall ne’er destroy, nor bounds confine.” [iv]
I
am reminded of the famous quote in reference to the British Empire "this vast empire on which the sun never sets, and
whose bounds nature has not yet ascertained."[v] But at the same time this sure sounds
familiar; an unnamed island across an unnamed sea, occupied by giants? Polyphemus, the cyclops-son of Poseidon and
Odysseus’ enemy certainly comes to mind. (Homer,
Odyssey 9. 110)
But here is the story of the sea-girt island that
Artemis now directs Brutus’ fleet towards.
Like the Danaides[vi]
and the women of Lemnos,[vii]
thirty Grecian princesses conspired to kill their grooms. Their plot was betrayed and they were set
adrift, landed on the island that was to become the home of Brutus realm. The eldest princess Albina was the first to
step ashore and the island was named in her honor Albion. They women mated with spirits birthed a race
of giants. But by the time of Brutus’
arrival only 24 of the race survived due to fraternal conflict.[viii]
Upon arrival in England Brutus and company hold a
feast of thanksgiving when two score of the giants descend on the Trojans. A great slaughter ensues. Victorious Brutus erects his capital upon the
banks of Father Thames and names it New Troy (in Latin Troia Nova.) According
to Monmouth the name is corrupted into Trinovantum and later London. Brutus reigns with Innogen for twenty-four
years. His three sons divide up his
kingdom; Locrinus claims England, Albanactus takes Scotland, leaving Wales for Camber.
[i]
Sorry couldn’t resist a classicist joke; “Within the convention of epic
composition, an incident that is untraditional would be huper-morian; beyond
destiny.” Gregory nagy, The Best of the
Achaeans, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, page 40
[ii]
Apollodorus. The Library. Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical
Library Volumes 121 & 122. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London,
William Heinemann Ltd. 1921 3.5.7-8
[iii] Per the Wikipedia article of the same name; “Innogen is a female given name. The name comes
from Old Irish and means "maiden" or "daughter". The much
more common name “Imogen” originated as a misspelling of, or variation on, the
older name Innogen.
[iv]
Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britian, trans. Aaron Thompson
and JA Gills, Medieval Latin Series, Cambridge, Ontario 1999, page 14
[v]
Macartney, George (1773). An
Account of Ireland in 1773 by a Late Chief Secretary of that Kingdom.
p. 55.; cited in Kenny,
Kevin (2006). Ireland and the British Empire. Oxford University Press.
p. 72,
[vi]
Apollodorus. The Library. Translated by
Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 121 & 122.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921 [2.1.5]
[vii]
The Myths of Hyginus, translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas
Publications in Humanistic Studies, no. 34. Lawrence: University of Kansas
Press, 1960. Chapter 15
[viii]
Richard Barber ed, The Giants of the Island of Albion, Myths & Legends of
the British Isles, Boydell Press, based on 14th century manuscript;
Des Grantz Geanz and its variants
Fantastic! Now you could try to trace Aeneas' bloodline to the Founding Fathers of America :-).
ReplyDeleteMaya,
ReplyDeleteWell of course there is a website that traces the royal genealogy of the founding fathers! http://genealogyofpresidents.blogspot.com/2010/12/royal-ancestry-of-george-washingtons.html
Bill
We talked before about Aeneas - how carefully his destiny is planned and then, disappointingly, no continuation follows, allowing all European monarchs to claim descent from him.
ReplyDeleteYou also suggested that Homer occasionally crossed the line, went to the surviving "Trojans" and sang to them about the death of Hector.
After the Trojan war, the region of Troy, as far as I know, was under Greek control for a very long time. However, sometimes the victorious people, settling on the land of the vanquished, starts to some degree to identify with them. E.g. we Bulgarians like to speak of the Thracians as our ancestors. In fact, our Slavic ancestors, coming to the land of the Thracians, most likely slaughtered the locals. Eh well, they may have taken some Thracian women as additional wives... anyway, we wish to be related to the people who created the incredible wall paintings and gold treasures.
Take also Thebes: According to the dominant myth, the old Theban population flew the Epigoni and was replaced by a motley crew brought by Thersander son of Polyneices. So we'd expect the historical Thebes to identify with the Epigoni and to distance themselves from the mythical early population. Instead, Thebans tried to defend this population and claimed that the bodies of the Seven and their army were returned for burial voluntarily.
So my guess is that some polis in the region of Troy, after being populated (or even built) by Greeks, started to identify with the Trojans, possibly after some conflict with other Greeks. Its ruler claimed to be a descendant of Aeneas, and Homer occasionally visited and performed in his palace. The scene in Iliad XX where Poseidon rescues Aeneas and promises bright future for his lineage is hence an analog of the scene in Macbeth with the mirror showing Banquo's descendants. In a step further, Hector may have been either the name or an epithet of this ruler.
