a.c.t. is supported in part by the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the donors of The Next Generation Campaign.
adapted and directed by lillian groagbased on the book by christopher loguechoreography by daniel pelzigmusic composed by john gloveramerican conservatory theatermarch 26–april 26, 2009
War Music
a m e r i c a n c o n s e r vat o ry t h e at e r
Carey Perloff, Artistic Director Heather Kitchen, Executive Director
2. The Ultimate Absurdity: A Note from the Adaptor/Director of War Music by Lillian Groag
3. War Music Meet and Greet / Design Presentation
9. “The Sea Is Always Counting”: An Interview with Composer John Glover by Deborah Munro
25. “The Story Must Be Told”: An Interview with Choreographer Daniel Pelzig by Lesley Gibson
27. A Furious Quarrel over a Woman by Michael Paller
33. Walls, Warriors, and Blood by Barry Strauss
39. Gods, Piety, and Disobedience by Megan Cohen and Michael Paller
4. Who Was Who in the Trojan War by Dan Rubin
46. A War Music Miscellany by Megan Cohen
53. Resistance to Normalcy: A Brief Biography of Christopher Logue by Lesley Gibson
55. On Christopher Logue and War Music
58. Questions to Consider
59. For Further Reading . . .
Achilles at the court of King Lycomedes (detail), circa 240 C.E. Borghese Collection, Musée du Louvre. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen.
characters, cast, and synopsis of war musicThe world premiere production of War Music opened at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California, April 1, 2009.
characters and castthetis, aphrodite, helen René Augesenhomer, crysez, soos, the heralds Charles Deanagamemnon, antenor, hephaestus Lee Ernsthomer, odysseus, pandar, poseidon Anthony Fuscohera, antilochus, tu Sharon Lockwoodcalchas, priam, scamander (the river god), makon David A. Mossfootsoldier, thersites, ajax Andy Murraymenelaus, diomed, deedam Nicholas Pelczarpatroclus, aeneas Christopher Toccohector, idomeneo, the white horse Gregory Wallace athena, manto, andromache, cumin Erin Michelle Washingtonachilles, paris, apollo Jud Willifordnestor, zeus, anchises Jack Willis
the settingThe city of Troy; the land between Troy and the Aegean Sea; and the heavens, ten years into the Trojan War.
synopsis
Part i. first movement. The beach of the Aegean Sea, at night. As the Greek army of 50,ooomen sleeps on the beach beside their fleet, their greatest warrior, Achilles, runs
into the water, weeping. He calls out to his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, and she appears. “Why tears, Achilles?” As he tells her his story, it unfolds onstage: Three weeks ago, after a village raid, Agamemnon, a Greek king and the leader of the allied forces against Troy, broke from the army’s tradition by taking his pick of the village’s captured women ahead of the warriors who actually took part in the raid, who usually are granted the right of first choice. Out of 30 women, he claimed a young girl named Cryzia as his concubine. The girl’s father, Crysez, a priest of the god Apollo, offered the king and his army a gener-
ous ransom for the return of Cryzia, but Agamemnon stubbornly refused and threatened Crysez with violence. The priest fled the Greek camp, praying to Apollo, “For every hair on my daughter’s head / Let three Greeks die.”
Apollo, hearing Crysez’s prayer, flooded the Greek camp with plague-infected mice. Greek soldiers began to die rapidly. After ten days of heavy losses, the Greek warrior Ajax suggested they consult the gods for a course of action. The soothsayer Calchas then pronounced: Apollo despised Greece and had caused this deadly infestation. Before reveal-ing Apollo’s motives, Calchas asked who among the Greek lords would guard him from Agamemnon. Achilles offered his protection. Calchas revealed the cause of the curse: Agamemnon’s refusal to return Cryzia.
Agamemnon was angry but, acknowledging his responsibility to keep the Greek army whole, agreed to return the girl to her father. His troops applauded his selflessness, but he quieted them with the demand that a suitable replacement for Cryzia be found. Achilles asked where this replacement might be acquired, as, according to standard practice, all the women had been distributed to other men, and a new woman would only become available when the warriors conquered another village. Agamemnon warned that if no woman were found, he would pluck one from any of the Greek fighters, by force if necessary.
Achilles, outraged by Agamemnon’s audacity, scolded the king and abruptly quit the army. Agamemnon dismissed him, claiming the army did not need his help. To punish Achilles for his insolence (and to reaffirm his own power), Agamemnon declared that he would replace Cryzia with Achilles’ most prized concubine, Briseis.
Achilles’ rage intensified. His muscles flexed as he prepared to kill Agamemnon. Before he could lunge, however, the teenaged goddess Athena flew down from the heavens, stopped time, and grabbed Achilles by the hair. She pulled his head back and whispered to him that Hera, queen of the gods, loved Agamemnon and had sent her to intervene. “If you can stick to speech, harass him now. But try to kill him,” she said, “and I kill you.” She then left, and time restarted.
Achilles refocused his rage into rhetoric. Agamemnon was not honorable, he announced, but rather a self-serving coward with a lust for power. He declared that he would surren-der Briseis, but confirmed that he would never fight for a man so unsuited to leadership. Achilles attempted to rally his fellow soldiers against their commander, but they responded with silence. Achilles, with his beloved companion Patroclus at his heels, stormed away. The army then said a prayer to Apollo and sent Cryzia back to her father.
second movement. Achilles’ camp, at night, in the rain. Achilles continues his story. He tells his mother that the aged hero Nestor and his son Antilochus visited Achilles and Patroclus. Nestor scolded them for abandoning the army and told Achilles that, while he
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sympathized with his position, Greece should come before his pride. He then asked, If he were able to get Briseis back, would Achilles return to the war? Just as Achilles was about to agree, Antilochus announced that Agamemnon had sent for Briseis. Achilles praised Nestor for his diplomacy, but he would not recant. His visitors departed.
Achilles, alone, covered himself with dirt and ash and ran out onto the beach to call for his mother. His story concludes as it catches up to the present. He begs Thetis to go to Zeus and plead with him to destroy the Greeks. She reminds him that it is his fate to die soon, and she leaves him to nurse his wounded honor.
third movement. Olympus. Thetis addresses Zeus. She reminds him of the promise he made to her son: if Achilles were to choose to die young and alone at war, he would be recognized in perpetuity as the most honorable of all Greeks. She asks Zeus to side with the Trojans until her son’s honor is restored. He answers that he is already in enough trouble with his wife, Hera, who despises the Trojans because their prince Paris judged her beauty less than Aphrodite’s, but he agrees to the nymph’s request, adding, under his breath, “in My own good time.”
Once Thetis is gone, Hera scolds Zeus for conspiring with a lesser immortal. She asks what sort of secret plan they’ve hatched. He silences her, reminding her of his superior power, and she returns to her throne. Her son Hephaestus hobbles up to her. He is small
Rendering of the fortifications of Troy by scenic designer Daniel Ostling
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and crippled, and she greets him with disdain. Still, he attempts to brighten the mood. “Immortals should not quarrel over men,” he says. He then entertains the gods.
fourth movement. Troy. Priam, the aged king of Troy, is greeted by his youngest son, -year-old Manto. Priam asks the boy whether he has killed his first Greek yet. Manto replies that he has, that very morning.
The Trojan council assembles. Priam asks after his favorite son, the mighty warrior Hector, who is not in attendance. He then questions the Trojan elder Antenor how he thinks the Trojans might win the war. Antenor answers, “How can we lose it?” Troy, he says, has stood for 900 years, and has been attacked a dozen times. This war, a mere ten years long, is fought on their own land, and they have the advantage of being on the defense rather than the attack. He also reminds them that the Greek Helen, whose mar-riage to their prince Paris started the war, can be easily returned at any time.
Anchises, another advisor, rises in opposition. He argues that returning Helen would not stop the Greeks, bloodthirsty savages who love war. Surrendering Helen, he warns, would encourage the Greeks to perceive the Trojans as weak.
As the council quarrels, prince Hector arrives, and King Priam is overjoyed. Hector unites the men with a speech explaining that he and his family are tired of living in fear. The Trojan army is capable of defending Troy, he reminds them, and Achilles is only one man. Whatever the outcome, it is honorable to die fighting. As the council applauds, news arrives that Achilles has abandoned the Greek army, which sends the council back into turmoil. Hector warns that this news changes nothing, and that he still plans to demolish Greece. He exits.
Elsewhere Helen tells Paris that Troy wants to send her back. He answers, “Heaven sent you here. Let Heaven send you back.” On the other side of Troy, Andromache tenderly asks her husband, Hector, to return Helen and prevent more loss of life. He tells her, “I know another way.”
fifth movement. Olympus. Then, the Greek camp. Zeus lies awake, thinking of Thetis. A Little Dream comes flitting in, and he instructs her to visit Agamemnon in his sleep, disguise her voice as Nestor’s, and promise certain victory if the Greek army declares total war and strikes upon Troy. The Little Dream finds Agamemnon, whispers the prophecy, and dies as he awakens. The king immediately summons the Greek council. Agamemnon recounts his dream and announces that they must declare total war on the Trojans at once. Diomed asks if, by “total war,” he means that all social classes are to fight together. Agamemnon confirms this, and Diomed delivers a diatribe declaring working-class sol-diers unfit to fight alongside him. Nestor rebukes him: “If God says total war, total it is.”
