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Historiai

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  • How accurate is Troy: Fall of a City, Episode 2

    Peter Voller

    So, here we are on episode 2 and, in terms of mythological and historical accuracy, it’s a step up from episode 1 with no ostrich in sight. The dialogue and pacing still leave a fair bit to be desired, but that is not really my remit and I’ll leave that side of things to someone who actually knows something about narratives and story structure. For my area, despite a solid attempt at accuracy I still managed to find quite a few inaccuracies here and there. Let’s take a look.

    The episode begins with Paris and Helen turning up at Troy (hopefully Helen’s back recovers from the inevitable cramp she will have developed after hiding in a box for so long). Priam gives Pandarus a bit of a grilling for not keeping an eye on Paris after Priam “put him in [Pandarus’] charge.” This seems a little harsh considering that in the last episode Priam said that Paris would have to “learn on his own”.

    Moving on, Helen comes in and appeals to Priam and Hecuba saying she never loved Menelaus, and that she never would have chosen to marry him, much to the Trojans shock and surprise. In historical and mythological context, this speech is nonsense. Many high-born girls were wedded via arranged marriages, so this would have been the norm, not something that would be unheard of or unexpected. Furthermore, Helen has been married to Menelaus for 10 years by now in what has been, so far as we know, a happy union. In the myths, she does not hate Menelaus at all. In the Iliad she often seems torn by her love for Menelaus, even saying that she wishes she could have died, rather than abandoning her child and husband for Paris. In the Odyssey it is revealed that after the war Menelaus and Helen are reigning in Sparta, once again, happily married.

    The show also has Helen say “I’m here because I want to be.” For me, this is a bit of a bullet in the foot for the show. The show is clearly focused on trying to give Helen more agency; she genuinely loves Paris and chooses to go with him of her own free will. I get what they’re going for, but the problem with this is that completely removes the tragedy of Helen. In myth, Helen is supposed to be an agentless character, she is forced into being with Paris either through the machinations of the gods, or through her abduction. She feels terrible guilt over the men who die in the war and we sympathise with her because we know, while it may seem like her fault, that there was nothing that she could do to prevent it. She is a truly tragic figure who is a victim of the events that happen around her. The show loses this completely; Helen, by choosing to go with Paris, is completely at fault for the resulting war. In fact, Paris is basically absolved of any guilt in the show as he apparently had no hand in making Helen leave. The shows interpretation even makes Helen seem rather selfish as she chooses to be with Paris over her daughter and her country. Furthermore, Menelaus is a powerful king and his brother, Agamemnon, is the most powerful king in Greece. Surely Helen would have known that her leaving would have led to disaster? By depicting Helen as having made the decision to leave Sparta on her own, she now seems selfish, foolish and rather ignorant. At a glance, this might just seem like a small change, but the implications of this change are huge. Helen is one of the main characters of the Iliad and her character is one of the most tragic and empathetic. Not anymore. Instead, the war and all the death that comes from it, is entirely her fault because of her poor decision making.

    Anyways, back to the show and Odysseus is feigning madness by ploughing his field with salt, but Diomedes exposes him by plopping his baby in the way, forcing Odysseus to stop. This bit actually does have a solid grounding in mythology and basically happens exactly as shown. The show can give itself a nice pat on the back for this scene.

    Side note, Diomedes is an ABSOLUTE badass in the Iliad who is arguably only second to Achilles in terms of martial skill amongst the Greeks. He even wounds two gods! He’s a seriously major character in the Iliad, but he’s hardly ever shown in modern adaptations of the myth, which is a shame because he’s a personal favourite of mine. The show gets big props for including him! (*spoiler* I’m writing this after watching the whole series. Diomedes never appears again. The show loses all props and I’m sad.)

    Fast forwarding a bit and we are in the Greek camp where Agamemnon does some excellent shouting and, once again, people are having a go at Menelaus. Firstly, and for the last time, in myth no one fought for Helen. As mentioned in my commentary on the first episode, either lots were drawn, or Helen’s father simply picked a suitor. Secondly, Odysseus says “No war should be fought for such a man”, referring to Menelaus. What is with the Menelaus hate in this show?! Menelaus is supposed to be a wise king, an excellent speaker and leader of men, as well as being a talented warrior. In the Iliad, he is often referred to as “war-like” Menelaus, and no one ever questions his qualities as a king or a man. I’m not sure why the show feels the need to paint Menelaus in such a bad light, but it has no grounding in myth. We can feel the show already losing some of the nuance of Homer’s original work. In Homer, there aren’t really any ‘bad guys’ there are just men swept up in the machinations of the gods, men who are flawed, for sure, but who aren’t evil; they’re human. The show is losing some of that nuance by making Menelaus out to be this pathetic individual. If the show had made Menelaus ginger, as he is described in the Iliad, perhaps the abuse he receives would be more justifiable! (Joking, calm down!)

