It is part of the human condition to reinvent or forget bad memories. For centuries, the creation of the modern USA was seen as a heroic victory over the “savage” Native Americans; any perfunctory view of a John Wayne film confirms this myth, however, today we realise that it was also a way to romanticise violence. It is my contention that the Trojan War falls very much in this category, a bad memory that was reinvented as a glorious victory.
There is no escaping from the tragedy of bad memories. Just like Orestes is cursed to be haunted by the Furies, the tragedy of Troy is ever present in Greek myth. There were countless casualties including the Achaeans Achilles and Ajax as well as the Trojans Hector and Paris. From an ancient perspective the violence would have been seen as the norm, however, from a modern perspective when we look back to the recounts of Troy, one could argue that at times the violence enacted there verged on war crimes. For example: Hector’s body was desecrated, his son Astyanax was hurled from the battlements and immense violence was also perpetrated against women as portrayed in Euripides' fifth century “The Trojan Women”. When we hear of the atrocities in Ukraine today, it is hard to imagine a Russian soldier ever being able to cleanse their psyche of the violence that took place, the same could be said about a Greek soldier from the Trojan War, yet every attempt was made to turn this bad memory into a story of valorous action by the bards of Greek myth.
We see the trauma of Troy in the portrait of the Greek’s ultimate hero, Achilles, who “no mortal can fight head-to-head” and whose very presence gave a sense of invincibility to an army who decimated a city. Traditionally, Greek heroes were mortals endowed with certain gifts by virtue of being descendents of immortal gods. This association with the gods, one could argue, is part of their reinvention as Achilles, for example, was far from an ideal, virtuous hero. Achilles committed appalling acts, his symbolic heel and its connotations of mortal weakness perhaps makes us too sympathetic and ready to excuse his uncontrollable emotions. The love affair with his best friend Patroclus further excuses him from brutal reality as his motive for murderous frenzy is love. It is Achilles who drags Hector’s body around the citadel and it is Achilles who heartlessly hacks to death a young Trojan prince, Lycaon, in book twenty-one of the Iliad after heartlessly stating “Even Patroculus died, who was a better man than you by far.” Even Hector’s defilement, which the ancients would have seen as sacrilegious, has been portrayed in art to glorify the ‘Wrath of Achilles’. Bad memories, however, cannot be completely expunged - even in the Odyssey - where the truth resurfaces. Achilles' shade admits to his regret in his glory; he is restrained to a bleak eternity of ruling over the “breathless dead”. Troy is a bad memory that took his life and son, Neoptolemus, away from him; he doesn’t live a happy life with Patroclus but instead has to suffer the consequence of what was thought to have been the peak of his prophesied prowess. In many ways, we could argue that the emphasis on kleos in Achilles' life, which firmly placed him in the pantheon of great heroes, is a tool used to transform violence into heroism.
The Triumph of Achilles by Franz Matsch, a fresco on the upper level of the main hall of the Achilleion at Corfu, Greece.
A radical reading of Homer’s Odyssey is that buried deep within the narrative is a horrible truth. Odysseus, like Achilles, is a renowned leader who has gained kleos through his actions at Troy, however, if this kleos is truly deserved, why does Odysseus have to suffer so many tribulations on his way home? Of course, a surface reason is that these tribulations are what make the narrative of the Odyssey so interesting and are a result of his quarrel with Polyphemus, however, just maybe, they are also a punishment for the wrongs committed at Troy. The punishments of Troy are reinvented as a story of Odysseus’ heroic journey home. There are hints at this in book twelve when the sirens explicitly mention “the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured/ on the spreading plain of Troy.” It is ironic that this harsh reality is so seductive to Odysseus, he is almost like a Vietnam War veteran, suffering from PTSD, addicted to the pain of the past. The surfacing of his pain is seen again when Demodocus sings of Troy in Phaeacia and “Great Odysseus melted into tears”. Indeed the extended simile that follows, touches on profound guilt as Odysseus is compared to a woman who “weeps… round her darling husband,/ a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen.” It is hard to ignore that Odysseus’ tears are not ones of nostalgia but of self-condemnation as he undoubtedly killed many of these men fighting for their “town and townsmen”.
Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper (1864-1920) - Ferens Art Gallery
We have seen already how the positioning of the Trojan War as a victory can be interpreted as a reinvention of a bad memory with its consequences for Achilles and Odysseus, nowhere is the sense that something negative has been reinvented more starkly seen than in the consequences for Agamemnon’s and Odysseus’ families. If the Trojan War was a righteous victory, surely the families and homes of our heroes would bathe in that glory? This is plainly not the case. Odysseus’ family has been shattered: his wife’s heart grieves; his son is left to come of age without a paternal figure and this destroys his relationship with his mother; insolent suitors take over Odysseus’ palace; his mother, Antikleia, has died from heartache and his father lives plainly in grieving solitude. In Ithaca we see clearer than anywhere else that the reinvention of Troy as a glorious achievement is perhaps a lie. In Ithaca at least, it caused more despair than victory. It is true that when Odysseus returns to Ithaca he restores harmony but what about all the Ithacan men that lost their lives? They cannot restore harmony to their homes. Homer's focus on Odysseus' redemption is perhaps deceitful and narrow because it ignores the true impact of Troy and the memories that come with it.
We have seen how the memories of many of the heroes of Troy were reinvented; how Troy itself, a destructive event, was turned into a great victory and how, try as they may, the heroes of Troy could not escape the consequences. This reinvention did not end there in Troy. The story of this victory was used time and time again as a tool for those who would continue conquering others. Indeed, the representation of the sacking of Troy on the metopes of the Parthenon symbolises a triumph of civilisation over barbarism, an idea that was used to inspire many later wars. Herodotus pointed out that the Trojan War acted as a precursor for the many ensuing battles between the people of Asia and Europe. Alexander the Great used the memory of Troy and particularly Achilles as inspiration for his conquests as he was told from a young age that he was a descendant of Achilles. The Macedonians celebrated the glory of the Greeks at Troy to such an extent, that members of the Macedonian court referred to Alexander as "Achilles" and King Philip as "Peleus". Plutarch and Arrian speak of how Alexander sought to imitate Achilles and saw him as his greatest rival and compared the intensity of Alexander's love for his friend Hephaestion to that of Achilles for Patroclus. A Roman historian Curtius wrote that Alexander revelled in punishing his enemy Betis in the same manner Achilles had punished Hector - by dragging his body behind his chariot and across the rocky plains. There is a romanticisation and obsession with the barbarity of Achilles in the war and this perhaps in part led to Alexander being responsible for at least 100,000 deaths. Even Augustus, who was very fond of reminding everyone of his lineage with Aeneas, flaunted his godly status in his Augustus of Primaporta. One could argue that this godly status was gained in reference to the losses of Troy as Aeneas, a Trojan warrior second to Hector, founded a new city on the future site of Rome after having made peace with King Latinus of Latium.
Augustus from Prima Porta (1st century AD) - Vatican Museums
The Trojan War and the way it was transformed into something glorious is an ancient example of the reinvention of a bad memory through literature. This reinvention tells us a lot about the human condition. We all fail and tell ourselves that it was an off-day rather than facing the truth. Our lives are littered with hagiography passed on by parents about grandparents and our ancestors. On countless occasions those who would seek to oppress or dominate use a reinvention of history as a way to maintain control. A certain Russian leader has brought this to mind with great force in recent times. The Trojan War, however, has an additional twist. Spoken about in literature, it has provided a template for reimagining that others have used for sinister purposes in the real world. However, in spite of its literary prominence, the truth remains that we don’t even know if any of it happened. A bad memory? Perhaps a fiction.
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