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Agamemnon tells the common soldiers about his dream. They cheer, with the excep-tion of the lowly footsoldier Thersites, who asks Agamemnon: If God is on their side, why haven’t they won the war yet? Thersites scolds: “You ask the Greeks to fight in a main vein for you, yet rob the man our victory depends on.” If Zeus is on Agamemnon’s side, the two of them should be able to take Troy alone. “Go home,” shouts Thersites to his brothers-in-arms. “By noon we can be rowing, seeing this hopeless coast fade.” The soldiers are won over and begin to chant “Home!” but suddenly Athena flies down from the heavens and possesses Odysseus. Athena/Odysseus addresses the men, passionately appealing to their pride and loyalty. S/he then turns to Thersites and whips him half to death, reminding the soldiers of their inferior status. Agamemnon tells his men that they are “born to kill,” promises that soon they’ll be rewarded with a bounty of Trojan women to “rape and rule, sell or exchange,” and declares, “Greece will be revenged for Helen’s wrong.” The army mobilizes, again hungry for war.
sixth movement. Outside the walls of Troy. As Helen relives her wedding to Menelaus, the Greek army approaches the walls of Troy. The gates open and the Trojan army, led by the mighty Hector, spills out. The two armies rush toward each other, but just as they are about to collide, Hector springs out onto neutral ground alone. He offers forth a challenge: a single duel to decide the outcome of the war, himself versus any Greek. The Greeks are silent until Menelaus accepts, moving too quickly for Agamemnon to stop him. Then
Scenic rendering by Daniel Ostling
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Odysseus steps out from the crowd and proclaims that Menelaus should not fight Hector, but instead Paris, “the one who started it.” He wins over the armies with his words.
Hector, having little choice, calls for his brother, to whom he has not spoken in five years. Paris arrives, and Hector lectures him about this opportunity to regain his honor and manhood. Paris acknowledges his part in causing the conflict, but reminds his brother that it was all for love. He agrees to fight for Helen and end the bloody, decade-long war.
Meanwhile on Mt. Olympus, Athena tells Hera about the agreement between the Trojans and the Greeks. Hera orders Athena to ensure that no truce lasts; Athena hurries off to fulfill her duty.
seventh movement. Outside the walls of Troy. As the Greek army prays to Nemesis, the goddess of just retribution, King Priam steps onto the terrace to watch the duel. Helen joins him, and, as they see her enter, thousands of soldiers become instantly entranced by her beauty. The king tells her he does not blame her for the war. She tells him that she wanted her marriage to Menelaus to be perfect, and that she has come to resent Paris for claiming “a higher power gave [her] to him.” She laments the sadness she has caused Menelaus, as well as the violent pandemonium that resulted. She nostalgically points the great Greek warriors out to Priam, confessing that she often imagines her time in Troy as having been a dream.
Part ii. first movement. The beach along the Aegean Sea. Morning. Zeus walks along the sand, and his brother, the sea god Poseidon, emerges from the waves. Poseidon
complains to Zeus that he is offended: the Greek army has built a wall through his favorite bay, a neutral area between Poseidon’s sea and Zeus’s land. Zeus urges him to relax, and soothes Poseidon’s damaged ego by reminding him that when the war finally ends the homeward-bound Greeks will offer many sacrifices to the sea.
Outside the walls of Troy. On the Trojan plain, the duel is about to begin. King Priam promises to abide by the terms of the truce and Hector prays that both armies will keep their word, allowing the war to end with the death of either Paris or Menelaus.
Priam sacrifices two lambs—one black, one white—and all the lords “swear to kill, and then castrate, whoever breaks the oath.” The duel begins. Paris throws his spear and just misses Menelaus. Menelaus then hurls his own spear and goes on the attack. He pins Paris to the ground and shatters his sword on Paris’s mask, but as he reaches for another to strike a deadly blow, the goddess Aphrodite wraps Paris in her wings and carries him to safety.
second movement. Olympus and outside the walls of Troy. Athena confronts Zeus about the duel. He congratulates her on the “clear, decisive victory” of her Greeks. Athena
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argues, however, that the truce is void because Paris did not die. She demands that Troy be destroyed. Meanwhile, back on earth, Hector and Agamemnon declare Menelaus the victor and agree that Helen will return to Greece peacefully. Hera firmly tells Zeus that she wants Troy destroyed; Zeus acquiesces, but only on the condition that he may also destroy three Greek cities as meaningful to the goddesses as Troy is to him. Athena returns to Troy to reignite the war. He also forbids any further immortal meddling on the Trojan plain.
third movement. The walls of Troy, Helen’s quarters, and Paris’s quarters. As the sol-diers celebrate the new peace, the Trojan archer Pandar exercises vigorously. Athena drops from the sky and takes possession of Pandar. With the encouragement of his bow-slave, Deedam, Pandar takes aim at Menelaus.
Meanwhile, Helen prepares to leave Troy. She feels lost and asks Aphrodite why she was made to leave Menelaus, her home, and her child. Aphrodite tells her to be grateful that she has beauty enough to start a war. She reminds Helen that, as Aphrodite’s own representative on earth, it is her duty to “stir and charm the wonder of the world.” She tells Helen to go to Paris one last time before she leaves Troy.
Photo of the set model for War Music by scenic designer Daniel Ostling
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Hector and the Greeks prepare to drink together. Pandar releases his arrow. Guided by Athena, it plants itself into Menelaus’s pubic mound. Her duty fulfilled, the warrior- goddess disappears.
As the Greek surgeon Makon tends to Menelaus’s injury, Agamemnon begs his brother not to die, fearing blame for not anticipating the Trojan betrayal. He turns to Hector and declares the peace broken.
Paris has been spirited by Aphrodite from the battlefield into his bedroom. He has sent for Helen, who enters and responds to him coldly. He asks if he has offended her. She replies that, as she is his wife, as well as the wife of Menelaus, if he desires her he should return to the duel and fight for her. “Your death,” she asserts, “will be the best for
everyone.” He walks over to her and recalls the passion of their first meet-ing. They kiss.
fourth movement. The battlefield. The Trojan and Greek armies stand on opposite slopes, ready to attack. Apollo rises behind Hector and fills his voice to rouse the troops. The battle begins, and the two armies hack violently at each other.
fifth movement. The battlefield. The battle wages on. Hector fights brilliantly. In the midst of the fighting, Greek Diomed picks up a huge rock and hurls it at Aeneas, shattering his hip. Diomed closes in to “lop his top,” but Aphrodite throws herself between the attacker and her mortal son. With Hera cheering him on, Diomed cuts the goddess of love instead. Aphrodite, enraged, pulls a cobra from her hair and drops it onto Diomed. He goes berserk, fighting anyone he comes across, Greek and Trojan alike.
Removed from the fighting, on a peaceful creek bank, the river god Hera
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Scamander sits. He is surprised and amazed when the beautiful Aphrodite stumbles to him, teary-eyed. She confesses that she has been humiliated, cut by a human man. He consoles her by agreeing to hinder the Greek army’s retreat.
sixth movement. Olympus. Then, the battlefield and Achilles’ camp. Hera and Athena complain to Zeus that the Greeks are losing; Aphrodite whines about her human-inflicted wound. Both sides want justice and vengeance. Zeus becomes annoyed by the bickering and booms, “Hector will have his day of victory.” The goddesses scatter in fear.
Meanwhile, the retreating Greeks are in a state of panic. Wise Nestor reminds Agamemnon that Achilles is the one man who can lead their army to victory. Agamemnon curses himself for insult-ing the great warrior. Recognizing that his army is doomed without Achilles, Agamemnon agrees to surrender Briseis and offers to give Achilles great wealth if “he agrees to fight” and if, he adds, “he admits I am his King.”
Ajax and Nestor hurry to Achilles’ camp, where they are admitted by Patroclus. Inside, Achilles is peace-fully strumming a guitar, singing of Gilgamesh. Nestor wastes no time—on his knees, he tells Achilles the Greeks are all dead without him, and that Agamemnon has finally offered to return Briseis. Still-sulking Achilles rebuffs the offer. Knowing they have come to him only out of desperation, he recognizes that the offer is materi-ally generous, but ultimately empty. Agamemnon’s hypocrisy remains unchecked, and Achilles will neither follow a corrupt leader nor fight beside those who refuse to address that cor-ruption. He sends the emissaries back to relay his decision to their king.
Aphrodite
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seventh movement. Achilles’ camp. Then, the battlefield. Patroclus cries for the dead and wounded Greeks and pleads with Achilles to let go of his grudge. Unable to persuade Achilles to return to the fight himself, Patroclus begs Achilles to let him fight dressed in Achilles’ armor to intimidate the Trojans. Achilles concedes, but warns his friend to be mindful of Trojan-loving Apollo. He orders him not to attempt to give the Greeks a vic-tory: Patroclus’s role is not to take Troy, but only to push the Trojans into a retreat.