    We then move on to the sacrificing of Iphigenia with some more excellent shouting from Agamemnon. Like Odysseus’ madness, the show depicts this pretty accurately, even if it does seem rather rushed. Agamemnon really does sacrifice Iphigenia and it really was done under the façade of marrying Achilles. The only two notes here are: firstly, the reason Artemis demands such a sacrifice from Agamemnon is because he hunted a deer in a grove sacred to her; and secondly that in some versions Artemis spares Iphigenia by replacing her with a deer just before she is killed. But, overall, this is a decent retelling of the myth, it is just a shame the show could not devote more time to this to give it some more impact. Much of Agamemnon’s character in the Iliad is fuelled by this moment: he has sacrificed his daughter for this war, you’re damn right he’s going to stay there as long as is needed to win.

    We then get our first look at blonde haired Achilles who is looking…decidedly un-Achilles-esque. Achilles is arguably THE archetypal Greek hero. He epitomises everything that the Greeks loved about their heroes, he’s the embodiment of male Greek beauty; young, with long blonde hair. His race isn’t explicitly mentioned, but hero’s reflect the people that create them. King Arthur would only have been imagined as white by the Englilsh for instance, or Gilgamesh as brown by the Babylonians. So why is Achilles cast as a black guy? Again, I go back to the point I made in my commentary in the last episode: it is not a problem for the show to have black characters, but Achilles is simply not black. He is the epitome of the Greek heroic ideal, and the actor should reflect that. Brad Pitt, in comparison, was a fairly good representation: a god like body, very handsome and long blonde hair. David Gyasi, the actor in Troy: Fall of a City, is a fine actor, I’m sure, but he simply does not look like Achilles, one of the most iconic characters in literature. There is a badass black guy in some Greek myths at Troy, Memnon of Ethiopia. He fights on the Trojan side and is an amazing warrior who has this intense duel with Achilles where they’re both effectively made giants by Zeus so everyone can watch the two legends fight. If the show wanted more representation in the cast, they could have included this character and (like I said in the previous write-up) cast non-white actors as the Trojans. Then it would have been better represented and more accurate.

    Moving on, Menelaus and Odysseus go as delegates to Troy along with Achilles to negotiate with the Trojans. In the myths, Odysseus and Menelaus do go, but not Achilles. Menelaus and Odysseus are wise and political – well suited to negotiations. Achilles is an excellent fighter, but not a politician: he’s rash, hot-tempered and a bit immature As a side note, in Greek myth, Achilles is only a youth when the Trojan War starts, perhaps only 14, but it is understandable why the show has chosen to condense this.

    So far as I know, no conditions regarding any tribute from Troy are mentioned in any myths. I think the show has included this to better justify why the Trojans do not give back Helen. In myth, it is a bit hazy as to why they do not return her but at the end of the day it comes down to honour, fate and the gods. This does not communicate as well to a modern audience, so these conditions seem to have been added to lend a bit more credence to the Trojan decision to go to war. But BLOODY HELL, Paris just threatened an envoy! This is a BIG no no in Greek culture, a serious breach of religious law. If the Greeks and Trojans did not have a reason to go to war before, they certainly would now! The Trojans (who the show is clearly trying to show as being the ‘good guys’) are really not coming off well: Helen basically started the war by leaving Menelaus, and now Paris had guaranteed war by threatening an envoy! This is what happens when the showrunners don’t know the cultures they’re writing about.

    And so the Greek army sails to Troy. The shows budget obviously cannot sustain huge shots of a massive fleet, and so the ‘face that launched a thousand ships’ seems to have launched 5 ships shot from a thousand angles instead.

    Last time I’ll bring up the race thing, but Aeneas is Aphrodite’s son who, we’ve already seen, and is white. It’d be nice if the show had a bit more consistency in regards to familial similarities, as in the last episode with Hermes and Zeus. It does not make the show bad by any means, but it does somewhat lose the idea of the Trojan War almost being a family scuffle between the gods. The Trojan War is caused largely by Aphrodite falling out with Hera and Athena (all who are related) due to the judgement of Paris. It’s basically a big family feud and their children, like Aeneas, Sarpedon and others, are pawns used by their godly parents. The show touches on this with the dialogue between Hera and Zeus later, but I feel like the show loses this idea by not making the family links clear. This is the last point on race I’ll make for the show, so I just want to clarify my position because I know it’s a hot topic: it is not a problem for the show to have a racially diverse cast, but the shows casting of clearly non-black characters and family members of white characters as black actors is rather confusing.

