THE FALL OF TROY
[Illustration: FIG. 162. ACHILLES AND PENTHESILEA]
=218. The Fall of Troy.= The story of the Iliad ends with the death
of Hector, and it is from the Odyssey and later poems that we learn
the fate of the other heroes. After the death of Hector, Troy did not
immediately fall, but receiving aid from new allies, still continued
its resistance. One of these allies was Memnon, the Ethiopian prince,
whose story has been already told.[311] Another was Penthesilea, queen
of the Amazons, who came with a band of female warriors. All the
authorities attest the valor of these women and the fearful effect
of their war cry. Penthesilea, having slain many of the bravest
Greeks, was at last slain by Achilles. But when the hero bent over his
fallen foe and contemplated her beauty, youth, and valor, he bitterly
regretted his victory. Thersites, the insolent brawler and demagogue,
attempting to ridicule his grief, was in consequence slain by the
hero.[312]
=219. The Death of Achilles.= But Achilles himself was not destined
to a long life. Having by chance seen Polyxena, daughter of King
Priam,--perhaps on occasion of the truce which was allowed the Trojans
for the burial of Hector,--he was captivated with her charms; and to
win her in marriage, it is said (but not by Homer) that he agreed to
influence the Greeks to make peace with Troy. While the hero was in the
temple of Apollo negotiating the marriage, Paris discharged at him a
poisoned arrow,[313] which, guided by Apollo, fatally wounded him in
the heel. This was his only vulnerable spot; for Thetis, having dipped
him when an infant in the river Styx, had rendered every part of him
invulnerable except that by which she held him.[314]
=220. Contest for the Arms of Achilles.= The body of Achilles so
treacherously slain was rescued by Ajax and Ulysses. Thetis directed
the Greeks to bestow her son's armor on that hero who of all survivors
should be judged most deserving of it. Ajax and Ulysses were the only
claimants. A select number of the other chiefs were appointed to award
the prize. By the will of Minerva it was awarded to Ulysses,--wisdom
being thus rated above valor. Ajax, enraged, set forth from his tent
to wreak vengeance upon the Atridæ and Ulysses. But the goddess robbed
him of reason and turned his hand against the flocks and herds of the
Argives, which he slaughtered or led captive to his tent, counting them
the rivals who had wronged him. Then the cruel goddess restored to him
his wits. And he, fixing his sword in the ground, prepared to take his
own life:
"Come and look on me,
O Death, O Death,--and yet in yonder world
I shall dwell with thee, speak enough with thee;
And thee I call, thou light of golden day,
Thou Sun, who drivest on thy glorious car,
Thee, for this last time,--never more again!
O Light, O sacred land that was my home;
O Salamis, where stands my father's hearth,
Thou glorious Athens, with thy kindred race;
Ye streams and rivers here, and Troïa's plains,
To you that fed my life I bid farewell;
This last, last word does Ajax speak to you;
All else, I speak in Hades to the dead."[3]
Then, falling upon his sword, he died. So, in the words of his
magnanimous foe, Ulysses, passed to the god that ruleth in gloom
The best and bravest of the Argive host,
Of all that came to Troïa, saving one,
Achilles' self.[315]
On the spot where his blood sank into the earth a hyacinth sprang up,
bearing on its leaves the first two letters of his name, Ai, the Greek
interjection of woe.[316]
[Illustration: FIG. 163. [OE]NONE WARNING PARIS]
It was now discovered that Troy could not be taken but by the aid
of the arrows of Hercules. They were in possession of Philoctetes,
the friend who had been with Hercules at the last and had lighted
his funeral pyre. Philoctetes[317] had joined the Grecian expedition
against Troy; but he accidentally wounded his foot with one of the
poisoned arrows, and the smell from the wound proved so offensive that
his companions carried him to the isle of Lemnos and left him there.
Diomede and Ulysses, or Ulysses and Neoptolemus (son of Achilles), were
now sent to induce him to rejoin the army. They succeeded. Philoctetes
was cured of his wound by Machaon, and Paris was the first victim of
the fatal arrows.