Patroclus enters the fray, and the battle turns in favor of the Greeks. He pushes the Trojans back to their city and attempts three times to scale their wall. Each time, Apollo flicks him back. On the fourth try, Apollo’s booming voice commands him to back down. Patroclus continues, fighting as if in a dream. Apollo’s patience runs out and he appears: a gigantic, awe-inspiring presence, overwhelming Patroclus’s senses. Patroclus freezes, and a Trojan boy thrusts a javelin through both of the warrior’s calves. Hector finishes him with
a spear, but not before Patroclus pre-dicts the death of Troy’s champion.
eighth movement. The battle-field. Then, Achilles’ camp. Hector dons Achilles’ armor after stripping it from Patroclus’s body. The Trojans regain the momentum of the battle. Odysseus sends Antilochus to Achilles to deliver the news of Patroclus’s death. Overcome by grief, Achilles calls out to his mother. Underwater, Thetis hears her son and summons her 49 sister Nereids, and like a school of fish they swim to him. He weeps in sadness and rage: Hector, who killed his greatest love, is now clothed in Achilles’ own heaven-cast armor. He curses Troy and all mankind. Thetis and her sis-ters swim away to acquire new armor. Achilles walks alone and lets out so terrible a wail that all the fighting halts momentarily. The sun sets, and, on the beach below, Patroclus’s body
Athena
is delivered to Achilles. He swears that the body will not be cremated until Hector has been killed.
ninth movement. Achilles’ camp. As dawn breaks, Thetis appears on the horizon cary-ing new heaven-made armor for her son. Achilles clings to Patroclus’s body, but agrees to rejoin the Greek army, if only to avenge Patroclus’s death. Thetis promises to preserve the body from decay until Achilles can hold a proper burial.
tenth movement. The Greek camp. Achilles and Agamemnon reconcile: Achilles admits to being a self-righteous fool; Agamemnon confesses it was unfair for him to steal Briseis, but denies that he is to blame for the situation in which they find themselves. The conces-sion is enough for Achilles, who rouses the soldiers to begin fighting at once. Odysseus interrupts, reminding Achilles that they must eat before they go to battle. He persuades the warrior to bury Patroclus before returning to fight. Achilles agrees, and as they lunch he fondly speaks of his great love for Patroclus, romantically recalling the mun-dane quirks of his greatest friend, his life’s “sole love.” He falls asleep next to the corpse.
At last, the Greek army is whole. Prepared for action, they wait for Achilles to awake. He rises at noon and dresses. The sun shines brilliantly against his new armor. He mounts a chariot and speaks to his horses: “Don’t leave me behind, as you left my Patroclus.” One of the animals turns to him and prophesies his imminent death. Achilles is shaken, but rides on into battle: “I know I will not make old bones.”
Zeus
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the ultimate absurdityA Note from the Adaptor/Director of War Music
by lillian groag
Helen (the most beautiful woman in the world), Prince Paris, Menelaus, Agamemnon, the Greeks, the Trojans, lust, gold, love, unspeakable violence: a city goes up in
flames. Women are widowed, children are murdered, hosts of young men die. The story is some three thousand years old, as far as we can track. And yet, every year new translations in all languages continue to appear. Only recently Hollywood gave us yet another “Trojan War movie” (its fourth, fifth, eighth?) called, not unreasonably, Troy, which did very well at the box office. Why?
What is it about the story of an enraged, recalcitrant, lethal young man—Achilles—who chooses to die young and gloriously rather than live out a reasonable life in domestic but tranquil obscurity, that it continues to enthrall us in whatever form it shows up? What is it about these impossible men fighting to the death over stolen women—whom they actually treat like cattle and call nothing better than “shes” in Christopher Logue’s account—and oaths and honor and manhood, and treacherous gods they can’t count on no matter how much, how long they sacrifice to them, and the loss of beloved friends and wives and . . . Why have we been fascinated by this particular tale for three thousand years? Isn’t the Iliad that thing you kind of—although I understand, no longer—had to perfunctorily look at (I won’t say “study”) in school? And put it away as fast as possible because it was, you know, “Greek” and written somewhat before yesterday?
In Christopher Logue’s “account” of the Iliad, Achilles’ story is not three thousand years old. It is ever present and ever painfully alive. We all have to die. Is it better to go out earlier with Dylan Thomas’s “bang,” rather than later with t. s. Eliot’s humiliating “whimper”? Are we sure we know? And has any playwright of the “absurd” ever treated the “forces” that run the world with as much vitriol as Homer? Except perhaps Logue. In Logue’s (and in Homer’s) world we are on our own. Nothing can save us from our common fate. No prayer, no friendship, no love that feels “forever,” no government, and, much more alarmingly, no force of logic or reason in the world can alter our individual and common end. And yet, isn’t it spectacular, this wild breed, this humanity who will go to its grave howling and holding its mortality as a banner against the despicable frivolity of the eternal gods?
And isn’t war—in Logue’s words, a “criminal activity”—the ultimate absurdity? And yet we allow it to go on, and on, and on, and on . . .
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war music meet and greet/ design presentationRemarks Made to a.c.t. Cast and Staff at the First Rehearsal, February 24, 2009
On the first day of rehearsal of each production, a.c.t. staff members and the show’s cast and creative team gather in a studio to meet, mingle, and get to know each
other. After personal introductions are made, the director and designers present to the assembled group their vision for the design of the production, which is typically the culmi-nation of months of research, discussion, and textual analysis. This introduction is a kind of “snapshot” of the creative team’s understanding of the world of the play at the moment they step into the room with the actors, an understanding that will evolve and grow and perhaps change in significant ways as the cast brings life and breath and physical action to the playwright’s words over the following four weeks of rehearsal.
Below are excerpts from remarks made at the first rehearsal of War Music at a.c.t., a glimpse into the initial impulses behind the look and feel of the upcoming production.
artistic director carey perloffWelcome to War Music. We are a lot older and wiser—well, maybe not wiser, but older [laughter]—than when we started this project, and this is a very thrilling moment to be here. This all started with Miss Groag bouncing into my office three years ago saying, “Oh my god! Read this!” and she put on my desk Christopher Logue’s poem. She said, “I stayed up all night reading it. So you have to read it right away, too.” War Music is an astonishing piece of writing that this remarkable British poet based on several books of the Iliad. It has the most amazing language, and it leaps off the page. It was originally created to be done on bbc radio, so it was created to be spoken, and it screamed out to be spoken onstage.
This project is completely Lillian’s brainchild. Though other people have tried, nobody succeeded until Lillian took this material and created out of it a theatrical world. We commissioned this, and then [Dramaturg] Michael Paller did amazing work collaborating with Lillian over the past several years to figure out a way, in collaboration with this great company of actors, to create a theatrical piece.
This project is so a.c.t. It’s passionate and ambitious and filled with big ideas and led by an artist whom we love; it was built for our core acting company, and we have brought in other fabulous collaborators, including three of our m.f.a. Program students and the amaz-ing choreographer Daniel Pelzig and composer John Glover. I cannot think of another theater in the country that would be insane enough to take this on!
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This project is also very trenchant at this moment, almost uncannily so. When we started working on it, we thought it would all be resonant of Iraq. Now, alas, it appears that it will be resonant of Afghanistan. It is so much about whom we trust: where we shouldn’t trust power, and where we do, and how we relate to authority. It is really an amazing moment to be doing this. So, Miss Groag, do you want to just lay the land a little?
adaptor/director lillian groagWar Music tells you a story that is three thousand years old. Three thousand years old. For anybody who is wondering, “Well who is going to come and see that?” between the ’40s and now there have been between 25 and 30 new translations of the Iliad in English alone,
and an equal amount in other languages all over the world. People never tire of hearing this story. Four years ago (after the silly movies of the ’40s and the ’50s) we had a big blockbuster movie with Brad Pitt as Achilles, so clearly we are still fas-cinated by this story.
Artifacts from Troy have been found from around the 2th century b.c.e. At that time, these stories began to be told. We don’t know about before that, because there is nothing in writing. They were told around campfires. They were sung by rhapsodes, which is why the actual first line of the Iliad is “Sing, oh Muse, of the rage of Achilles.” In the Iliad itself, the battles don’t happen until the very end. There are little raids here and there, but Achilles—the hero of the Iliad—does not fight. Why this happens, how it starts, how Achilles comes to pull out of the war, is the setup for the entire story.
Why has there been such fascination with this particular story, other than it being the first? At a time when might was right, a chaotic time that was all about Agamemnon
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force, the Greeks were razing one town after another, taking the women and children. The Iliad is a story about the first hero who says, “Yes, we do that, but there needs to be a certain code of behavior: This is what you do. This is what you don’t do.” The Iliad is about honor, and it seems to me that that moment is the beginning of civilization. At that moment, most people were thinking, “It is all chaotic. We’re all going to die. We don’t know why we die or why some babies die and then some people live to 50. We don’t know why awful people can live fantastic lives and good people may have the worst lives.” The irrationality of nature. In the midst of all this, Achilles stands up and says, “This is how we do things. Just because.” Not because there is a god who is going to reward you. These gods don’t reward anybody for anything. Not only that, they betray you. But human-kind has one defense against death and the irrationality of the world, and that is a code of honor. A code of behavior.
This is what has fascinated everybody about the Iliad for centuries. What’s fan-tastic about the batch of new translations that has come out over the past few years is that they’re so accessible. Christopher Logue took the first four books of the Iliad and then books 6–9, which is the section of the story from when Achilles withdraws from the fight until he returns. Logue took that, and he turned it into the most fantastic 20th-century poetry. The word poetry frightens people: “Is it going to be all wafty and airy and vapor-ous?” But War Music is the most muscular, aggressive, funny, witty, extraordinarily beautiful poetry, and you actually don’t have to look up a single word.