    We see the Trojans preparing themselves for war, and they appear to be painting themselves with…is that woad?! Wrong part of the world, wrong time, and just wrong. Ancient Celts, mainly Britons, did use woad as war paint in the time of Julius Caesar, but no where can I find any mention of Trojans doing it. I think the show does this to try and help the viewer distinguish between Greeks and Trojans at a glance. If only there had been another way of doing this, one that would have reflected the theme of the Trojan War being a conflict of West vs East and of differing nationalities seemingly being divided by their tribe, but linked by values…

    Agamemnon rallies the troops with more of his, now iconic, excellent shouting! I think the audition for this role must have included the actor bellowing the lines from the other side of a football field.

    The show then has a really nice little bit listing the various warriors on each side with a little epithet. This is something that happens a lot in the Iliad and is a nice little nod to the original material; very Homeric.

    Overall, still a fairly bumpy ride but less historical and mythological problems than the first episode.

    Watch this space for next week’s commentary!

  • The Historian’s Lie

    Peter Voller

    We live in the greatest era of knowledge in human history; it has never been easier to both access and spread information. With just a few quick taps of your fingers and clicks of the mouse you can have access to a depth of knowledge that would have put the Library of Alexandria to shame. In reality, much of this potential is wasted. Humans are fundamentally inquisitive beings, we enjoy learning things and discovering knowledge but, we are also fundamentally impatient creatures. This is a particularly frustrating combo: we want to know things and get the rush of absorbing new information, but we don’t want to dedicate inordinate amounts of time to get that. What we want is for information to be provided to us in easily digestible nuggets that we can consume and process. This, to be clear, is not a bad thing. It is utterly fantastical and unrealistic to presume that everyone should investigate every nuance of something to understand it. I don’t need to know the exact particulars that govern the theory of gravity, it’s sufficient for me to just have a general grasp over the broad ideas.

    This same motive (wanting the satisfaction of the thing without committing a lot of time to it) is why we’re so amazed by works of art. Creativity is a natural human impulse, but it takes a lot of effort to produce something genuinely creative. Who hasn’t listened to the Rolling Stones, Slipknot or whoever, and thought “man, in another life I would have shredded on the guitar”. Or read a particularly good book and though “I really must get around to writing that awesome book idea I’ve had for years about that teenager in a dystopian future who rebels against the machine in order to break it” (please don’t, we have enough of them). But we don’t get around to writing that book, and we won’t have another life. So, we satiate those needs in other ways, we admire art, music, books, paintings, whatever medium you like, we admire these things because we are able to live vicariously through that artists creativity. We admire their ingenuity and inventiveness and that stimulates our brains in a similar to way as if we ourselves had created the thing. It’s a shortcut.

    This puts an incredible amount of power in the hands of those few individuals who actually do dedicate their lives to the process. A musician is more than just a person playing an instrument well, they become, in some way, an extension of their audience. When someone accuses your beloved Pirate Metal band (genuine genre) of sucking, you take it personally. It feels like an attack on you yourself, because it kind of it is. You are living vicariously through that band, you identify with them, you imagine yourself being like them, so an insult to them is an insult to you. We use these artists as a shortcut for creative satisfaction and so we become deeply attached to their music. A similar mentality is at work when it comes to history.

    Studying history is a years long process requiring endless hours of effort and dedication, involving all kinds off weird minutia. For example, let’s say you want to study Alexander the Great. A good start would be reading the primary sources, right? Well, first you’d have to understand what those primary sources actually are. A lot of people are going to say that the primary sources are the likes of Arrian, Plutarch and Diodorus. These people are wrong. Those are secondary sources, the primary sources are the likes of Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Callisthenes. So, first you have to understand those guys and the period they were writing in, so that you can then appreciate why they were writing what they did. Then you need to look the secondary sources (Arrian, Plutarch etc.) and study what their motives are. Are some of these guys even historians in the first place? What was the purpose in their works? Etc. All this stuff takes time, it takes effort and knowledge. We don’t want to go through all at, we want just want the end product. This is where the modern historian comes into play. They are our shortcut historical knowledge. At least, they should be.

    Our conception of what a ‘historian’ actually is though, is a bit odd. If you ask people, they’ll generally give a definition somewhere along the lines of “someone who studies the past”. An awkward thing here is defining exactly what people mean here by “study”, and if pushed, people will generally agree that someone who writes/speaks about the past is a historian. Kings and Generals are historians, Historia Civilis is a historian, some random bloke who reacts to historical content is a historian, and so on and so on. Spoiler alert: they’re not, and very few ‘historians’ on YouTube actually are.