I've just got an idea that Hector may have another origin.
DeleteI was thinking of the asymmetry of Greek vs. Hittite sources - how Hittite records mention "Achaea" and even individual names such as "Eteocles", while Greek sources haven't kept even the name of the great adversary, the Hittite empire. And then I realized that "Hector", like "Hittite", has similar consonants, H followed by T. (From my brief search, it seems that the initial H was pronounced in the Archaic period; I guess this was true also for the earlier periods, though Hector was written E-ko-to in Linear B.)
So maybe Hector was an eponymous representative of the Hittite people, with a name twisted to an understandable and relevant Greek word.
I checked, however, and found that "Hittites" is an exonym, and there are no data that the Greeks ever used it. So my best candidate for Hector so far is the Hittite king Hattusili III (ca. 1267-1237 BC), presumed to be the author of the Tawagalawa ("Eteocles") letter. This letter to the king of "Ahhiyawa" deals mainly with the activities of warlord Piyama-Radu and contains the famous quote, "Now as we have come to an agreement on Wilusa over which we went to war..."
DeleteIn Italian, "kt" becomes "tt". "Direct" is diretto and Hector is Ettore. Maybe the opposite transformation also happens.
Maya,
DeleteI can't think of any example of the name Hector nor other arguments about who he could be in Hurrian or the Hittite language sorry.
Bill
The name was used in Mycenaean Greece. After the Iliad, it is difficult to imagine a Greek naming his son Hector. (The name Cassandra had a similar history.)
DeleteI am now reading Michael Ende's Neverending Story with one of my kids. There, the residents of Fantastica cannot invent a name or a plot and envy humans for these abilities. Homer easily invents plots but seems to avoid inventing names whenever possible. We commented once how he recycled two names from Heracles' story to staff Patroclus' story. Two daimons became, respectively, Patroclus' father and a man killed by Patroclus. So I suspect that every important name in Homer, if not rooted in the earlier collection of myths about the Trojan War, comes either from another myth (such as Patroclus' father Menoetius) or from history. I may very well be wrong, but speculating which comes from where is fun!
Sarah S pointed out that In Euripides' Medea most of the speaking characters don't have names; Nurse, Chorus, Messenger, Creon (of Corinth's) daughter never gets a name and Creon means Ruler.
DeleteBill
Creon's daughter, if I remember correctly, never appeared onstage but had a name, Glauce. Creon himself, I guess, had to be called just "the Ruler" because it would be too brave an invention to stick the brand new story of his murder onto the name of an already existing (mythic) king of Corinth. The other anonymous characters have a low social status. In Greek tragedy, they have no names, quite like the Japanese peasants in "Shogun". I read somewhere that it must have been a surprise for the audience when the Chorus of the Libation Bearers called the Nurse by name.
DeleteI also suppose that keeping most of the characters nameless helps to direct the attention to those who have names.
In Greek myth, the name may be derived from a story but a story may also grow from the name, or both may happen, in that order.
DeleteTake Antigone. One wonders who would name his daughter "the one who is against motherhood" or something of this sort. However, the name was in use. The first wife of Peleus was named Antigone, though she did have a daughter. Then, Antigone is one of the daughters of Oedipus. In some versions, she and Ismene have similar fates. Then, Sophocles takes Antigone and writes a play how she destroyed her chance to become a mother.
"Hades" (the Hidden One) apparently is to mean that the ruler of the underworld cannot be seen by us while we are alive, or that we wouldn't wish to see him even if we can. Then, a helmet of invisibility is invented and even included in the strange tale of Perseus.
Hesiod's version of the Prometheus story does not include any hint of prophetic ability (except when Prometheus warns his brother that Zeus would try to hurt the humans by giving him a present, but many would make such a guess under the circumstances). The name of Prometheus, however, can be interpreted as "prophet", and Aeschylus later wrote a play based on this.
Epimetheus initially seems to have got this name just to be distinguished from his brother. In one version, he marries an Oceanid and becomes an ancestor to the rulers of Corinth; no hint of any stupidity. Then, Hesiod turns him into the fool who thoughtlessly received Pandora and her box (though btw I don't see Epimetheus actually hurt by his deeds; he would be hurt only if he is a philanthrope, and nothing indicates that he is).
So I can easily imagine a non-Greek name containing "h" and "t" transformed into Hector, and then Homer choosing it for the figure of the great defender of Troy. I wonder what heroic deeds did Achilles do in the early version of the myth, before Homer invented Hector. As we talked before, it is difficult for Achilles to earn kleos without Hector. He doesn't take Troy and doesn't kill Paris - on the contrary, he is killed by Paris.