I dare anybody to tell me that when they saw King Lear for the first time they understood more than a fourth of it. You didn’t. Don’t lie. [Laughter] But in War Music every single word is one that you Diomed
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use every day, except for some that he makes up. And those words are full of wonder, and they’re made up of little recognizable words: when Logue describes Achilles’ mother, Thetis, for example, he calls her “mother lovelost face.” You get it: Achilles hasn’t seen her since he was a baby.
To do this language justice, you need a company of actors that is rhetorically able. For the most part, we’ve lost that in American theater. We train our actors to audition for tele-vision and movies. Anybody who saw the movies that were nominated for the Oscars this year knows they are fantastic actors. But none of those people would be able to stand on the stage [of the American Conservatory Theater] and get these words out into the back of the house and have them understood, have them felt in the bodies of the audience.
This company of a.c.t. actors has been functional in shaping the project for the past year and half. This is the first time in 20 years of theater that I have developed a project with a theater for real, as opposed to the usual readings and workshops (which I’ve done everywhere). This is the first time I’ve had actors sitting at the table, working on the text, who say, “I think you should cut that line. We don’t need that . . . no, if you cut that, this
Draft of a set elevation for War Music by scenic designer Daniel Ostling
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would be missing.” This War Music actually came out of this company of actors, and that is absolutely thrilling. It is what I thought theater was going to be when I started. You can take a couple million dollars to create bells and whistles, but if you want to wow an audi-ence with just actors and the word, you need a spectacular group of actors.
You also need a set that won’t get in the way. At the top of the show there is a silk drop, oyster-colored, that will drop with the crash of a wave onto the stage and become the sea. The floor is made of steps forming a bowl leading down to a flat area made out of what looks like old bronze. The back drop has a circle in the middle, and the circle goes up and down to create different combinations of shapes: moon rises, crescent moons, eclipses. The shadows of gods will appear in that space. Aphrodite will come down in a shadow of white feathers to rescue Paris from the fight against Menelaus. It will be Poseidon’s Aegean Sea. The flat area in front is the beach, the field, Troy, the ships, the camps. That’s it. That’s all there is for the set.
We’ll have some extraordinary lighting and, at times, dry ice will come in from both sides. When Achilles—the butchest warrior who ever lived—comes onstage, within five
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seconds he calls for his mother, Thetis. So she comes out of the water—the dry ice—and transforms into the goddess. The dry ice and mist and lights will actually create the sea. Later, near the end of the piece, when Achilles has lost his love and best friend, Patroclus, and he is grieving for him, he calls for his mother again, and the Nereids (Thetis and her sisters) come out of the water. It may be hard to imagine Jack Willis as a mermaid, but that is exactly what the [actors] will all be doing. [Laughter]
actor jack willis: That’s right. I didn’t go to graduate school for nothing. groag: So you see where we are going with this: the less we show, the more we tell, the
more the audience’s imaginations will work. I hope they all walk out of the theater think-ing they saw it all when, in fact, they heard it all.
So what are these people going to wear? There are 3 people playing 50,000 Greeks and 50,000 Trojans and the gods.
costume designer beaver bauer Responding to this very muscular text and the incredible amount of movement the actors will be doing, we decided on a basic unit costume, which will be fatigues, a shirt of some sort, something that we’re calling a “shirt-jack” (an overshirt with pockets), belts that things can be hooked onto, and pockets that can hold the small pieces we will use to identify some of the characters. Suggestions of the characters will be fairly simple: A red beret. A patrol cap. A kerchief. A simple veil. Very economical. We will use a bit of red to represent Greece and blue to represent Troy. All the gods will have golden masks.
groag: And that’s it: if you see an actor in fatigues putting on a golden mask—some-times even a half-mask or a quarter-mask—then he or she’s a god. Most of the time they’ll just put it on right there onstage in front of you.
bauer: Many of these costumes are still in flux. During rehearsals we will be in a period of discovery, which we all feel fluid and prepared for. I was so intimidated by this, being a bell, whistle, and smoke person myself. To get this lean and simple is frightening for me, but with Lillian at the helm I am confident it will be successful. And the text is so beautiful that it sends me into rhapsodies on the bus. [Laughter]
groag: Logue refers in his poem to just about every major war in our memory, but the Trojan War is the only war—legendary or not—that was fought for love (or lust). Why do we talk about the war of Troy? Helen and Paris. All the other wars have been over oil and land. You only see real tenderness and loving from one person in this piece, and that’s Paris. If you’re going to fight anyway, isn’t it more understandable to fight for beauty?
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“the sea is always counting”An Interview with Composer John Glover
by deborah munro
Although writing and visual images inundate today’s society, War Music recalls the oral tradition of Homer’s time. Its robust language and musical metaphors present a
rare challenge to modern audiences, insisting that they value sound and sight on an equal basis. The story is not complete without its soundscape of music and spoken poetry, which makes the job of composer John Glover a complex undertaking: he is not just scoring a script but rather creating a musical language that threads together events, characters, and themes.
Trained as a classical composer, Glover is an emerging voice in contemporary music. He primarily writes concert music and his work is heavily influenced by classical and contemporary literature, from a cello solo inspired by Salomé to an orchestra work based on Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris and chamber music that incorporates the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Frank O’Hara, and e. e. cummings. The recent recipient of a master’s degree in composition from University of Southern California, he is also a freelance writer, a drama-turg, and the operations manager for the American Composers Orchestra.
Glover began collaborating with adaptor/director Lillian Groag on War Music more than two years ago and has since been part of the project’s development through multiple workshops in a.c.t.’s First Look new works program. Shortly before rehearsals for the premiere production of War Music began at a.c.t., he spoke to us about his musical inspi-ration and the process of developing an ambitious piece that fuses music, drama, language, and movement into a contemporary interpretation of one of Western civilization’s most beloved classical texts.
what is the role of music in WAR muSic?In straight theater, music is usually incidental. It’s for set changes, scene changes, and a little bit of underscoring, but it’s not intrinsic to the fabric of the work. War Music is unique in that music plays a fundamentally important role in the piece. Of course, Christopher Logue tells us that. The word “music” is half of the title of his book, so obviously the aural aspect of sound to convey story and characters is very important to him.
[Director Lillian Groag] is a brilliant musical mind as well as a theatrical one. We met six years ago when she was directing Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West at Glimmerglass and I was singing in the chorus. Opera singers often spend so much time memorizing notes
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and learning the score that the meaning of the words gets lost, but Lillian challenged us to work with both the music and the text. She seemed to get the whole scope of the piece: the sound of things and the theater of things. That struck me. Since then, we’ve done a few collaborations, usually working with incidental music. When we were doing The Imaginary Invalid [in 2006], she dropped this book into my lap called War Music. She said, “I think this is amazing. I think it needs to be onstage. There’s music in it and I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think that you’re the right person for it.”
I read it in a night. The Iliad has always been a favorite of mine, and Christopher Logue comes back to the heart of what it’s all about: the sound. This story was originally told orally and Logue’s text really reflects that—it demands to be read out loud, which is why Lillian wanted it onstage. And not only are the rhythms important, but Logue actually conjures sound with the words he uses. He talks about the sound of the ocean. He talks about the chiming of Achilles’ armor and the sound of the moonlight reflecting off the sand. At one point, he actually references the first downbeat of a massive classical orchestra conducted by Solti. When I finished the book, I went back to Lillian and said, “There’s music everywhere in this story, it’s begging to be there.” That started the journey of Lillian developing a piece where music would play a front role in the drama.
But it’s a tough balance. Lillian wanted to get back to the classical ideal of Greek theater in which music, drama, and movement were completely integrated and played at an equal level. Actors chanted and sang; they played drums and other instruments onstage. We can barely come to grips with how it must have sounded, especially because today it’s rare to have all the elements play at the same level in a theatrical space. War Music is a unique challenge in that way. The music is not incidental. It’s playing a much bigger role in the piece, but of course it’s not more important than the words or the visuals. That turns all of our jobs—the composer, the director, the choreographer, and the designers—into a delicate balancing act.
how did you achieve that balance in collaborating with lillian and choreographer danny pelzig?I was involved right from the beginning of the process, which is not at all common. I lived in Los Angeles when the project started, actually on the same block as Lillian. As she was crafting the script, she would come to me with requests about the music, which opened up the possibility for me to bounce back ideas to her. We talked a lot about what the instru-mentation might be and how we might do it. She’d say: “I think we need leitmotifs. We need musical imprints for these characters, much the way Wagner does in the Ring cycle,
opposite Page from John Glover’s original score for War Music
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so that we recognize their musical gestures when they reappear onstage.” We found this Greek folk song that conjures soldiers talking about wanting to go home, so I researched other folk songs and worked on a couple of them.
Before the script was solidified, Lillian and I came to a.c.t. for a workshop. I listened to the actors read out of Christopher Logue’s book and began to ingest ideas of rhythm, timing, and pacing—where we would put a drum hit; where we would have a low string tremolo; where we would have a full-out musical theme. There’s a musical rhythm and a musical voice to the way people speak, and then there’s an even more heightened rhythm to the way actors speak, especially fantastically trained actors when they’re dealing with wonderfully crafted text. Which this is. It’s Shakespearean in that way: there’s a rhythm and musicality to how you say these words.