    Already, some people reading that will think I’m being elitist. Perhaps I am, but I don’t mean to be. Reporting what happened in the past is not being a historian, that’s being an annalist. There is a very particular detail that separates historians from annalists, and the clue is in the term ‘history’. ‘History’ derives from the Greek, istoriai, which basically means “to question/enquire”. So, a historian is not someone who records the past, a historian is someone who asks multiple sources what happens and then determines which is more accurate. Fundamental to that is the idea of the historical method, the process of working out what sources should be considered more reliable than others. If a person is not doing these things in their work, then it is not history, even though the subject matter might be historical.

    Some examples will be useful. Let’s go back to Alexander again. There are five Alexaner ‘historians’: Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, Curtius Rufus and Justin. Arrian and Curtius Rufus both get a pass as historians: they tells us who their sources are and why they are preferring them over others. Diodorus is a bit debatable: he does mention some sources and there seems to be a method behind his work, but there’s some compelling arguments that he was basically just copying the work of earlier historians, not doing the method himself. Plutarch, by his own admission, was not a historian, he was a biographer. He was not interested in telling the most probable or reliable version of events, he was interested in using historical figures as moral exempla. He doesn’t really bother doing source analysis, because he’s not really interested in whether the information is correct or not, he’s interested in what that information reveals about his characters. Justin is not a historian; he is an epitomiser. What does that mean? Very simply, it means that Justin was just writing a summary (an epitome) of a bigger work (written by Pomey Trogus). It’s similar to a Wikipedia synopsis of a book’s plot: the writer of that synopsis is not themselves an author, similarly, Justin is not a historian.

    Let’s take another, more well-known example: Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote a number of historical plays, such as Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, and we know that he used Plutarch as a source. So, we’ve got someone who is telling us what happened in the past and is even using a source to do so. But no one considers Shakespeare to have been a historian, right? Why is that? Because he didn’t do source analysis. He didn’t look at multiple sources and then use historical methodology to determine which he considered more likely: he used Plutarch because Plutarch tells good stories.

    This difference between a historian and ‘non-historian’ is one that we do in so many other aspects of our lives. We don’t, for example, consider a cinema critic to be a director, or a food critic/reviewer to be a chef. They obviously know about food, they’re talking about food and communicating information about food to the public, but that doesn’t make them a chef. When we think of a ‘scientist’ we don’t think of someone who makes videos about science, we mean someone who practices the scientific method, someone who is actually doing the research. An excellent example of this is the wonderful Potholer54. His channel focuses almost exclusively on scientific matters, but he is very upfront and honest about the fact that he himself is not a scientist, he is reporting the work of scientists.

    So, this raises obvious questions about what I do: am I a historian? The answer, I think, is that it depends. At times, yes, I am being a historian. For example, when I’m writing my thesis or articles, I am engaging with the sources, explaining why I am preferring one source over another, all that good stuff. What about when I wrote scripts for Kings and Generals? In that capacity, no, I don’t think that I consider myself a historian. To be clear, I did do a lot of research for those scripts and I did do source analysis, establishing which narrative was the most likely. However, especially in the series about Julius Caesar, I did not include these details in the actual script. The audience is often not being made aware that there are conflicting sources and that I have selected a version based on a number of factors. As I matured as a writer, I tried to include more transparency in my videos on Alexander, for example, trying to show that there were multiple sources and explaining my analysis of them. I’m still hesitant to say that I was writing as a ‘historian’ in that capacity though. The reason for that is that I tried very hard in those videos to avoid giving my own opinion or analysis of events. I wanted to provide the viewer with an overview of what had happened historically and what some of the modern historians thought about them. I was reporting what others had written, I was not giving my own analysis. I was doing to history what Potholer54 does for science.

    This is the case for the vast majority of ‘historians’ on YouTube: they are either simply describing the past, or they are reporting what scholars have written. Neither of these things is being a historian: it’s more akin to historical journalism. Most of the people who describes themselves as ‘historians’ are not. They might have an interest in history, they might talk about history, they might even tell you what scholarship says about history, but they’re not historians. A vast majority of them are not trained as historians either. They’re information analysists, business managers, etc. Some of them might have a BA in history, but just pause and think about that. Imagine if I had a BA in music theory, and I did videos reviewing music. Does that make me a musician? No. Unless I’m playing an instrument and actually making music, I’m not a musician. Apply the the same logic elsewhere. My sister has a BA in astrophysics and can talk very knowledgeably about space. That doesn’t make her a fricking astronaut. If you were on trial and asked for a lawyer, you’d be rather annoyed if you were provided with someone with a BA in law who just made videos reporting on various legal outcomes.