=221. Paris and [OE]none.= In his distress Paris bethought him of one
whom in his prosperity he had forgotten. This was the nymph [OE]none,
whom he had married when a youth and had abandoned for the fatal beauty
of Helen. [OE]none, remembering the wrongs she had suffered, refused to
heal the wound; and Paris went back to Troy and died. [OE]none quickly
repented and hastened after him with remedies, but came too late, and
in her grief hanged herself.
=222. The Palladium.= There was in Troy a celebrated statue of Minerva
called the Palladium. It was said to have fallen from heaven, and the
belief was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue
remained within it. Ulysses and Diomede entered the city in disguise
and succeeded in obtaining the Palladium, which they carried off to the
Grecian camp.
[Illustration: FIG. 164. THE WOODEN HORSE]
=223. The Wooden Horse.= But Troy still held out. The Greeks began to
despair of subduing it by force, and by advice of Ulysses they resorted
to stratagem.[318] They pretended to be making preparations to abandon
the siege; and a number of the ships were withdrawn and concealed
behind a neighboring island. They then constructed an immense wooden
horse, which they gave out was intended as a propitiatory offering to
Minerva; but it was, in fact, filled with armed men. The rest of the
Greeks then betook themselves to their ships and sailed away, as if for
a final departure. The Trojans, seeing the encampment broken up and the
fleet gone, concluded that the enemy had abandoned the siege. The gates
of the city were thrown open, and the whole population issued forth,
rejoicing at the long-prohibited liberty of passing freely over the
scene of the late encampment. The great horse was the chief object of
curiosity. Some recommended that it be taken into the city as a trophy;
others felt afraid of it. While they hesitated, Laocoön, the priest
of Neptune, exclaimed, "What madness, citizens, is this! Have you not
learned enough of Grecian fraud to be on your guard against it? For my
part, I fear the Greeks even when they offer gifts."[319] So saying,
he threw his lance at the horse's side. It struck, and a hollow sound
reverberated like a groan. Then perhaps the people might have taken his
advice and destroyed the fatal horse with its contents, but just at
that moment a group of people appeared dragging forward one who seemed
a prisoner and a Greek. Stupefied with terror, the captive was brought
before the chiefs. He informed them that he was a Greek, Sinon by name;
and that in consequence of the malice of Ulysses, he had been left
behind by his countrymen at their departure. With regard to the wooden
horse, he told them that it was a propitiatory offering to Minerva, and
had been made so huge for the express purpose of preventing its being
carried within the city; for Calchas the prophet had told them that if
the Trojans took possession of it, they would assuredly triumph over
the Greeks.
[Illustration: LAOCOÖN]
=224. Laocoön and the Serpents.= This language turned the tide of the
people's feelings, and they began to think how they might best secure
the monstrous horse and the favorable auguries connected with it,
when suddenly a prodigy occurred which left no room for doubt. There
appeared advancing over the sea two immense serpents. They came upon
the land and the crowd fled in all directions. The serpents advanced
directly to the spot where Laocoön stood with his two sons. They
first attacked the children, winding round their bodies and breathing
pestilential breath in their faces. The father, attempting to rescue
them, was next seized and involved in the serpent's coils.
... Vain
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
The old man's clinch; the long envenomed chain
Rivets the living links,--the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.[320]
He struggled to tear them away, but they overpowered all his efforts
and strangled him and the children in their poisonous folds. The event
was regarded as a clear indication of the displeasure of the gods at
Laocoön's irreverent treatment of the wooden horse, which they no
longer hesitated to regard as a sacred object and prepared to introduce
with due solemnity into the city. They did so with songs and triumphal
acclamations, and the day closed with festivity. In the night the
armed men who were inclosed in the body of the horse, being let out by
the traitor Sinon, opened the gates of the city to their friends who
had returned under cover of the night. The city was set on fire; the
people, overcome with feasting and sleep, were put to the sword, and
Troy completely subdued.