I tried to check the meaning of the name Medea, without success. Do you know that a US leftist chose for herself, of all names, Medea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_Benjamin
Maya,
DeleteNagy has a theory that the names of sons are epithets of the father. It works well often. If I was Jocasta and had figured I'd first maimed and then we'd my own son, I might be the one who is against motherhood
Bill
Oh yes, this must have been the case! Jocasta maims and abandons her first child to his death (as she thinks), does not feel well about it and when has new babies, names one of them - possibly the eldest - Antigone.
DeletePoly nieces means much strife, Ismeme; knowledge , and Eteocles;; true glory. Maybe P&E first and then things went downhill.
DeleteBill
Thank you for this etymological research!
DeleteSo Ismene is another example of the "story - name based on story - new story based on name" sequence. I've always thought that she was simply named after the local river, like Astyanax. However, the name happens to have also a relation to "knowledge", and Sophocles makes her the only character of the Antigone who retains both humanity and sense throughout the play.
Oedipus' children are usually presumed to have been born in the order: Polyneices, Eteocles, Antigone, Ismene. However, I don't know any source for this. The names of Polyneices and Eteocles may imply that Eteocles was considered to have more right, as in Aeschylus' Seven. This may come just from his role as defender of his city, or may indicate that initially he was the elder brother. It matters little when the daughters were born. Antigone is usually presumed to be very young. However, if we take the dominant version of the myth, with her brothers having sons able to command armies in the Epigoni war, she must have been in her mid- or late 20s when she dies. The text of the Antigone states that Haemon is very young, but I don't remember any direct reference to his fiancee's age. She may have been 10 years older than him.
Maya,
DeleteWe still might want to give due consideration for Ismene being named for ancestress the Nymph Ismene. Also I think it is unlikely that a Theban prinsess in her twenties would unmarried.
As far as I know ancient Greek laws, if there was any problem with marrying off the princesses, Creon as their uncle was obliged to marry them to his sons, if he had any. This family obligation explains why Creon allowed Haemon to be betrothed to Antigone, despite considering her crazy since birth. If Haemon was too young to marry, I guess Antigone had to wait.
DeleteWe can extrapolate from the other Theban plays of Sophocles, though it is not clear whether we have the right to.
When the inbreeding coefficient of Oedipus' children is revealed at the end of the Oedipus Rex, Oedipus complains to Creon that nobody would marry his daughters now, and asks Creon to take care of them.
In the Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus explicitly calls Antigone "adult" and laments that her traveling with him and caring for him has prevented her from having a normal life (and presumably marrying).
Maya,
ReplyDeleteNice explanation! I am always amazed that the people of Mexico can relate to the Aztecs and Conquistodors at the same time.
Over at Hour 25 we are re-reading Medea. I am reading Ian Johnstons translation. I will have to look at the Greek, but the chorus leader claims to be Medea's friend, one of Jason's servants runs to warn her and Augeus quickly befriends her. She isn't the forlorn friendless stranger in a strange land she pretends to be. A friend to Medea? I can't imagine.
Bill
Actually, today's Mexicans can very well be descendants of both the Aztecs and the Conquistadors. Mixing of invaders and subjugated natives to produce a new nation is not that uncommon. Take e.g. the English nation.
ReplyDeleteI recently listened to the presentation of a PhD thesis about the genetic composition of modern Bulgarians. The author claimed it to be "Central-European" and "Mediterranean" (presumably reflecting Slavic and Thracian) in roughly equal percentages. I'd be happy to believe her if she had not claimed that the Asian and African genes have equal, negligible contributions of 1-1.5%. However, historical sources say with absolute certainty that the state was founded by Bulgars, a Turkic tribe, so Asian genes are definitely expected. On the other side, African presence is altogether absent in historical sources, except in an enigmatic decoration on a Thracian gold plate shown in the bottom images here:
http://ancient-treasure.info/thracian-treasures/panagyurishte-gold-treasure.html
So I suspect that the unwillingness to have any relation to anything Turkic muddied the waters of that particular piece of genetic research.
In 1994 a report in Time magazine about child murderess Susan Smith from South Carolina began with a quote from the Medea.
ReplyDeleteIn 2001, there was a similar case in my city. A mother named Daniela Terziiska claimed that her 3-yr-old son Peter had been kidnapped. The child's body was soon found in an artificial lake in a park. To cut the long story short, this woman had schizophrenia, so her husband intended to divorce and obtain custody of the child. Many Bulgarians still spin conspiracy theories and refuse to believe. They apparently think that only a "foreigner" can murder her own child, our women are too virtuous for this.
I guess that some similar case in Athens has inspired Euripides to twist the myth as he did.
As for Medea having friends - Dyllan Storm Roof also had. They presumably thought him a generally nice guy who occasionally rants about black people. The foreheads of such individuals aren't inscribed "murderer"!