    Why does any of that matter though? Who cares if some people call themselves ‘historians’? It matters because these people are our shortcuts. These are the figures who many people entrust with the incredibly powerful tool of informing them about how the past happened, and they are being imbued with a false level of authority and credibility. Most of these people are literally no different than talking to someone to some random person at the pub about history. Maybe they’ve done a bit more reading around the subject than most, but they’re not authoritative.

    This is painfully transparent when given a bit of thought. If you’ve ever met a genuine historian, I mean someone who publishes research about a certain time period, they will be – by their own ambition – niche. They will be excellent at a time period or culture, but outside of that time period and culture, they’ll be little better than any vaguely intelligent person. An ancient historian has no more clout talking about, for example, the Crusades, than a zookeeper who reads medieval history books in their spare time. Yes, the historical method is constant across all time periods, but the amount of knowledge and background that is needed to talk intelligently about any one bit of history is basically a lifetime dedication. If you can think of someone who is apparently an expert in Roman, Mongolian, American and French history, I’m sorry but they’re chatting shit. I remember going to see a talk about Ptolemaic Egypt from Prof. Toby Wilkinson, one of the leading Egyptologists alive. A member of the audience asked Prof. Wilkinson a question about Hellenistic Macedonia, and he immediately responded that he was not a Hellenist and would not be able to give an accurate answer. And yet it is so easy to find ‘historians’ on YouTube who can apparently talk knowledgeably about all manner of cultures and time periods.

    The benefit they have is that the audience is usually ignorant. It is, surprisingly, worryingly, dangerously, easy to appear ‘expert’ in history to a non-expert. This sounds mean to the audience, no one likes being called ‘ignorant’, but it’s true, and I include myself in that. I am painfully ignorant about most areas of history. I’m great at a couple of select time periods and cultures, but I couldn’t tell you jack or shit about, for example, ancient Egypt. Give me a week though, and I could swat up on some stuff, read some articles and make a video that sounds like I do. And if I call myself a historian, are you, the viewer, going to know if I actually know my stuff or not?

    Of course not, I’m your shortcut! I’ve provided you with your nugget of information, and you get the benefit of feeling good that you’ve learned something new, and you trust me to have communicated that knowledge accurately. Why though, why do you trust me? I’m just some person on the internet. You trust me, because I’m a ‘historian’. And I can get away with claiming that title, because most people don’t actually know what a historian is supposed to be doing. I’m talking about the past, I’m telling you what happened, and I might even have a couple of quotes from sources. I’m now as much a historian as Einstein was a scientist or as Kurt Cobain was a musician.

    And with the title of ‘historian’ I graduate myself from just some person on the internet, to one of those shortcuts. Through me, you live vicariously and learn about areas of history you always wanted to, but never quite had time to. Who cares if all I do is repeat other people’s analyses? Who cares if I don’t explain why I use this source over that? I am your gateway to the past: I choose what areas you know about and which you don’t, I choose how you understand things to have happened, I choose what characteristics historical figures had, I choose all these things. Because I’m a historian…right?

  • How Accurate is Troy Fall of a City? Episode 1

    Peter Voller

    A while back, the BBC released a a brand-new swords and sandals TV series; Troy: Fall of a City. The Iliad, the Homeric story upon which most of the series is based, is one of my favourite stories of all times and so this really was something that I was interested in seeing. This is one of humanities epic sagas up there with Gilgamesh, Journey to the West and Bojack Horseman (yeah I said it, fight me). The Trojan War is a timeless narrative that touches on an incredible depth of issues, ranging from the horrors of war to existential dread, which has kept it relevant to the human existence for millennia. Even more ideally, the Iliad was constructed not as a book, but as a spoken narrative, meaning that it lends itself to TV and movies far more readily than, say, the Lord of the Rings. Much like Tolkien in World War One I went into this series optimistic and rosy cheeked and came out the otherwise broken, depressed and covered in mud. (In fairness that last one is not a result of the series, my cat got out and I had a hell of a struggle getting him back in).

    What follows here is my initial thoughts when I first watched it back in the day, edited here and there for clarity. I was tempted to rewrite the entire thing from scratch, but upon rereading I found it amusing to read my slow decline into madness and bitterness. So, for your reading pleasure I present: How Troy Fall of A City Broke an Ancient Historian. Enjoy my suffering.

    On with the first episode!

