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BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory...
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Subject: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Little Hawk Date: 14 Oct 03 - 11:43 PM I recently read a fascinating article about the development of civilization and military attack and defense which suggested that the famous "Trojan Horse" in Homer's Iliad was not originally the wooden horse as presented in the tale (along with intervening gods and goddesses and various other marvelous things like that), but something a bit more prosaic, as follows... At first people moved about as hunter-gatherers, and warfare was not too organized or large-scale, specially if the food supply was adequate for the various roaming small tribes. With the development of agriculture, people became more inclined to form permanent settlements which got larger, and they found that the best way of defending these settlements was with a palisade, which was improved to a stone wall, which led to larger fortifications, and so on. This led to denser concentrations of people and the employment of skilled artisans, which led to the fortified city-state. For a lengthy period the city-state was able to resist almost any outside attackers by simply outlasting them through living on stored up provisions while the besiegers ran out of supplies (having scoured the countryside) and perished trying to assault the battlements. This was exactly how the Trojans figured to outlast the Greeks, but the Greeks had a new weapon...a large and very skilled fleet of ships. Those ships ushered in the modern period of military campaigns sustained by transoceanic (or in this case trans-Mediterranean) supply lines which could indefinitely supply an expeditionary force as long as that force could control the sealanes. Thus naval supremacy became a key to military supremacy. The "wooden horse" out of whose belly Greek soldiers streamed into Troy and destroyed the city was the Greek galley. It didn't happen in one night, it happened over a period of ten years. The Greek ships were made of wood (thus "wooden horse"), and like horses they carried all the provisions and troops the Greeks needed for as long as they needed them over any distance required. It gave them mobility and flexibility too. So the famous Trojan horse may just have been a symbol of Greek seapower in a tale which is full of larger than life symbols. I found this very interesting. I don't know if it's true, but it may be. Greek naval expertise later defeated the Persians as well, against all expectations. The Romans also extended their power successfully in the Mediterranean world by having a large and fairly efficient navy, though they much preferred fighting on land. It enabled them to get into North Africa and destroy Carthage, their one really serious rival. The British later defeated Spain at sea and subsequently wore down Napoleon through control of the sealanes (with help from the fiasco in Russia to be sure), and the Allies defeated the Central Powers in WWI and the Axis in WWII the same way...first by seapower, then by airpower, finally by ground assault or occupation. Now I can't find the article (sigh...). It was far more convincing than this short description I've given. I've always found the Trojan Horse tale fascinating, but it really does not sound very likely. I don't think the Trojans would have been quite that unwary regarding a hollow horse full of soldiers left on their doorstep. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Amos Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:42 AM That's not fair LH!! You have the meme, the classic archetypal story as a reference, whereas they did not have it!! There is a first time for everything. Right? Tell me I'm right....please!!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: JohnInKansas Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:50 AM At least in the translation(s) I've read, what is overblown is the "hollow horse out of whose belly Greek soldiers streamed into Troy and destroyed the city." The tale has been depicted that way by later "interpreters," particularly a few painters, etc.; but the story as I recall reading it was that the horse contained only enough soldiers to open the gate - for the army waiting outside. Quite likely it would have taken more than one or two, given the rather massive deadbolts one would expect; but a dozen would probably have been sufficient. The rather extended description of the drunken celebration of the Trojans' apparent victory, based on the pretense of a total withdrawal by the enemy, makes it pretty clear that the tale is a warning against Greek treachery and little more. There also is no other mention in the tale (that I recall) of any significant part played by naval forces, either in battle or as a means of extended resupply of the attackers. It's a nice allegory; but I'd have to go back and re-read the whole tale (and it's so.o.o.o boring) to look for any possible support for your "new" interpretation. But I rather doubt it can be made credible as an intent in the original form of the tale. Nothing wrong with new allegories, though. Your version would certainly make a better movie. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 15 Oct 03 - 01:49 AM The idea has merit and interest. Let us not, however, forget Leonidas with his Spartans and helots at the hot gates of Thermopyle. Ever. Just as a note of interest, the admiral who defeated the Persian fleet was a lady. It doesn't seem that the Persians relied much on sea power. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: JohnInKansas Date: 15 Oct 03 - 03:54 AM LH - For a lengthy period the city-state was able to resist almost any outside attackers by simply outlasting them through living on stored up provisions while the besiegers ran out of supplies (having scoured the countryside) and perished trying to assault the battlements. Some would say that the advantage here more generally was on the side of those outside the walls, since they could expand their "harvest" area at will, while those inside had a fixed, and usually limited, supply of consumables. Of course that's assuming that the great general Jubilation T. Cornepone wasn't leading the attackers. It's been suggested that there was really little need to "storm the battlements" if an attacker was willing to wait for the rats and their fleas to do in those inside. Unfortunately, just waiting around doesn't make for good tales, so it appears to have been under-reported as a battle tactic. (And of course, the rats and fleas were outside too - as many an army has learned.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Steve Parkes Date: 15 Oct 03 - 04:20 AM They weren't navies as we understand the word today. Even the Phonoecians were only coastal sailors. In particular, the Roman military "navy" consisted of transports for the army: rather like the "mounted infantry" of the Boer War, who rode up to the front (much quicker than marching), then dismounted to fight in the "normal" manner. Greek oared ships were fitted with rams on their prows, so they could sink enemy ships, of course. Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Gurney Date: 15 Oct 03 - 05:59 AM Sounds like historians debunking historians again. Can anyone see a Greek, with their maritime experience, calling a ship a 'horse'? Nah, divine wind, wooden walls, something like that, but a horse? They gave credit where it was due, didn't they? I'm only assuming the victors wrote the history. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Steve Parkes Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:07 AM And I don't suppose they confused camels with ships of the desert, Gurney! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:26 AM Maybe some day in the future there'll be historians saying how that story about a handful of people with knives using hijacked airliners as bombs on September 11th clearly couldn't have happened that way... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: AKS Date: 15 Oct 03 - 09:36 AM Bet you McGrath! There'll always be people to whom simple fact is too simple: eg the German reporter Jutta Rabe keeps insisting, that Estonia was exploded and sunk by conspirators, and denying that a ship - or rather a ferry - constructed for relatively quiet waters of the Finnish archipelago was pressing at full speed against the storm on the open Baltic Sea... AKS But then the story about the horse could, of course, be Ulysses' fiction to fool Homer and the historians to come! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Mark Clark Date: 15 Oct 03 - 10:11 AM I'm pretty sure it was a Trojan rabbit. I saw it depicted in a Brittish “documentary” film once. <g> - Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Don Firth Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:29 PM But the Trojans voluntarily brought the horse inside the gates (despite the dire warnings of Cassandra and others). How would that fit with the idea that the horse is a metaphor for the galley? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 15 Oct 03 - 02:38 PM The other question is whether Homer (or whoever)was writing history or fantasy-fiction. It may be this whole discussion is like asking whether Gandalf really did rise from the dead, or was that just a symbol of something else. Sometimes a story is a story. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Little Hawk Date: 15 Oct 03 - 04:27 PM Well, no, Troy existed and it was destroyed by a Greek siege, according to some pretty convincing evidence. It was a tremendously important event in early Greek history, and became a tale that resounded through their culture more largely than any other. Not just a story, I don't think. I find the analogy of the wooden ship as "wooden horse" just fascinating...kind of gave me chills when I read about it. But it is just a theory. I neither accept it unconditionally nor do I reject it. Whether the Trojans took in the horse willingly or not also remains speculative, under these circumstances. They apparently took Helen in willingly, although it brought a ruinous war upon them, so Cassandra might just as well have warned them against that too. Good stories tend to arise and mutate out of great events. For example, Washinton Irving wrote a very fanciful tale about Columbus which had every school kid in North America thinking that his sailors were ready to mutiny because they thought the world was flat and they would sail off the edge! This was utter nonsense. The sailors in Columbus' time were well aware that the world was round, they just didn't know how far it would take to reach "China" by going across the uncharted Atlantic, and they were afraid of running out of food and water and all dying before they reached land. And they would have, too, had not the American continents and islands have been waiting there for them to stumble into. All professional navigators in Columbus time knew the world was round...they just didn't know how large it was, and they had not yet crossed the central Atlantic, which was an unknown region at the time. Columbus wasn't trying to prove the world was round, he was trying to find a shorter sea route to China! So real events can inspire dramatic but partially fanciful tales. It's happened before and probably will again. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 15 Oct 03 - 11:15 PM Since this is all speculative, here is some speculation. Poseidon was not only the god of the sea but also of horses and earthquakes. If the horse is a metaphore for Poseidon, perhaps a timely earthquake, by spilling tinder onto a cooking fire and torching the city, allowed the enemy in. Now to explain why the horse is wooden. Although Homer may have been a real person, he only wrote a part of the Ilead. There were many Homers, many of which didn't understand what really happened. So the folk process invented a trick which made more sense to them. Simple. Maybe even a little true. Little Hawk: Professional astronomers suspected the world was round. Professional seamen were hard working, illiterate. ignorant sons of bitches. Who knows what they thought. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Gurney Date: 16 Oct 03 - 03:07 AM I'll go along with Little Hawk, professional seamen includes pilots, shipowners, navigators, venturers, and a lot of other smart, gutsey men. People who have seen a lot don't believe everything some stay-at-home tells them, and anyone who has ever looked at the horizon KNOWS the sea is round. For a very long time people had to be very careful what they said, or some religeous bigot would have them tortured, so they kept their mouths shut among non-mariners. Steve Parkes.. No, they confused the camel with a horse which had been designed by a committee. My own personal theory on the 'Wooden Horse' is from the first time I read the story, long ago. I would give the Trojans credit for having some sense, and carefully inspecting any Greek gifts, however, there are things that they might rush out and grab, like siege engines. To break the city gates, a wheeled fortress with a battering-ram inside and a very strong, fireproof roof was sometimes used. If such a device was left, 'carelessly' unguarded, any defender would sally forth and try to destroy or capture it. The design would have to be small enough to fit through the city gates, fireproof enough to reduce the risk to the secreted agents, and if it looks like a horse, all the better. Try that on for size. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Steve Parkes Date: 16 Oct 03 - 04:05 AM Gurney, try crossing the desert on a horse It's always been obvious to salors that the world isn't flat: when you watch a ship go over the horizon, the hull disappears first, then the sails. They might have had trouble believing it was a sphere -- so you could go round it the "wrong" way -- but they could certainly see it wasn't flat. Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Oct 03 - 09:42 AM Besides, the old statues of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders were known in that time too...and that was a round world. Believe me, Washington Irving dreamed this one up out of his own imagination. Gurney, that is a very neat idea about the siege engine! - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 16 Oct 03 - 10:10 AM "See - those Greek bastards have left this siege engine behind. Let's have a bonfire to celebrate..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Steve Parkes Date: 16 Oct 03 - 10:21 AM Are you sure about Atlas, Little Hawk? In the mythology, he was holding up the sky (which is round, you can see it). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: GUEST,petr Date: 16 Oct 03 - 01:02 PM Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth (around 200 bc, I believe) and he was off only by about 2%. most historians regard a 10year siege as unlikely, the citystates just didnt have the resources. I think Michael Wood came up with the Poseidon/Horse/Earthquake theory as there is archaelogical evidence of major earthquake damage at Troy. on another note, the very early city states appear to have no defenses (such as Mohenjo Daro in India, or the Knossos on Crete or for that matter, theres also one in south america (the name escapes me) but researchers call them mother-cities in that they were the first. they appear to have started usually as a confluence of trade routes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 17 Oct 03 - 10:58 AM GUEST,petr is quite correct about Eratosthenes, and a very clever method it was,too, involving measuring the shadows of two very tall poles. But that information was lost and not recovered until some time in the renaissance. Also, the Church wasn't very keen on the idea of a round earth as it supported Gallileo rather than Ptolemy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 17 Oct 03 - 12:33 PM "...the Church wasn't very keen on the idea of a round earth as it supported Gallileo rather than Ptolemy." Ptolemy knew the Earth was spherical. Here's what he wrote about making a map of the Earth: "It remains for us to turn our attention to the method of making maps. There are two ways in which this matter may be treated; one is to represent the habitable earth as spherical; the other is to represent it as a plane surface" (Ptolemy 1932, 38). In other words, draw a map on a globe, or on flat piece of paper, the way most maps are drwn to this day. But either way it'd be a map of a world that was spherical. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Little Hawk Date: 17 Oct 03 - 08:21 PM This just in! The Trojan Horse was actually an early version of the Energizer Bunny, symbolizing the tenancity and sheer bloody-minded stubborness of the Greeks who just kept going, and going, and going, and going...until finally the poor Trojans couldn't stand it anymore and were all ready to kill themselves anyway, just to end the damned thing. The most likeable warrior in the Iliad was certainly Hector, the Trojan champion, finally slain by Achilles. As for Achilles, he was so totally unlikeable that almost no one could stand him. He was the Terminator of his particular time, and exterminated countless individuals far more agreeable than himself (including the Queen of the Amazons). Even the gods couldn't stand it after awhile, so they arranged to have the bastard hit in the heel with a poisoned arrow, courtesy of Paris, prince of Troy, who abducted Helen in the first place. Paris later came to grief too, as did virtually all the principal characters in the whole sorry tale. Basic story: Nasty, embittered old Greek king has beautiful young wife who can't stand him. She meets gorgeous Trojan prince and runs away with him to Troy. Greeks band together to avenge their cuckolded king, a man nobody likes much, but he does represent the nation, right? Trojans band together to defend their city, naturally. Thousands and thousands and thousands of ordinary soldiers die miserably in front of Troy, while a few egotistical heroes stage occasional duels to inspire the troops. Most of the heroes also die as time goes by. Foreign armies come in to help the Trojans, correctly regarding the Greeks as a very dangerous presence, but Achilles manages to kill their champions (a king from Africa and an Amazon queen) and they are defeated. The war drags on. Even the gods take sides, and things really get nasty. Achilles kills Hector and Paris kills Achilles. Finally Oddyseus thinks up the diabolical Engergizer Bunny scheme (if you make a bunny large enough it looks a bit like a horse, but NO ONE is afraid of a bunny, right?), and Troy finally falls..defeated not by a test of arms, but by base trickery. Oddyseus then wanders around for ten years, paying the price of exterminating a city of people far more likeable than his own nation ever was over little cause, and finally comes home and kills all his wife's suitors. Helen moves back in with the nasty old Greek king and hopefully poisons his soup when his guard is down... Talk about a litany of disaster! Never was so much screwed up for so many on behalf of so few. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Little Hawk Date: 17 Oct 03 - 08:37 PM Wait, it was 20 years that he wandered, wasn't it? The moral remains the same in any case... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 17 Oct 03 - 10:21 PM McGrath of Harlow: Perhaps Ptolemy did know the earth was round. It makes little matter because a myriad theologians claimed he said that the earth was a flat disk, floating in the center of space, under the crystal dome of heaven. Somehow 'dome' soon became sphere, as in 'the music of the spheres'. But the earth nevertheless remained flat. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Deda Date: 17 Oct 03 - 11:26 PM No, Odysseus-aka-Ulysses wandered for ten years. Well, actually he was more or less captive on Circe's island for about seven of those years, and spent three years struggling against various monsters, storms, and the vengeance of Poseidon for Odysseus' blinding of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who was reportedly Poseidon's son. Odysseus was at Troy fighting for ten years, so he was away from Ithica, his home, for twenty years, during which his son, Telemachus grew from infancy to manhood. I disagree about the story being boring. It hasn't remained on all required reading lists of the western world for some 2,500 plus years by being boring. It's a great story, a whole bunch of great stories, and people have been picking it all apart and finding new relevance and meaning in it for millenia now. Rough date of Trojan war = 1183 BCE. Homer (however many people he actually was) composed but didn't write Iliad & Odyssey some 2-300 years later. For many generations they are handed down by bards, memorized and sung, strictly oral tradition (true ancient folk music, folks!). It takes another several hundred years before they are written down. There was a Harvard alumnus, I think, who recently assigned himself the task of memorizing the entire opus in the original Greek -- something that any ancient scholar would have had to do in around, say, middle school. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Mark Cohen Date: 18 Oct 03 - 11:27 PM LH, you omitted the details of Paris' fate. He was examining the Bunny carefully, but didn't notice that his head was between the drum and the drumstick. By the time he noticed, it was too late. What with the war on and all, the Trojans didn't have time for a full-scale funeral (besides, his head was all smashed and disgusting), so they simply placed his body in the wall of a temple that was being built, and covered it over with what is now known as plaster of Paris. Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: toadfrog Date: 18 Oct 03 - 11:42 PM I think the article is a bit far fetched. Doubtless there actually was a Trojan War, but virtually the only source that describes it is Homer. Seems very doubtful that in the 12th Century BC the Greeks had the same naval superiority they gained years later. The Trojan war was as far away in time from the wars where Athens demonstrated its naval superiority as we are from the time of Columbus. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 19 Oct 03 - 12:49 PM Toadfrog: Greeks is the wrong word to use in this context. They were already a collection of competing city states with little in common save language and culture. The great majority of the attackers were there for glory and loot. Not because they were ordered to go. Look at the "catalogue of ships" and you'll see there were many small groups from many places. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 19 Oct 03 - 12:52 PM PS. The naval superiority you mention existed only under the Delian League, which most Greeks resented and destroyed as soon as they got the chance. Only two things ever united the Greeks, the Persians and the Romans. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: GUEST,Yes, but... Date: 19 Oct 03 - 01:10 PM The fact remains that the Greeks went to Troy in ships...a large number of ships. Those ships were lined up on the shore, dispensing supplies and troops and going back for more when necessary, and raiding up and down the coast for supplies too. The Trojans had no ships of their own, it seems, with which to oppose the Greek force, so they tried hard to destroy the Greek ships by land attack on at least one occasion, fighting their way down to the beaches under Hector's command and attempting to burn the ships. They did burn some of them, but were repulsed by the Greeks. Without their ships the Greeks would have had to march overland to Troy (and no doubt fight their way through many other lands in order to ever get to Troy). The Greek naval capability was what allowed them to fight and eventually win the Trojan war. The Greeks were very proud of their ships, for good reason. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 19 Oct 03 - 01:40 PM Quite correct Guest. I accept the criticism where it applies, but I don't think it applies much. My sub-text was that any group could have left at any time, for any reason. We all seem to be accepting the length of the siege as stated in the storey. Remember that the ancients loved impressive numbers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: Penny S. Date: 19 Oct 03 - 02:58 PM It is possible to deduce some details of the origin of the story from the accounts given in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other Greek sources. During the nine years before the tenth, in which Troy fell, Odysseus had removed two magical protections from Troy. One was the magical horseteam of Rhesus, king of the Thracians. It was said that once they had drunk of the Scamander, Troy would never fall. Odysseus killed the king, and stole the horses before they drank. Later, he and Diomedes stole the Palladium, a magical image of Athena which had fallen from the sky. It was believed that while this remained within the city, it would never fall. In the Horse, he created a replacement for these lost protections. It was a horse, dedicated to Athena, and had to be within the city to protect it. Whether this represents any sort of truth or not, it'a a good story structure. The horse wos made by the shipwright, though, and the stratagem was supported by Poseidon, who acted to ensure that suspicion was put aside, by killing Laocoon and his sons, so a ship interpretation could be invoved. Some artists suggest that the horse was a ship conversion. Incidentally, Artemisia, the female admiral, was on the Persian side. Darius said of his captains "My men have become women, and my women men," apparently. She was the only one to have any success in the battle. It was the male Persian admirals who won the battle for the Greeks. Penelope |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: GUEST,Yes, but... Date: 19 Oct 03 - 05:02 PM That's true, Penelope. Interesting stuff. The siege of Troy could have gone on for ten years...specially since the Trojans were receiving some significant aid from some of their neighbours from time to time. Clearly the siege was not a complete one...which is to say that it did not succeed in placing a total net around the city at all times...it merely succeeded in keeping up the pressure in front of the city, at the gates, so to speak. It seems to have been a case where the Greeks could not be dislodged from their landing area on the beach, while the Trojans could not be overcome either, until the 10th year. It was a military stalemate until the final act. This is a bit reminiscent of the German siege of Leningrad which went on from the fall of '41 to sometime in '44, I believe, but did not ever succeed in totally cutting off the flow of Russian supplies to that city, some of which were coming across a frozen lake in the winter. The difference being...in this case the Russians eventually triumphed and drove off the besieging force. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Alternative Trojan Horse theory... From: mack/misophist Date: 19 Oct 03 - 10:56 PM My apologies to Ms Penny S. I was wrong. As far as the siege goes, any number of writers have remarked that no siege is complete. If it goes on for a while, some messengers will always get through. |
