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| Hector seated |
The Trojan War, as recounted by Homer,
is a beautiful love story of Paris and Helen set against the cruelty of war
when Achilles dragged the dead body of Hector behind his chariot around the
city. It is the kind of subject we can still recognize today. Recently, I had
echoes of another version in which Helen never made it to Troy but stayed in Egypt
instead. One of the sources was Herodotus’
book "Histories".
At first, I
dismissed the information, mostly because Homer’s
account was so familiar. When Heinrich Schliemann discovered the walls of Troy and Priam’s gold treasury in the late 19th century, the
history of Troy and the Trojan War came back alive.
Herodotus, a native of Halicarnassus,
is described as ‘The Father of History’. He was an intrepid traveler, very
inquisitive about foreign lands and customs. He journeyed widely around the
Mediterranean, as far south as Elephantine on the first cataract of
the River Nile and as far north as the Black Sea.
He visited southern Italy
and eventually settled in Thurii on the Gulf of Taranto.
He may well have spent time in Cyrene and
even in Babylon.
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| Herodotus |
This Greek
historian lived in the 5th century BC (he died in 425 BC), roughly
three hundred years after Homer.
Both men relied on the world around them and on the sources that were available
to them. During his stay
in Egypt, Herodotus spoke to the priests of the Temple of the “Foreign
Aphrodite”, meaning Astarte. They said that Helen arrived in Egypt with Paris after a severe storm had blown their ship off course. The couple was brought
before the pharaoh in Memphis, who condemned Paris for taking Helen away from her husband, whether by force or not, and seizing treasures
from Sparta.
He granted Paris three days to leave the country to return to Troy, but he kept Helen in Memphis.
Questioning the
priests further, Herodotus was
informed about the Trojan War as told to them directly by Helen's husband, Menelaus.
What happened
was that after the abduction of Helen,
the Greeks sent their forces to support Menelaus.
The Spartan king and his delegation were received at Troy’s Palace, where they
demanded the return of Helen and the
stolen treasures. The Trojans responded that neither Helen nor the treasure was in their possession, but was held
in Egypt
instead. Obviously, the Greeks refused to believe them and laid siege to Troy. They
fought each other for ten years, and all that while Helen waited in Egypt.
When Troy fell, and there was still no trace
of Helen, Menelaus sailed to Memphis.
After giving the pharaoh a true account of what had happened, he was reunited
with Helen, 'having suffered no evil’,
and the stolen treasure was restored.
This looks like
a happy ending, but it was not. Menelaus got cross because contrary winds pinned him down in Egypt for a long time. As
an offering to the gods, he took two Egyptian children, whom he offered in
sacrifice. This act of disrespect turned the friendship of the Egyptians into
hatred. Menelaus was pursued but
managed to escape to Libya
with Helen and his ships. What
happened afterwards, the priests did not know.
Herodotus was not the only
one to suggest that Helen never went
to Troy but stayed in Egypt
during the Trojan War.
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| Euripides |
There was Euripides, who in 412 BC wrote his play "Helen", in which Helen is taken to Egypt
by the gods. The Helen who
accompanied Paris to Troy was an eidolon,
a spirit-image or likeness, cursed for her infidelity by
the Greeks and Trojans alike. Meanwhile, the real Helen spent the ten-year siege of Troy in Egypt! It is noteworthy
that Euripides was born ca. 480 BC,
meaning that he was 55 years old when Herodotus died in 425 BC. He definitely must have known Herodotus’ travel history and the details of his encounters. Euripides may well have given his own
twist to Herodotus’ tale of Troy.
A similar eidolon image is introduced in Stesichorus' account. This lyric poet,
who lived from around 630 to 555 BC, antedates both Herodotus and Euripides.
The story goes that Stesichorus was
blinded because he slandered Helen,
but recovered his eyesight after writing her praise.
Helen’s eidolon image may have been introduced by Homer or Hesiod, who
reached his peak in popularity around 700 BC.
In his "Histories", Herodotus believes that Homer
knew of this eidolon version keeping
the real Helen in Egypt, but that he
decided not to use it, preferring the more epic poetry.
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| Troy walls |
Interpreting
this ‘eidolon’ in today’s world is
very difficult. We may think that Paris believed in ghosts since, according to this
story, nobody in Troy had ‘seen’ Helen. It is clear that,
in antiquity, the gods played an important role in daily life. Before the
outbreak of the Trojan War, Paris had built
a reputation for making fair decisions, away from outside influences. For that
reason, he had been appointed by Zeus to choose which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful: Athena, Aphrodite, or Hera. He elected Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
In return, Aphrodite brought Helen,
the most beautiful mortal, into the life of Paris, and they
fell in love. The fact that Helen was
already married to Menelaus, king of Sparta, and
had a daughter, Hermione, did not
bother Aphrodite. To alleviate the pain of Paris being separated from his beloved Helen,
the goddess introduced Helen's eidolon.
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| Papyrus page from the Iliad |
That leaves me
with Alexander cherishing the Iliad to
the point of keeping it at his bedside. His copy had annotations made by Aristotle,
which indicates that the Iliad was
well studied and discussed by both men. It is unthinkable that Aristotle was
not aware of Helen’s eidolon substitute
in Troy,
and this goes for Alexander as well. However, I assume
that Alexander’s fascination with the Iliad was
mainly because of Achilles' heroics.