    We open with Hecuba giving birth to Paris with a quick shot of a statue that seems to have been inspired by the fairly famous ‘Snake-Goddess’. So, some background real quick. It’s generally thought that if the Trojan War was historical, then it probably happened in the Mycenean period, roughly 1200s BC. The Snake-Goddess statue is technically a Minoan artefact, not a Mycenaean, but there is overlap between them. It’s also not unthinkable that large cities had numerous religions present in them, so the show can get away with this one. It’s great to see the Minoan culture getting bit of love on the silver screen, because they don’t usually get a lot of attention. A solid start!

    Statue from the show

    The actual snake goddess. Pretty good recreation.

    In terms of mythological accuracy though, the scene has got a few errors. Cassandra only gets her ‘gift’ of foresight (along with the curse that no one will ever believe her), after she either refused to have sex with Apollo, or as ‘reward’ for having sex with him (the myths differ). The girl in the show appears far too young, even by Ancient Greek standards, to have been in such a situation.

    In myth, rather than Cassandra seeing the future Hecuba dreams of giving birth to a burning torch. This is then interpreted as meaning that her baby, Paris, would cause the downfall of Troy, and that he would need to be killed in order to save the city. Neither Hecuba nor Priam, her husband, could bring themselves to do this resulting in Paris being abandoned instead. I’m not quite sure why the show changed this from Hecuba dreaming to Cassandra seeing the future, but possibly it was to establish Cassandra’s foresight earlier on and give some more weight to her character.

    Paris is then shown running around all shepherdy with his adopted father Agelaus. This is all pretty legit, however, there are a couple of side notes. Firstly, just as point of interest rather than an inaccuracy, Agelaus finds Paris abandoned on the hillside and carries him in a bag back to his home. In Greek, the word for ‘bag’ is pera hence the name Paris. In modern terms, Paris is basically called “Handbag”. Which just makes me giggle.

    Secondly, Paris is depicted in the show as a boisterous womanizer. This is a pretty modern view of Paris. The idea of him being a flirt like this is not really present in ancient myths, though he is always described as handsome or beautiful. In the Iliad, Homer portrays Paris as a weak fairly cowardly individual, particularly in comparison to his brother Hector. He is not a great fighter, and only survives being slain in a duel with Menelaus when Aphrodite whisks him away (almost literally a deus ex machina). Even Helen tears into him for pretty much being a pansy.

    In other myths, however, he is portrayed as being a brave and noble man even being named Alexander (meaning defender of men), as a result of him fighting off some bandits at a young age. He is also renowned in some myths as an honest and just man, hence part of the reason why he is later chosen as adjudicator in the golden apple scenario.

    Speaking of, now we come to the apple scene! Without any of the prior set-up this scene comes out of the blue a bit, and it’s a tad confusing why the gods seem to choose this random ass shepherd. But then again gods seem to have a bit of a thing for shepherds in lots of religions…

    This is all a bit beside the point though, how do the gods shape up in this show? Well, there’s good and bad. Let’s start with the bad: Zeus should not be a black dude. As with all religions, Greek gods were viewed as looking the same as their mortal worshippers. The Greeks would not have envisioned Zeus as black but looking like themselves. Furthermore, Zeus was almost like a father figure to the Greeks (he fathered a ridiculous number of Greek heroes) and was seen as an embodiment of Greek religion and so should embody these characteristic in his looks. It’s also a tad confusing when one considers that all the Greek gods are related. Hermes, who appears in the same scene, is actually meant to be Zeus’ son…the familial resemblance does not quite seem to be there.

    Father Zeus…

    ..and his son Hermes. Not exactly like father like son.

    I remember when Gods of Egypt came out and people were, understandably, annoyed that the Egyptian gods of Set, Ra and Horus were portrayed by white guys. That is a poor representation of how Egyptians would have seen their gods, likewise, this is a poor depiction of how Zeus was seen by the Greeks.

    On the plus side, the show has chosen to steer clear of the overly CGI monstrosities and kept the gods looking realistic and just fairly, well, normal. This is a nice touch as Greek gods, unlike many other religions, were not really portrayed as perfect all-powerful beings. They were more human that that; they could be jealous, foolish and cruel, just as much as they could be fair, kind and generous. Moreover, the gods weren’t as separate from humans as they are in modern religions. Greek gods always seem to have been popping down from Olympus to mess with mortals, and bumping into some kind of god happens so regularly that it seems almost as banal as seeing a pigeon today. The show seems to embrace this, and the gods are pleasantly human. Nice.