Over the summer, we had another workshop for developing this new work outside of the rehearsal process (a very rare and fortunate opportunity that a.c.t. made possible). I had some music temped out for it, and Danny came with ideas of where there might be dance and movement. Lillian had all of her ideas, and we basically took a week to work with the actors and see how the piece walked and moved and sounded. Sometimes Danny would say, “What if we did this kind of dance or this kind of movement? Can we have music for it?” And then I’d respond. For example, he thought it might be great if the gods did a vaudeville number when Hephaestus gives his mother [Hera] this jug. He said, “I know it sounds crazy, but can you write a vaudeville tune?” So I wrote one and we tried it and it was hilarious. Sometimes Lillian would say, “Can we have music for this?” or “Can we have movement for that?” And sometimes it was me saying, “I think we should have musical punctuation here, so can we divide the timing like this.” In that way, everybody was feeding off of each other.
One of the coolest things we did in the workshop was during this scene where Thetis [Achilles’ mother, goddess of the sea] is conjuring all of her sisters, the spirits from the ocean. It’s towards the end of the play, and the entire stage is sort of submersed in water. Danny thought it was a beautiful visual moment and really wanted to see what the actors could do movementwise. I didn’t have any music ready, because I hadn’t really thought about scoring that scene yet, but I played him a couple ideas of things that we might do. He listened to them and then he went ahead and choreographed the movement to the text. I just sat there and watched what he did and what the actors did. That night, I went home and wrote music to choreography rather than the other way around.
This is why Lillian is a great director. Whenever she works on a project, she’s inclusive. She will entertain ideas from all parties about anything. Because you’re the set designer doesn’t mean that you only think about the set. Lillian will take ideas and think about them and try them out. It comes from her being such a collaborative, trusting artist.
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are there words, passages, characters, or images from the text that particularly inspired you?The ocean plays a huge role in this piece; it’s an additional character. One line really struck me: “And the sea that is always counting . . .” Just imagine yourself on the beach—whether it’s crashing waves, whether it’s a storm, or whether it’s the middle of the night and the waves are brushing onto the sand. A lot of the music has this pulse underneath it, this knowing pulse that’s always there, marking time.
One of my musical obsessions in all of my work has been creating underrhythms. I like the idea that a piece is already happening before the first downbeat, that there’s some larger mechanism underneath the surface. You may not be able to pinpoint it, but it’s there and it’s working. That aesthetic fits perfectly with War Music. These poems were recited with a specific rhythm and form; for example, every time there’s a big battle, Homer lists the people killed, their names, their family history, and how they died. It’s very beautiful but also very terrifying. You sense this higher rhythm, this higher organization of energy, but you don’t understand it and you can’t stop it.
This idea figures into the greater arc of the piece: the story starts with Achilles saying, “This war has nothing to do with me,” and it ends with Achilles putting on his armor to go back to the fight. So there’s a repetition there. There’s the idea that history repeats itself, that we do things again and again, but we move to a deeper rhythm. The sea is always there, whether people are being slaughtered by the millions, whether they’re getting back
Thetis and her nymphs rising from the sea to console Achilles for the loss of Patroclus, by Thomas Banks, 1778. The Victoria and Albert Museum.
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on their boats because they’ve declared peace, or whether they’re arriving the first time to go to war.
how do you use the music to describe people within the story, from humans to gods?Everyone has rises and falls in the way they speak. Everyone has a rhythm to the way they move and interact and behave. You can get at these qualities when you depict people in music. You can play off of “musical iconography,” as well. Thetis comes from the sea, so she has watery, fluid music with an almost Debussyian texture—again, the rhythmic coming and going of waves. She gets strings and bells that evoke water and the sound of ships passing. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty, so she gets saxophones and this boozy stripper theme that is reminiscent of 930s Greta Garbo. When Hephaestus gives his mother a jug, vaudeville movie-house music plays. Lillian wanted to play up the humor of the gods so that you’ll laugh at them and then reel in terror when you realize these buffoons are the decision makers. They can raise a huge flood, they can end a battle in a heartbeat, they can snap their fingers and change a mountain into a pile of rubble, and yet we see them soft-shoeing around in the clouds
how has the fusion of classical and contemporary influenced you?I spent a lot of time listening to classical Turkish music because Troy is actually in Anatolia, now Turkey. Classical Turkish music isn’t like classical Western music; it was played in the court on lutes, zithers, and instruments like that. I also listened to Greek music and to the few recordings that guess at what ancient Greek music sounded like based on philosophi-cal writings, images of instruments on pottery and walls, and what we know about building materials of the time. I allowed these classical traditions to enter my musical language in addition to Western sounds. I was trained as a classical composer, so some music is in the style of what I would write for classical musicians playing in a concert hall.
The project honors classical tradition in that it fuses music, movement, and poetry onstage. At the same time, some of the music is very contemporary; we reference heavy metal music from the last ten years, stripper music from the 930s, vaudeville music from black-and-white talkie pictures, and sometimes this ridiculous Trojan oriental music.
Of course, the story itself is ancient, but it’s also pertinent to where we are right now—especially Logue’s adaptation and the way that Lillian’s putting it onstage. We don’t know when people first started reciting the Iliad, and yet the tragedy it depicts is still happening, we’re still making it happen. The sea is always counting.
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“the story must be told”An Interview with Choreographer Daniel Pelzig
by lesley gibson
In adapting Christopher Logue’s poetic “account” of Homer’s Iliad for the stage, director Lillian Groag sought the guidance of choreographer Daniel Pelzig to help her realize
her vision of a physical theatrical experience that honors the rich language and evocative imagery of Logue’s poem. Throughout an extensive workshop process, Pelzig’s task has been to identify ways to use movement to communicate the ancient story to a modern audience, with a cast of 3 actors playing some 45 characters. Requiring him to wrangle a host of gods and mortals, two 50,000-strong armies, and three narrators who aurally chronicle the progression of the story, all while illustrating the spectacular and fantastical elements characteristic of ancient Greek literature, Pelzig’s task has not been simple.
Pelzig has choreographed for nearly every artistic medium that employs movement. He began his career as a ballet dancer and quickly transitioned into musical theater. In the years since, he has choreographed for ballet (including a stint as resident choreographer of the Boston Ballet), opera, and theater across the country. Working with Groag, Pelzig helped shape the theatrical incarnation of Logue’s poem throughout an extensive devel-opment process, which included a two-week movement workshop last July at a.c.t. We talked with him shortly after rehearsals for War Music began.
so much of the movement in this piece is described aurally by the narrators. will the actors be illustrating this movement physi-cally as the narrators simultaneously describe them?Yes, it will be a completely, thoroughly choreographed stage piece. It’s highly physical; everybody partakes in the movement of this piece. There will be marching formations, there will be wrestling, dancing, and even a little vaudeville. It demands very physical performances from the actors. In theater, just like in opera, the text informs you, so what I have to do is use staging and physicality to enhance the text.
what principles or ideas guide you as you develop a way to enhance this text? The principle that always guides me, in whatever project I’m working on is, the story must be told. That means that whatever theatrical, staging, or choreographed devices are used must be used simply to make the drama come to life.
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can you give a few examples of how you plan to tell this particu-lar story?There is a moment when [the sea-nymph] Thetis calls out to her 49 sisters, and they swim like a school of fish underwater to their destination. We developed a choreographed, ges-tural vocabulary for Thetis, and all the actors will learn this vocabulary, which will occur while the narrator is speaking the text. The actors are staged in such a way that they appear to be the nymphs riding on the waves. The physical gesturality of it is curvilinear, and it moves forward and its forward movement is related to the text that Thetis is speaking.
will we see a specific gestural vocabulary for each of the characters? Not necessarily. I don’t think that every character will have his or her own physical identity, but that every section will have its own identity. For example, Lillian has always imagined that the gods are whimsical and mercurial, and so that whole vaudeville sensibility seemed appropriate for them; they can do whatever they want, it’s all fun and games for them, it’s the people on earth who actually suffer. So there is a scene between Hephaestus [the metalsmith god] and Hera in which the vaudeville vocabulary seemed very appropri-ate; there will be canes and hats and all that. And in the battle scenes, when Patroclus is fighting with Apollo, there will be a slow motion, choreographed wrestling match. Man vs. God. Also a scene to heavy metal music, which will have soldiers marching in heavy formation. A lot like present-day Marines marching and yelling, the way they say, “Sir, yes sir!”
how have you balanced the classical elements with the contem-porary in this piece? The idea is to reimagine what the classical physicality might have been through a contem-porary lens. We have conceived ritualistic dances for Hector and the Trojans, and ritualistic dances, based on a folk-based vocabulary, for the Greeks. The vocabulary includes forma-tions, circle dances, and line dances, and a kind of stomping physicality and weighted movement. The actors are going to be doing a lot of running and getting up and down off the floor in this show. Hell on the knees.
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a furious quarrel over a womanby michael paller
Three salient facts about Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, the source of Christopher Logue’s War Music:) It may have been composed (not written) in the late eighth or
early seventh century b.c.e.; we don’t know for sure. 2) It was composed, and then sung or spoken, long before it was written down. The form in which it was written down (all 5,693lines in the original Greek) probably doesn’t bear an exact resemblance to the poem that Homer composed.3) Homer may have been “Homer,” a number of people who, over time, composed the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other poems. On Homer as an individual there is no trustworthy biographical information.