I've just read a discussion about poor old Creon. He has some similarity to Medea: he has caused, or at least contributed to, the death of his son Megareus. Of course, sacrificing an adult son for the sake of the polis is very different from killing one's young children for personal revenge. Nevertheless, the fact is that Creon has in effect killed his son. He is cursed for having done it, and he would be cursed also if he had declined to do it.
ReplyDeleteSophocles is rather unfair to Creon, hiding the ruler's loss until about line 1300 (thus breaking the basic rule of detective stories) and making other characters say absurd lines in order to downplay the ruler's loss. The Chorus (110ff.): "Covered in white wings... The enemy first hovered and weighed his blood-thirsty spears above our seven-gated castle but then he turned sharply and ran well before his face was soaked with our own blood!" (Actually, his face was soaked with pretty much of Thebans' blood.) Herald (1155ff.): "Men who live around the houses of Cadmus and those of Amfion! I shall never praise nor lament the life of man, whatever it may be.
Fate lifts him high and Fate drops him hard... Creon, for example. I once used to think that he was an envied man. He saved this land from Cadmus’ enemies, took over its royal office and let his seed blossom among the noble kids." (Actually, in this tragedy, Creon took over the royal office only after one of his noble kids was killed.)
In Euripides' Phoenician Women, it is Teiresias who selects the victim. I wonder, was there a version in which Creon had a Sophie's choice between his two sons? I wonder how critics can say that, when Haemon comes to plead for Antigone, Creon could and should have listened to his son's "reasonable" words and feel fatherly love. In fact, I suspect that throughout the dialogue, anyone in the position of Creon would just think that he had sacrificed the wrong son.
Maya,
ReplyDeleteYou know me I am always sympathetic for Creon. The guy is clearly insane with grief and traumatized by recent events. He is not thinking clearly. That doesn't excuse his stupid decisions, but my rationalization makes more understandable because we've all been there.
I am on my third reading of Medea. This time Coleridge; it is in old English and not a line by line translation, but much easier to understand. Here is an interesting juxtaposition appropriate to the on versatile here. In "Medea" Creon of Corinth's daughter dies in here wedding dress. In "Antigone" Creon of Thebes' niece is often portrayed in a wedding dress at her death. The Greeks had an aversion to the unwed dead. Girls were often buried in wedding dresses.
Bill
I fully agree with your assessment of Creon's state of mind. His inner world is collapsing, just a visible shell stays like some exoskeleton. (I read somewhere that the actor was in armor, as was appropriate for a strategos.) His boastful speeches in the beginning remind me of Agamemnon, another father doomed after sacrificing a child to achieve military success.
ReplyDeleteThis said, I am not sure whether Creon's decisions are as stupid as they seem at the end. The Chorus initially didn't find anything wrong with letting Polyneices' body rot. Nobody could predict Antigone's reaction; a normal person in her position would remain passive, like Ismene. (BTW, in my translation at least, Ismene not only agrees to leave her brother unburied, but does not utter a single word of shock, grief or indignation when she hears of Creon's order.) Also, I think Creon was quite right to think that if he let his niece or his brat transgress his orders with impunity, nobody would obey him anymore, and the long-suffering city would plunge into anarchy. The only real fault I find in Creon is that he gloats and mocks Antigone as he sends her to her death.
I am now briefly browsing the text of the Medea and found a curious detail: she complains to the Chorus of having no brother to whom she could turn for support (this is approx. at line 50). Quite like the dark joke about the man who killed his parents and then asked the judge for clemency because he was an orphan.
ReplyDeleteCorrection about the line: it is between 255 and 260. "I have no mother, no brother, no relative at all to whom I can turn for support at this dreadful hour of mine."
ReplyDeleteLet's try to catalog the mythical heroines who throw themselves into the arms of a dubious foreigner. Medea, Ariadne, Glauce, Helen... Nausicaa didn't do it, but clearly wanted to.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Euripides and the Athenian audience thought of Glauce and her father Creon. Irresponsible rulers "enjoy" universal dislike, and almost the same is true about women who start a relationship with a married man and destroy his family. The Chorus asks Medea to spare her children but doesn't say a word in defense of Glauce and Creon.
Maya,
ReplyDeleteI too noted with a touch of disgust Medea saying she had no brother. Some where she calls her self a captive, which was kind of a lie too. Still all the foreign women are pretty much captive once the settle in to a strange land. Europa was Phoenician and married a Cretan. Io an Egyptian. I will look at the genealogy tables and get back to you.
Bill
Other women throwing herself into the arms of a foreigner include; Phaedra and Theseus, which you'd think she'd know better consider what happen to her sister. The Amazon Hippoluta and T. Andromache and Perseus; of course her parents and people tried to sacrifice so she had motivation to leave. Of course men threw themselves into the arms which the experiences of Eos' lovers and the Homeric a Hymn to A indicates is a bad idea
ReplyDelete