    In the show, Paris is offered power by Hera, admiration by Athena and the most beautiful women in the world by Aphrodite. This is all basically accurate, but in myth Paris is actually offered wisdom and military skill by Athena, both things which I’m sure Paris regretted not having when the Trojan War kicks off.

    Also, in Euripides at least, Paris is offered not just “the most beautiful in the world” but specifically Helen. This might seem like a fairly minor distinction, but in Euripides’ version, Paris is actively choosing the wife of a king, something which he must have known would have led to trouble. In Euripides’ interpretation, Paris therefore seems much more selfish, foolish and an active participant in the disaster to follow. As I say though, this is just one version of the myth, and the show’s handling of the scene is just as credible.

    Paris then meets the princes of Troy on the beach. The show has decided to make them, for the most part, a load of white guys, which is a shame. So far as I know, Homer does not give any description of what Paris, Hector, or other Trojan heroes looked like, aside from generally “beautiful”. However, the historical Troy was a part of, or at least closely linked to, the Hittite Empire which dominated Turkey at the time. This then would suggest that the Trojan princes should have a more Asiatic look to them. In one of the trailers for the series Menelaus is even shown calling the Trojans “Asiatic” and it would have been nice to see this reflected in the cast.

     Furthermore, even as early as Herodotus, the Trojan War is often depicted as a confrontation of the Greeks vs those that they perceived as “barbarian”. One of the most interesting things about Homer, however, is how honourable and brave the Trojans nonetheless are in his account, Hector easily rivalling any of the Greek in terms of heroism. There appears to be a subtext in Homer that the “other” is so often not very different from those that do the othering. The failure to cast European actors for the Greeks and more Asian actors for the Trojans means that this nuance is minimalised, if not lost entirely. One would be forgiven, for instance, if they watched the series and assumed that the Trojans and Greeks were effectively the same peoples, as opposed to different cultures.  

    Next, Paris is recognised by Priam and Hecuba by his birthmark after a scuffle with Hector. In the myths, this scuffle actually gets to the point where Hector and another of his brothers, Deiphobus, attack Paris with swords. The show substitutes this for Paris being almost drowned which, considering how annoying the actor of Paris has been thus far, I found a rather satisfying substitute. I could not find any myth mentioning a birth mark, however. Paris is usually either simply recognised by Priam and Hecuba (who were apparently better at recognising their son than Oedipus’ parents) or is proven to be their son after Agelaus shows them a rattle Paris was given when he was abandoned as a baby. Part of me wonders if the show has included the birth mark almost as an homage to Oedipus whose identity is proven by scars on his ankles. Again, this is only a minor inaccuracy of the show, however.

    The show then goes into unknown territory for a bit as Paris struggles to fit in with his family at Troy. I’m not aware of any myth that deals with this, so it’s fairly open to interpretation. What I will say is that Priam’s decision to send Paris as an envoy to Sparta without any of his more respectable brothers is really weird. Paris has shown no princely attitude so far and he has no reputation. To the Spartans, he’s just..osome bloke. The show tries to justify this by saying Paris must “learn on his own”, but it still seems a rather risky idea to send an inexperienced, reckless young man to learn on an important diplomatic mission.

    We next zoom over to Sparta where Helen seems to have missed the memo about wearing your best chiton or skirt and has come in fancy dress as a fairly bedraggled looking swan. This is almost certainlytrying to make an allusion to the myth of Helen supposedly being born from an egg as a result of Zeus having sex with her mother Leda while in swan form (I promise I’m not making that up) but it all just comes off as… well, just a bit silly.

    Bedraggled Chicken by Estee Lauder

    Paris then recounts the story of his childhood and how he was taken from the palace window by wolves. Apparently, these wolves somehow managed to sneak past the huge walls of Troy shown earlier in the show (bet the Greeks would love to know how they did that). Hopefully, this is just the character of Paris not knowing his true origin story, and that he was abandoned on a hillside in classic mythological baby treatment style. I’ll let this one slide for now and assume this will be revealed later in the show.

    Menelaus then describes how he met Helen, and here the show plays fast and loose with the myths again. In the show, Helen is supposedly “won” by Agamemnon for Menelaus, after he fought off a hundred other suitors and Menelaus is depicted as almost not being worthy of Helen as a result. To be fair, the myths are also a little bit hazy, but this depiction of Menelaus being unworthy does not appear in any, so far as I know.