Another salient fact is that, despite being composed at an unknown date by a person or persons perhaps unknown, later written down, in a form that may or may not be very close to the oral composition, at a date similarly unknown by other persons known or unknown, the Iliad not only has survived for 2,700 years but remains a source of fascination and inspiration in a world unimaginable to he, or those, who wrote it. It could be argued that it survived, at least in part, by luck.
The Judgment of Paris, detail from the front panel of a sarcophagus: (L to R) Athena (with helmet), Hermes (with caduceus), Aphrodite (draped), Oenone (Paris’s first wife, with pan pipes), Paris himself (with Phrygian cap), and Eros. Roman art work from the Hadrianic period (117–38 C.E.), after Hellenistic themes.
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The western half of the Roman Empire fell near the end of the fifth century c.e., and with it, all knowledge of Greek and Roman literature and language disappeared in the West. However, it survived in the Eastern Roman Empire, called Byzantium for its capital (later Constantinople, then Istanbul). There, Greek literature, including the works of Homer as well as the extant Athenian tragedies, were used as tools for teaching Greek rhetoric. In the years leading up to the Turkish victory at Constantinople in 453, this classical literature began finding its way back into Italy, brought there largely by Christian scholars fleeing the looming end of their empire. The Iliad was published in Florence in 488 and has remained in print ever since. Among its prominent translators into English are George Chapman, Thomas Hobbes, Alexander Pope, William Cowper, William Cullen Bryant, Walter Leaf, Samuel Butler, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald, and Robert Fagles. Christopher Logue wrote what he’s referred to as his “account” of Homer (not a strict translation) on commission for a radio broadcast for the bbc, keeping faith with the poem’s oral origins.
Neither the Iliad nor War Music covers all ten years of the Trojan War. Rather, they pick up the story in the last, decisive year, in the midst of a furious quarrel over a young woman named Briseis between the leading Greek general, Agamemnon, and his greatest warrior, Achilles. So it might be useful to fill in the events leading up to that point.
The story starts with the Olympian wedding of the sea nymph Thetis (who would give birth to Achilles, whom she knew would die at Troy if he fought there) and the mortal King Peleus. The one immortal not invited to the fes-tivities was, unsur-prisingly, the god-dess of discord, Eris. Nonetheless, she sent a gift: a golden apple inscribed, “To the Fairest.” Knowing better than to get Helen and Paris. Side A from an Apulian red-figure bell krater, 380–70 B.C.E. Tochon Collection,
Musée du Louvre. Photo by Bibi Saint-Pol.
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involved in a dispute over who should receive it, Zeus instructed Hermes to escort the three likeliest candidates, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, and the apple to Mt. Ida, on the outskirts of Troy.
There, the handsome young Paris herded cattle in the company of a beautiful fountain nymph, Oenone. Paris was a son of Priam, Troy’s king, but on his birth, a seer had pro-claimed that he would be the ruin of Troy, so Priam gave the infant to his chief herdsman to kill. The relatively soft-hearted herdsman couldn’t bring himself to murder the child, and so he merely abandoned it on the slopes of Mt. Ida. When he returned five days later, he was amazed to find the boy being suckled by a she-bear, and, giving Priam a dog’s tongue as evidence that his order had been carried out, brought the infant home to raise himself.
On Mt. Ida, Hermes informed the no doubt surprised prince that he would be the one to choose which of the goddesses was the fairest. The goddesses, Hermes promised, would abide by his decision.
Paris did what any young man might do in a similar situation: he asked to see the god-desses naked, in order to make a thorough judgment. They assented and appeared before him in turn. Hera promised that if he chose her, she would give him great political power over Asia and untold riches. Athena promised military conquest and wisdom. Aphrodite told him that Helen, the world’s most beautiful woman and wife of the Spartan King Menelaus, would be his. When Paris asked Aphrodite about the minor detail of Helen’s availability, she said not to worry, she’d take care of everything so long as he set sail for Sparta with her son, Eros, as his guide. Not the most ambitious of men, Paris awarded her the golden apple, reconciled with Priam (to the horror of the king’s seers and advisors), and set out for Sparta to woo Helen. Meanwhile, furious that Paris had chosen Aphrodite over them, Hera and Athena vowed to destroy Troy.
Aphrodite failed to mention to Paris that a few years earlier Helen’s marriage to Menelaus had resulted in an unusual political and military pact. As a teenager, her beauty had already ignited one war, when Theseus, king of Athens, had abducted her, and her brothers, Castor and Pollox, had to retrieve her, nearly destroying Athens in the process. When the time for her marriage arrived, all the great princes of Greece assembled in Sparta as suitors, many of whom would play important roles at Troy: Odysseus, Diomedes, Ajax, Philoctetes, Teucer, Idomeneo, and others. Fearing that the rejected suitors would react with violence, Helen’s stepfather, King Tyndareus (her actual father was none other than Zeus himself ), was reluctant to choose one as her groom. Odysseus, known for his tactical cunning, suggested that to avoid bloodshed, Tyndareus insist beforehand that all the suitors take an oath to defend the lucky man against the ill wishes of the others. They
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did, and then Tyndareus picked Menelaus, brother of the powerful king of Mycenea, Agamemnon, as the winner.
It was a pious duty of all Greeks to extend hospitality to strangers, and a duty of the stranger to thank his host with gifts and the promise to reciprocate should the occasion arise. When Paris arrived in Sparta, Menelaus hosted him for nine days. Paris made no secret of his attraction to Helen, and she feared that Menelaus might blame her. Her husband, however, was oblivious, and on the tenth day set sail for Crete, leaving Paris and Helen to their own devices. Sources differ as to whether Paris abducted her and stole a considerable amount of money or if the two eloped, but what’s not disputed is that Paris violated the rules of hospitality. An act of such impiety was an insult to the gods and demanded swift punishment.
When Menelaus discovered that the two had departed for Troy, he invoked the suitors’ oath and demanded that Agamemnon raise an army and fetch his wife home. Agamemnon reluctantly agreed. The forces were assembled in a thousand ships that met at Aulis, where Agamemnon and Menelaus were joined by, among others, Achilles, Nestor, and Patroclus, all of whom had come from Phthia.
From the beginning, the omens were inauspicious. While Agamemnon was sacrificing to Zeus and Apollo, a serpent slithered from the altar to a nearby tree, where it devoured eight sparrows and their mother and was promptly turned to stone by Zeus. The prophet Calchas interpreted this as meaning that Troy would not fall before nine years had passed but that in the tenth year the war would be won.
Some accounts of the war include a false start from Aulis, when the Greeks mistook Mysia for Troy and mercilessly pillaged it before realizing their mistake. Returning to Aulis only slightly abashed (the Greeks had a reputation in the ancient world as “ambi-tious, driven thieves,” as the Trojan lord Anchises says in War Music), they prepared again for another assault on Troy. But the winds turned against them, pinning the fleet to the shore. Days went by, the forces grew restive, and Calchas declared that Agamemnon had angered Artemis, goddess of the hunt. The winds wouldn’t shift, the prophet said, until Agamemnon sacrificed his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Rather than lose face before his enormous force and fellow generals, the king had her brought to Aulis by a ruse, promis-ing to marry her to Achilles. When brought to the altar, Iphigenia bravely agreed to die for the sake of Greece. Agamemnon performed the sacrifice. The winds died and the fleet sailed for Troy. If Artemis was appeased, however, Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, was infuriated and swore vengeance. Agamemnon would survive ten years of war at Troy, but on his return to Mycenae, his stay would be shorter.
That, however, is another story.
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walls, warriors, and bloodby barry strauss
Troy invites war. Its location, where Europe and Asia meet, made it rich and visible. At Troy, the steel-blue water of the Dardanelles Straits pours into the Aegean and opens
the way to the Black Sea. Although the north wind often blocked ancient shipping there, Troy has a protected harbor, and so it beckoned to merchants—and marauders. Walls, war-riors, and blood were the city’s lot.
People had already fought over Troy for two thousand years by the time Homer’s Greeks are said to have attacked it. Over the centuries since then, armies have swept past Troy’s ancient walls, from Alexander the Great to the Gallipoli campaign of 95.
And then there are the archaeologists. In 87 Heinrich Schliemann amazed the world with the announcement that a mound near the entrance to the Dardanelles contained the ruins of Troy. Schliemann, who relied on preliminary work by Frank Calvert, was an inspired amateur, if also something of a fraud. But the trained archaeologists who have fol-lowed him by the hundreds in the 30 years since have put the excavations on a firm and scientific basis. And they all came to Troy because of the words of a Greek poet.
But are those words true? Granted that ancient Troy really existed, was it anything like the splendid city of Homer’s description? Did it face an armada from Greece? Did the Trojan War really happen?
Neoptolemus has killed Eurypylus and pursues his charioteer, but is confronted by Apollo, who has drawn his bow to defend Troy. Attic black-figure amphora by the Antimenes Painter, circa 510 B.C.E. Martin-von-Wagner-Museum. Photo by Bibi Saint-Pol.
