The Trojan Women

who differs tremendously from other women within the epic, and ancient Greece. She possesses traits women in 13th and 12th century BC Greece did not, and could not possess. Penelope holds attributes men despised in women, and she displays them proudly. The intelligence and knowledge that occupies her identity is unlike that of women in her time period. Penelope lacks the submissive quality women were expected to demonstrate, and after Odysseus leaves for the Trojan war, she takes on a role…

Socrates states that women are to be “wives in common” (457d). This is distinctly not the case when it comes to the protagonists in The Iliad. The dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles – at least on a surface level – is motivated because of a girl. Agamemnon’s decision to take Briseïs from Achilles is, in part, what keeps Achilles from making up with Agamemnon. The Greeks (and the Trojans, for that matter) place great importance on acquiring and keeping women. Reading of such a culture would…

assumed the real reason for the Trojan War was due to the desire to dominate the trade industry by controlling the trade from Asia into the Aegean Sea. Scholars claim that the trade from Asia had to travel through Troy, which in turn gave the city its wealth and significance. However, it is questionable that a simple story of a war over trade routes would have endured over time. On the other hand, when coupled with a story of love and hate over the world’s most beautiful women in…

After sacking an allied Trojan town, Achilles and Agamemnon take Briseis and Chryseis, the daughter of a priest of Apollo, as prizes. The priest curses the Greek camp via Apollo, who send plagues. Agamemnon, knowing the plagues wont cease unless he gives Chryseis back to her father…

In the epic poem "the Odyssey", Odysseus, the king of Ithica is sailing home from the Trojan war, when he is swept off course by Zeus. Along his way home, he stops at multiple islands for provisions, and encounters a different setting on each one. Odysseus shows his strengths and weaknesses along the way and shows a different one each time they encounter something. The first island Odysseus and his men encounter is home to the Lotus-Eaters. These are people who live on the island and eat lotus…

At first he seems like a normal hero. He is a champion of the trojan war simply trying to go back to his family. He mourns for the loss of his crew members and rescues them from the land of the Lotus-Eaters. However, Odysseus and his crew raid cities, kill all of the men and steal their women and food. He casually describes how he divided the women amongst his crew. The incident with the cyclopes could have been entirely avoided if Odysseus didn’t feel…

cousin by trying to turn the group in for money. In The Odyssey, the witch goddess Circe turns some of Odysseus’ men into pigs, similarly to how money turns men into greedy pigs. When Ulysses and his gang escape, they see three women washing clothes and singing. The women drugged them with corn whiskey and Delmar referred to them as “Sirens.” In the same way, Odysseus and his men come across singing sirens in their journey. Some of the men are lured to them and they are eventually killed. During…

in the eyes of others as evident of Odysseus’ many encounters with beautiful women such as Helen and Calypso. Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. She was viewed to be the most beautiful woman in the world and the wife of Menelaus. “ Helen came out her scented chamber, a moving grace like Artemis, straight as a shaft of gold” (IV, 131-133). Despite her beauty, Helen was viewed to be the ultimate cause of the Trojan war. As for Calypso, the daughter of Atlas, she was also viewed to be…

In Homer’s epic The Odyssey, the poet narrates a story of the homecoming of the Greek hero Odysseus after the Trojan war. Through narrating his readers Odysseus’s journey home, Homer gives many instances where women, mortals and immortals, have contributed to the success of the homecoming of Odysseus, indicating the importance of women during the Greek hero’s long and suffering journey back home. Odysseus has received numerous help from different female characters such as Athena, Nausikaa, and…

The gods favored and respected him and the mortals admired him. An intellectual, Odysseus used logic to make his choice after evaluating a situation and ultimately regaining his kingdom. For example, it had been 10 years since the close of the Trojan War and Odysseus wanted to go home to Ithaca where he was king and his wife, Penelope, was delaying several suitors because she still had hope that her husband was still alive. When Odysseus finally made it back home disguised as a beggar, he…