    In Hesiod, Agamemnon does indeed go to represent Menelaus, however, this isn’t portrayed as a negative thing; Menelaus simply cannot attend the meeting. However, what Hesiod does make clear is that Menelaus is the bookies favourite out of all of Helen’s suitors. He sends the best gifts, has a good relationship with Helen’s brothers, Castor and Pollox, and is strong and warlike. In fact, Odysseus, another of Helen’s suitors, is so sure that Menelaus will be successful that he does not bother to send any gifts. In another version of the myth, the suitors simply draw lots and Menelaus wins. Either way, Menelaus is not portrayed as being unworthy of Helen. Paris’ abduction of Helen is not supposed to be a noble or heroic thing, it is supposed to be a reckless, foolish act, and one that Hector will seriously grill for. This is lost in the show by making it seem as if Menelaus is not worthy of Helen and that he is stifling her. We’ll come back to this again later.

    The Oath of Tyndareus, the oath sworn by Helen’s suitors to defend whichever of them marries Helen, is also conspicuously absent from Menelaus’ retelling of the event. This oath is the entire reason that all the Greek kings go to war to get Helen back. Maybe this will appear later in the show (fingers crossed).

    A more uncanny resemblance to Helen than Hermes is to Zeus.

    Paris then bumps into Helen outside…oh wait no, that’s an ostrich. Helen’s fashion sense makes it hard to tell the difference. What on earth an ostrich is doing in Bronze Age Sparta, I do not know. Perhaps Paris bought it as a gift? Can’t imagine many Greek kings had an ostrich hanging around. Where Paris got it from, I also do not know but it must have been an absolute menace on that little ship they took from Troy. Shit and feathers everywhere!

    Moving on we meet Hermione, Menelaus and Helen’s daughter, who apparently Paris is set to betroth. This has no basis in any myth. In Greek myth, Hermione was actually betrothed first to Orestes, and later to Achilles’ son Neoptolemus. I’m not sure why the show decided to change this. It seems the writers of the show are equally unsure as this little subplot does not seem to develop into anything.

    The show quickly name drops Odysseus who apparently has sent gifts all the way from Bactria and Assyria. Fricking Bactria! That’s like modern Afghanistan! With Ithaca being a tiny island of the West coast of Greece, it seems pretty unlikely that Odysseus had access to such exotic gifts from half the world away. Perhaps he knows the same guy that provided Paris with the ostrich…

    Not to be outdone in the ‘Stupidest Gift’ category, Hermione then shows Paris a room full or silks that were gifted to Menelaus by an Indian king. Oh dear. Silk is not going to be reaching Greece properly until about 800 years later when Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire and so brings an influx of materials from the east into Europe. Even if we ignore that fact, we do not know that the Greeks at this time even knew of India. It seems highly unlikely given that in the 5th century BC India was only vaguely known by Greeks and was supposed to be on the edge of the known world. But according to the show, this Indian king actually wanted to marry Helen, despite her being on the other side of the world! The ridiculousness of this idea is just beyond description.

    Fast forward a bit and it appears that Helen has hidden herself in a box in order to go with Paris back to Troy. This, again, has little basis in any myth. In some versions of the myth of Helen of Troy she is raped and abducted by Paris, in others Aphrodite causes her to fall in love with him and they elope. In only one source, Sappho, can I find a version where Helen goes completely of her own free will, and no where can I find a version where she is smuggled away in a box. This has implications on the way the show will handle the story as it almost absolves Paris of any guilt for causing the war. This is an important point in the Iliad; Paris has helped to cause the war because of his own recklessness and Hector is furious that his brother has started a war which results in so many dead and that Paris won’t even fight in, unlike his countrymen. I don’t see how this crucial plot can develop now that Paris isn’t to blame for anything.

    Furthermore, this also removes some of the tragedy of Helen. In Homer’s telling of the myth, Helen also seems almost like a prisoner at Troy. She deeply regrets going with Paris and leaving her husband, she is sorry for all the men that die and constantly berates herself calling herself a slut and a bitch. She is utterly ashamed to sleep with Paris and only does so when forced to by Aphrodite, and even then, she chooses to disguise herself so she won’t be seen. She’s a pawn of the gods, exploited and used to further their own aims, and we sympathise with her accordingly. If, instead, she goes willingly to Troy then she is no longer an unwilling participant that is forced into this situation by Paris or the gods. In fact, if the show does include the Oath of Tyndareus, then the war is entirely Helen’s fault as she chooses to go with Paris knowing that this would make the Greek kings would go to war. I think the show must have changed this in order to make Helen and Paris seem almost like Romeo and Juliet with their forbidden love. Whatever the reason, it has little to no basis in myth and takes a lot of the emotional power out of the original story.

    Well, that’s the end of episode one! I’m sure I missed a few mistakes here and there, but hopefully I managed to cover the major ones as well as a few of the particularly annoying little ones.

    Stay tuned for episode two!