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Spectacular new evidence makes it likely that the Trojan War indeed took place. New excavations since 988 constitute little less than an archaeological revolution, proving that Homer was right about the city. Twenty years ago, it looked as though Troy was just a small citadel of only about half an acre. Now we know that Troy was, in fact, about 75 acres in size, a city of gold amid amber fields of wheat. Formerly, it seemed that by 200 b.c.e. Troy was a shabby place, well past its prime, but we know now that in 200 the city was in its heyday. . . .
The Greeks were the Vikings of the Bronze Age. They built some of history’s first warships. Whether on large expeditions or smaller sorties, whether in the king’s call-up or on freebooting forays, whether as formal soldiers and sailors or as traders who turned into raiders at a moment’s notice, whether as mercenaries, ambassadors, or hereditary guest-friends, the Greeks fanned out across the Aegean and into the eastern and central Mediterranean, with one hand on the rudder and the other on the hilt of a sword. What the sight of a dragon’s head on the stem post of a Viking ship was to an Anglo-Saxon, the sight of a bird’s beak on the stem post of a Greek galley was to a Mediterranean islander or Anatolian mainlander. In the 400s b.c.e., the Greeks conquered Crete, the southwestern Aegean islands, and the city of Miletus on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, before driving eastward into Lycia and across the sea to Cyprus. In the 300s they stirred up rebels against the Hittite overlords of western Anatolia. In the 200s they began muscling their way into the islands of the northeastern Aegean, which presented a big threat to Troy. In the 00s they joined the wave of marauders, known to us as the Sea Peoples, who descended first on Cyprus, then on the Levant and Egypt, and settled in what became the Philistine country.
The Trojan War, which probably dates to around 200 b.c.e., is just a piece in a larger puzzle. But if the resulting picture builds on Homer, it differs quite a bit from the impres-sion most readers get from his poems. . . .
Writing is only part of the story. The Iliad and Odyssey are oral poetry, composed as they were sung, and based in large part on time-honored phrases and themes. When he com-posed the epics, Homer stood at the end of a long tradition in which poems were handed down for centuries by word of mouth from generation to generation of professional sing-ers, who worked without benefit of writing. They were bards, men who entertained by singing about the great deeds of the heroic past. Often, what made a bard successful was the ability to rework old material in ways that were new—but not too new, because the audience craved the good old stories.
We can presume that the Trojan War indeed happened: that is, that a Greek coalition attacked and eventually sacked Troy. But if the Trojan War really happened, how was it
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fought? What caused it? To answer these questions we will start with Homer and then scrutinize all details in light of what we know about the Late Bronze Age.
Take, for instance, the war’s length. Homer says that the Trojan War lasted ten years; to be precise, he says that the Greeks at Troy fought and suffered for nine years and finally won in the tenth. But these numbers should not be taken literally. Among many other reasons, consider that in the ancient Near East, there was an expression “nine times and then a tenth,” which means “over and over until finally.” It was a figure of speech, much as in today’s English the phrase “nine times out of ten” means “usually” rather than the literal numbers. In all likelihood, Homer uses a time-honored expression to mean that the Trojan War lasted a long time. We should not understand it literally. Either that, or the meaning of the phrase was garbled by the time it reached Homer.
So how long did the Trojan War really last? We don’t know. All we can say is that it lasted a long time but probably considerably less than ten years. Since they had limited resources, Bronze Age kingdoms are unlikely to have mounted a ten-years’ campaign. It was a protracted war. But then, Troy was a prize worth fighting for.
Iliou persis (the fall of Troy), detail. Side A from an Attic red-figure kylix, circa 490 B.C.E. Bammeville Collection, Musée du Louvre. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen.
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Troy’s fortune lay in its location. “Windy Troy,” as Homer calls it, was not merely gusty, it was a meteorological miracle. The city rose because it was located at the entrance to the Dardanelles, the water link between the Aegean and the Black Sea. In its prime, Troy covered 75 acres and held 5,000–7,500 people, which made it a big city in Bronze Age terms and a regional capital. The Troad, the hinterland of Troy, was a blessed land. There was fresh water in abundance, the fields were rich with grain, the pastures were perfect for cattle, the woods were overrun with deer, and the seas were swarming with tuna and other fish. And there was the special gift of Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind: Boreas usually blows in the Dardanelles for 30 to 60 days during the summer sailing season, some-times for weeks at a time. In antiquity, when boats lacked the technology to tack, that is, to zigzag against the wind, Boreas stopped shipping in the Dardanelles. For much of the sailing season, ship captains were forced to wait in Troy’s harbor until the wind fell. As lords of the waterfront, Trojans got rich, and they owed it to Boreas.
The Trojans were among the world’s great middlemen. Middlemen are rarely beloved, especially if they get rich on bad weather. With the possible exception of textiles, the Trojans had only one good to sell, their famous horses. Horse dealers were the used-car salesmen of the ancient world. The fast-talking Trojans probably found ways to cheat other men that outdid anything thought up in Thebes or Mycenae.
Troy may not have been popular, but with its natural advantages and business savvy, Troy was peaceful and prosperous—or it would have been, had it been wrapped in a bubble. Unfortunately, Troy stood exposed on the bloody fault line where two empires met. There was no more dangerous piece of real estate in the ancient world. To the east lay the Hittites, great charioteers who rode out of the central highlands and dominated Anatolia as well as much of the Near East. To the west lay the Greeks, a rising power whose navy exerted pressure across the Aegean Sea. These two warlike peoples were cousins of a sort. Both spoke an Indo-European language, and both had arrived in the Mediterranean from farther east around 2ooo b.c.e. Although these two rivals never invaded each other’s heart-land, they took out their fury on the people stuck between them.
Western Anatolia was the Poland of the Late Bronze Age: wealthy, cultured, and caught between two empires. In a region of about 40,000 square miles (roughly the size of Kentucky or about four-fifths the size of England), an ever-shifting set of countries struggled for power—with the Hittites and the Greeks always ready to stir the pot. There was a never-ending series of wars among the dozens of kingdoms that came and went over the years, vying for power in a turbulent no-man’s-land.
To the Greeks, who laid claim to the Aegean islands and who held a foothold in Anatolia, the Troad was a threat and a temptation, both a dagger pointed at the Greek
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heart and a bridge to the Hittites’ heartland. It was also the richest source of booty on the horizon. A major regional hub, Troy was a way station for goods from Syria and Egypt and occasionally even from the Caucasus and Scandinavia. How could the predatory hearts of the Greeks not have yearned to plunder it? But it was not a fruit to be easily picked.
Troy was a sturdy fortress. The plain of Troy was broad but, otherwise, it was no place for a bloody brawl. It was soggy for much of the year, which was bad for chariots. It may have been malarial—the evidence is unclear. Add to these factors the Trojan army and Troy’s wide network of alliances. But though the city was strong, Troy had weak spots. Twenty-eight towns lay in Troy’s rich hinterland, not to mention more towns on the nearby islands, and none of them had fortifications to match the walls of the metropolis. These places overflowed with the material goods and the women that the Greeks coveted.
Practiced and patient raiders, the Greeks were ready for the challenge of protracted conflict. Living in tents and shelters between the devil and the wine-dark sea would be miserable, but no one becomes a “Viking” in order to be comfortable. The Trojans enjoyed all the rewards of wealth and sophistication. But the Greeks had three advantages of their own: they were less civilized, more patient, and they had strategic mobility because of their ships. In the end, those trumped Troy’s cultural superiority. And so we come to the Trojan War.
The war probably took place sometime between 230 and 80 b.c.e., more likely between 20 and 80. At that latter date the city of Troy was destroyed by a raging fire. The presence of weapons (arrowheads, spearheads, and sling stones) as well as unburied human bones points to a sack—that is, a sudden and violent attack. The towns in the Troad, according to a recent survey by archaeologists, may have been abandoned around 200, consistent with an invasion.
Yet some skeptics deny the veracity of the Trojan War because few weapons have been found in the ruins of Troy compared to other ancient cities that had been sacked. But we must remember that Troy is no undisturbed site. It was the premier tourist attraction of the ancient world; its soil was dug up in search of relics for such vip tourists as Alexander the Great and the Emperor Augustus. And later “urban renewal” flattened the citadel for terraces for Greek and Roman temples, a process that destroyed layers of Bronze Age remains. The archaeological evidence fits the picture of a city that was sacked, burned, and, in later centuries, picked through by eager tourists.
The date of the Trojan War sticks in some historians’ craws. Around 80 b.c.e. the great palaces of mainland Greece, from Mycenae to Pylos, and many places in between, were themselves destroyed.
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With their own ruin looming, could the Greeks have possibly attacked Troy between 20 and 80? Yes. History is full of sudden reversals. For example, most Japanese cities were rubble in 945, yet only four years earlier, in 94, Japan had attacked the United States. Besides, the Greek myths say that the Trojan War gave way to civil war and chaos within the Greek homeland, and that might just fit the archaeological evidence. Finally, unrest in Greece in the period 20–80 might have made the Trojan War more, not less, likely, because it might have tempted Greek politicians to export violence abroad.