[Illustration: FIG. 165. THE SACK OF TROY
(Left half)]
=225. The Death of Priam.= Priam lived to see the downfall of his
kingdom and was slain at last on the fatal night when the Greeks
took the city. He had armed himself and was about to mingle with the
combatants,[321] but was prevailed on by Hecuba to take refuge with
his daughters and herself as a suppliant at the altar of Jupiter.
While there, his youngest son, Polites, pursued by Pyrrhus, the son of
Achilles, rushed in wounded and expired at the feet of his father;
whereupon Priam, overcome with indignation, hurled his spear with
feeble hand against Pyrrhus and was forthwith slain by him.
[Illustration: FIG. 166. THE SACK OF TROY
(Right half)]
=226. The Survivors.=[322] Queen Hecuba and her daughter Cassandra were
carried captives to Greece. Cassandra had been loved by Apollo, who
gave her the gift of prophecy; but afterwards offended with her, he had
rendered the gift unavailing by ordaining that her predictions should
never be believed. Polyxena, another daughter, who had been loved by
Achilles, was demanded by the ghost of that warrior and was sacrificed
by the Greeks upon his tomb. Of the fate of the white-armed Andromache
we have already spoken. She was carried off as the wife of Neoptolemus,
but he was faithful to her for only a short time. After he had cast
her aside she married Helenus, a brother of Hector, and still later
returned to Asia Minor.
=227. Helen, Menelaüs, and Agamemnon.= On the fall of Troy, Menelaüs
recovered possession of his wife, who, it seems, had not ceased to
love him, though she had yielded to the might of Venus and deserted
him for another.[323] After the death of Paris, she aided the Greeks
secretly on several occasions: in particular when Ulysses and Diomede
entered the city in disguise to carry off the Palladium. She then saw
and recognized Ulysses, but kept the secret and even assisted them
in obtaining the image. Thus she became reconciled to Menelaüs, and
they were among the first to leave the shores of Troy for their native
land. But having incurred the displeasure of the gods, they were driven
by storms from shore to shore of the Mediterranean, visiting Cyprus,
Ph[oe]nicia, and Egypt. In Egypt they were kindly treated and presented
with rich gifts, of which Helen's share was a golden spindle and a
basket on wheels.
... Many yet adhere
To the ancient distaff at the bosom fixed,
Casting the whirling spindle as they walk.
... This was of old, in no inglorious days,
The mode of spinning, when the Egyptian prince
A golden distaff gave that beauteous nymph,
Too beauteous Helen; no uncourtly gift.[324]
Milton also alludes to a famous recipe for an invigorating draft,
called Nepenthe, which the Egyptian queen gave to Helen:
Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena,
Is of such power to stir up joy as this,
To life so friendly or so cool to thirst.[325]
At last, arriving in safety at Sparta, Menelaüs and Helen resumed their
royal dignity, and lived and reigned in splendor; and when Telemachus,
the son of Ulysses, in search of his father, arrived at Sparta, he
found them celebrating the marriage of their daughter Hermione to
Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.
Agamemnon[326] was not so fortunate in the issue. During his absence
his wife Clytemnestra had been false to him; and when his return was
expected, she with her paramour, Ægisthus, son of Thyestes, laid a
plan for his destruction. Cassandra warned the king, but as usual her
prophecy was not regarded. While Agamemnon was bathing previous to the
banquet given to celebrate his return, the conspirators murdered him.
[Illustration: FIG. 167. ORESTES AND ELECTRA AT THE TOMB OF AGAMEMNON]
=228. Electra and Orestes.= It was the intention of the conspirators to
slay his son Orestes also, a lad not yet old enough to be an object of
apprehension, but from whom, if he should be suffered to grow up, there
might be danger. Electra, the sister of Orestes, saved her brother's
life by sending him secretly to his uncle Strophius, king of Phocis. In
the palace of Strophius, Orestes grew up with the king's son Pylades,
and formed with him a friendship which has become proverbial. Electra
frequently reminded her brother by messengers of the duty of avenging
his father's death; he, too, when he reached maturity, consulted the
oracle of Delphi, which confirmed him in the design. He therefore
repaired in disguise to Argos, pretending to be a messenger from
Strophius, who would announce the death of Orestes. He brought with
him what purported to be the ashes of the deceased in a funeral urn.
