jlf1961
Posts: 14840
Joined: 6/10/2008
From: Somewhere Texas
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quote:
ORIGINAL: WhoreMods
As you say, accounts differ and the influence of the Gods is the key to culpability here. If Aphrodite (acting as Zeus' catspaw or not) gave Helen to Paris, then neither of them has any real culpability in the matter. If we go with Julian Jaymes rather than Homer (that the godwhispering in the minds of early bonze age Greeks was a form of shamanic mental illness) then Paris and Helen were both culpable to some degree. My own inclination in that case would be that Paris is somewhat more culpable than Helen, however willingly she went off to Troy with him.
You do raise an interesting point about Sparta, but I don't think that holds in this case. The Trojan war took place a long time before Xerxes' invasion, and the population of Mycenae at that point was supposedly Dorians rather than Spartans. Think about it: if Menelaus and Agamemmenon had been that sort of Spartan, they wouldn't have needed to raise an army from half of the kingdoms in Golden age Greece to retrieve Helen, would they?
The Spartan army, even at its height, was never that large, and the archeological evidence shows Troy to be a much larger walled city.
Now, even in the classical age of Greece, it would have taken an army 5 times that of the defenders to besiege a walled city, and the goal was not to take the city, but to wipe it from the map (Greeks were always a bit on the extreme when it came to such things.)
And, depending on which account you wish to read, Agamemnon and Menelaus garnered much of their support by making Troy out to be the 'evil empire' of the time (to borrow Reagan's phrase.)
Of course, it is my opinion that many of the battles outside the walls of Troy might not have actually happened. When you consider that, again looking at the evidence from the ruins of Troy, there seemed to be a lot of buildings dedicated to food storage, and at least six wells within the walls, the Trojans could have probably waited out the siege for a few years before getting that desperate.
Another point to consider, the besieging Greeks would have had to forage for supplies, which is the primary reason that the besieging force has to be so much greater than the defenders, so at least half the Greek force would have been raiding for food and provisions, having to range further out as time passed.
Finally, the great strength in the Spartan army was the way the fought, they were the shock troops of the era. They would have been great IF the walls had been breached, but as a besieging force, not so much. The Spartan army traveled light, making up for much of their prowess in the speed of their attacks.
Finally, Spartan strength was its army, not a navy. Sparta was located along the Eurotas river, so it was not a port city in any sense. They needed the Greek city states WITH navies just to get them to Troy, and the harbor city was primarily for trade and little else.
And then there is the time of the Trojan war, the Greek city states were just starting to emerge as something more than villages, and each vastly different. So again, historically speaking I have doubts as to how big a force any one of the city states could mount.
The trojan wars are dated to around 725BCE, which is again, at the time of the rise of the city states, and before they really had a chance to develop the 'personalities' attributed to their citizens, so it is conceivable that the Spartan army was not the power house it came to be later in history.
Of course, the major kicker is that so many of the key players in the tale are either blessed by the gods in some way) Achilles and his heel, or sons or daughters of some oversexed god or another.
Historically, through archeology, we know the Trojan war happened.
As to the real cause, we only have the oral traditions that date to 725BCE, and the wars happened sometime before that.
In my professional career, I had the opportunity to visit many of the historic battlefields, so, here is my theory about how the thing came about.
Helen, a much younger woman being married to a geezer type noble, decided, in the heat of passion to run off with a young Trojan prince.
Now, according to the tales, they had a couple of kids prior to this incident, but who is to say that the old guy was indeed the father?
Menelaus, the old fart, was a bit pissed off that his young queen decided she wanted a younger viral prince, and ran off to Troy. Now being the cuckolded king that he was, he went crying to his brother, and the rest of the Greek city states, probably saying "Paris stole my wife."
He and his brother probably added something to the effect, that the Trojans had no ethics or honor, since a Prince, who in Greece would have never thought of such a thing, stole another man's wife, thus if that is an example of their nobility, what are the rest of the people like.
So, destroying Troy was actually an act of self defense and honor.
Now in Paris's defense, he was young, full of piss and vinegar, and well, the most beautiful woman in the world wanted in his toga, hell yeah he was gonna tap that.
So Paris thought with his dick and not with his brain.
Now when he got home, I am certain that his dad and the rest of the Trojan royalty reamed his ass but good. They knew that the Greeks would take insult, and they did not have the advantage on calling on a bunch of other city states for help defeating the Greeks.
So, when Paris went out to face Menelaus, it was not so much as an honor thing as a "boy did I fuck up, and if I kill this guy, maybe they will go away" or it could have been by order of his dad, with the basic, "you made your bed, now die in it."
I figure that when he died, the Trojans offered to send Helen back, but by this time, and after much expense on the part of the Greeks, getting the bitch back was not going to cut it. They had to come out with a bit more, and Troy was a wealthy city.
So the counter offer was "yeah, we will take the slut back, and we want everything you have of value to boot."
Now the evidence in archeology of the region does show a bunch of temples were destroyed at about the same time, so the pious Greeks not only were intent on sacking Troy, they were taking everything of value.
Hell, it might not have been a god that put Paris up to it, but some Greek dropping hints with the idea that if he acted on his dick brain, the Greeks could come out with a shit ton of wealth.
And, if you take the hints dropped by my grand kids about my age, I was there. I mean last night one of them asked if I was a kid when Washington was president. This along with "did they have tv (or cars, planes, wheels) when you were a kid?"
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Paranoid Paramilitary Gun Loving Conspiracy Theorist AND EQUAL OPPORTUNI
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