After visiting his father's tomb and sacrificing upon it, according
to the rites of the ancients, he met by the way his sister Electra.
Mistaking her for one of the domestics, and desirous of keeping his
arrival a secret till the hour of vengeance should arrive, he produced
the urn. At once his sister, believing Orestes to be really dead, took
the urn from him, and, embracing it, poured forth her grief in language
full of tenderness and despair. Soon a recognition was effected,
and the prince, with the aid of his sister, slew both Ægisthus and
Clytemnestra.[327]
[Illustration: FIG. 168. ORESTES PURSUED BY FURIES]
=229. Orestes pursued by the Furies.=[328] This revolting act, the
slaughter of a mother by her son, though extenuated by the guilt of the
victim and the express command of the gods, did not fail to awaken in
the breasts of the ancients the same abhorrence that it does in ours.
The Eumenides seized upon Orestes and drove him frantic from land to
land. In these wanderings Pylades accompanied him and watched over
him. At length in answer to a second appeal to the oracle, Orestes
was directed to go to the temple of the Tauri in Scythia and to bring
thence a statue of Diana which was believed to have fallen from heaven.
Accordingly the friends went to the Tauric Chersonese. Since there
the barbarous people were accustomed to sacrifice to the goddess all
strangers who fell into their hands, the two friends were seized and
carried bound to the temple to be made victims. But the priestess of
Diana of the Tauri was no other than Iphigenia, the sister of Orestes,
who had been snatched away by Diana at the moment when she was about to
be sacrificed. Ascertaining from the prisoners who they were, Iphigenia
disclosed herself to them; and the three made their escape with the
statue of the goddess, and returned to Mycenæ.[329]
[Illustration: FIG. 169. ORESTES AND PYLADES BEFORE THE KING OF THE
TAURI]
=230. His Purification.= But Orestes was not yet relieved from the
vengeance of the Erinyes. Finally, he took refuge with Minerva at
Athens. The goddess afforded him protection and appointed the court of
Areopagus to decide his fate. The Erinyes brought their accusation,
and Orestes pleaded the command of the Delphic oracle as his excuse.
When the court voted and the voices were equally divided, Orestes
was acquitted by the command of Minerva. He was then purified with
plentiful blood of swine.
FOOTNOTES:
[311] § 128.
[312] Pausanias, 5, 11, § 2; and Sophocles, Philoctetes, 445.
[313] Virgil, Æneid, 6, 57.
[314] Statius, Achilleid, 1, 269.
[315] Sophocles, Ajax.
[316] See Commentary.
[317] Servius Honoratus, Commentary on Æneid (3, 402). According to
Sophocles (Philoctetes), the wound was occasioned by the bite of a
serpent that guarded the shrine of the nymph Chryse, on an islet of the
same name near Lemnos.
[318] Virgil, Æneid, 2.
[319] _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes._--Æneid. 2, 49.
[320] Byron, Childe Harold.
[321] Hecuba's exclamation, "Not such aid nor such defenders does the
time require," has become proverbial.
_Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis_
_Tempus eget._--Æneid, 2, 521.
[322] Euripides,--Troades, Hecuba, Andromache.
[323] According to Euripides (Helen), and Stesichorus, it was a
semblance of Helen that Paris won; the real Helen went to Egypt.
[324] Dyer, The Fleece.
[325] Milton, Comus.
[326] Æschylus, Agamemnon.
[327] Æschylus, Choëphori; Sophocles, Electra; Euripides,--Electra,
Orestes.
[328] Æschylus, Eumenides.
[329] Euripides, Iphigenia among the Tauri.