History is made up not of stones or words but of people. Was there ever a queen named Helen and did her face launch a thousand ships? Was there a warrior named Achilles who in a rage killed thousands? Did Aeneas suffer through a bitter war only to have the last laugh as a king? What about Hector, Odysseus, Priam, Paris, Hecuba, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Thersites? Did they exist or did a poet invent them? We don’t know, but names are some of the easiest things to pass down in an oral tradition, which increases the likelihood that they were real people. Besides, we can almost say that if Homer’s heroes had not existed, we would have had to invent them. There may not have been an Achilles, but Greek warriors used his tactics of raiding cities and of fighting battles by attacking chariots on foot. Priam may never have ruled Troy, but Kings Alaksandu and Walmu did, and Anatolian rulers lived much as Homer describes Priam, from his dealings with uppity nobles to his practice of polygamy. Whether Helen’s face launched a thou-sand ships or none, queens of the Bronze Age wielded great power and kings made war over mar-riage alliances. She is a character who sums up the spirit of her age, and new evidence increases the chances that she really did exist. And that she ran away from home to go to the windy city, blown by Boreas, and the fatal waterway by which it sat, where soldiers stole cattle and hunted men.
Achilles tending Patroclus, who has been wounded by an arrow. Attic red-figure kylix, circa 500 B.C.E. Altes Museum, Berlin. Photo by Bibi Saint-Pol.
gods, piety, and disobedienceby megan cohen and michael paller
For the ancient Greeks, answering the questions of what the gods were like, how they looked and sounded and operated, was the province of the individual citizen, not a
matter of organized faith. It was not the communal religion, but the culture’s poetry and myths that defined and described the gods’ appearance and activity. While the Greeks had many beliefs about the spiritual world, the only religious requirements were to have and display faith that the gods existed, and to behave piously.
Piety was a form of justice, a service to the gods based on the understanding that humans are inferior to immortals. The gods loved piety and rewarded it, and hated impi-ety and punished it. A pious life was one in which you showed reverence for your city’s gods and their temples and holy sites, observed the social codes of hospitality and tending the dead, avoided social taboos (e.g., incest), sought and heeded the prophecies of seers, remained loyal to your country, cared for your living parents, and performed the rituals and sacrifices through which the gods received their due.
The Greeks believed that in the golden age of heroes, during and before the Trojan War, gods and mortals had interacted face-to-face. By the time Homer composed, the actual physical materialization of gods on earth was considered a thing of the past. However, people still saw the tangible effects of the divine in the mortal realm. The average Greek turned to religion for assistance with several concerns: fertility (her or his own; of family; of crops and animals); health and security in times of danger and warfare; and economic prosperity for self and country. To try to ensure success and abundance in these realms, Greeks would make ceremonial offerings. A farmer sowed seeds in the field, then prayed to the gods to send the proper weather: both tasks seemed equally practical, and equally essential, for a plentiful harvest.
In a time of crisis, the Greeks prayed not merely to the “relevant” deity, the overseer of their particular region or of the subject matter at hand, but to any deity on whose aid the particular needy mortal, or group of mortals, had established a claim by making a sacrifice. To this end, each Greek polis (i.e., “city-state”, such as Athens, Corinth, or Sparta) hosted a series of public festivals throughout the year that were intended to ensure the aid of all the gods who were thus honored. They reminded the gods of services rendered and asked for a quid pro quo. Religious piety (eusebeia) was a public matter, a civic one, and the goodwill of the gods had to be maintained by and for the community, the spiritual equivalent of a water supply or a military defense system. Hence the temples and statues and priesthoods kept at
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public expense, and the fact that impiety (asebeia) was seen as a serious crime against not only the gods, but society, as well.
The Greeks tended to think that the gods were responsible only for the good and desir-able things that happened. For failure, they blamed either themselves or their fate—which was not the same as the gods. This is one of the differences between Greek religion as it was practiced and as it is portrayed in some of the tragedies, wherein characters will hold a god liable for a spectrum of earthly misfortunes. However, the popular belief was that the gods could, and did, cause damage and peril in one particular circumstance: gods personally sought vengeance when their own prerogatives were violated—their temples desecrated or their importance slighted—without the just punishment of the offender. To deny the existence of a deity, or to go against his or her tenets or wishes by refusing to piously observe the required rituals (sacrifice, hospitality, or adequate burial ceremonies), was to risk reprisal, from the god or from other mortals attempting to protect the com-munity from the wrath of the offended divine being.
Sacrifice of a young boar. Attic red-figure cup, circa 510–500 B.C.E. Campana Collection, Musée du Louvre. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen.
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who was who in the trojan warkey to allegiances: Pro-Greek / Pro-Troy / Neutral
achilles Greatest and quickest of all the warriors fighting in the Trojan War. Hero of the Greeks and leader of the Myrmidons. Son of King Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis. Dear friend to Patroclus. See also briseis, patroclus, thetis.
andromache Wife of Troy’s protector, Prince Hector. Archetype of the loyal spouse. Daughter of King Etion of Thebes-under-Plakos, who was killed by Achilles.
aeneas Second only to Hector as a great Trojan warrior. Son of mortal Anchises and goddess Aphrodite. Nautical post-Troy adventure recounted in Virgil’s Aeneid, which includes account of famous love affair between Aeneas and Queen Dido of Carthage, who committed suicide when Aeneas left her. Destined to found the beginnings of the Roman Empire.
aesculapius Greek healer trained in the art of healing by the centaur Chiron. Son of the god Apollo and mortal Coronis. Later became god of medicine and healing. His iconic physician’s staff with interwoven snakes remains the symbol of the medical profession.
agamemnon Leader of the Greek troops allied against Troy. King of Mycenae and brother to Menelaus. Husband to Clytemnestra and father of Iphigenia, Orestes, and Electra. Member of the ill-fated house of Atreus. Sacrificed Iphigenia at Aulis to appease god-dess Artemis and secure favorable winds to Troy. After the war, took prophetess Cassandra as concubine. Slain by wife upon return from Troy.
ajax Mightiest of the Greek heroes after Achilles. Son of Telamon, king of Salamis. Huge, strong man, famous for his large shield and slow speech. Often called the “wall” of the Greeks.
Ajax and Footsoldier
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anchises Trojan advisor. Father of Aeneas by Aphrodite. Cousin to King Priam. Accompanied son on post-Troy journey. Died before reaching Italy.
antenor An elder of Troy. Brother-in-law and councilor of King Priam. Always favored returning Helen to Menelaus to secure diplo-matic path to peace.
antilochus Greek warrior. Son of Nestor. Distinguished charioteer. Died protecting his father.
aphrodite Goddess of love, beauty, and sex-ual rapture. Daughter of Zeus and Dione (a Titan). Won the Judgment of Paris by offer-ing him Helen, thus inciting Trojan War. Protector of Aeneas. See also aeneas, paris.
apollo God of prophecy, religious healing, music, poetry, dance, and intellectual inquiry. Also god of light, archery, healing, mice, and the plague. Son of Zeus and Leto (daughter of Titans). Twin brother of Artemis. Once loved Cassandra of Troy and bestowed upon her the gift of prophecy; cursed her when she rejected him by rendering all recipients of her prophecy unbelieving. See also calchas, crysez.
ares God of war and rage. Son of Hera and Zeus. Twin brother of Eris, goddess of discord.
athena Goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, and justice. Guardian of Athens. Daughter of Zeus and Metis (daughter of Titans). Born fully armored from Zeus’s skull. Attempted to win the Judgment of Paris by offering him great wisdom, skill, and luck in battle. Bitter enemy of Prince Paris and Troy. See also paris.
Apollo
Ares
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briseis War prize from Lyrnessus, a defeated ally of
Troy. Taken as Achilles’ concubine, then stolen by
Agamemnon when he was forced to relinquish his own
concubine Cryzia to appease Apollo. Catalyst for Achilles’
withdrawal from war.
calchas Greek soothsayer. Foresaw that Troy would fall with the help of Achilles. Explained that the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia was necessary to appease Artemis and secure passage to Troy. Explained that Apollo punished the Greeks with plague because Agamemnon refused to return Cryzia to her father.
chylabborak Trojan warrior. Andro-mache’s one remaining brother; others killed by Achilles.
crysez Apollo’s priest from a neighboring ally of Troy.
Father of Cryzia, who was taken as Agamemnon’s con-
cubine after the Greeks conquered her town. Offered
generous ransom for the return of Cryzia; offer rejected,
he prayed for intervention from Apollo, who sent a plague
of mice. See also agamemnon.
diomed Greatest Greek warrior after Achilles and Ajax. King of Argos. Favorite of Athena. Penchant for treachery and, at times, dishon-orable violence.
ganymede Beautiful young Trojan prince. Abducted by Zeus to become the immortal cupbearer and lover of the gods.
hephaestus Crippled metalsmith, god of fire and craftsmen. Creator of godly weapons and armor. Fatherless son of Hera. See also scamander.
Hephaestus
Hera
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hector Mightiest defender of Troy and leader of its allied forces. Eldest son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba. Brother of Paris. Husband of Andromache. Pious, temperate, and dutiful. Slain by Achilles. See also priam.
helen Most beautiful woman in the world. Daughter of the mortal Leda and god Zeus, who visited Leda as a
swan; often depicted as hatching from an egg. Half-sister to Clytemnestra (Agamemnon’s wife). Abducted by King
Theseus when a young girl, but retrieved by her brothers. Courted by all of Greece. Married to Menelaus after
suitors swore Oath of Tyndareos, binding them to protect her marriage. Abducted or seduced by Paris and taken
to Troy. Catalyst of the Trojan War. See also paris.
hera Queen of the gods. Goddess of marriage and birth. Sister/wife of Zeus. Daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. Attempted to win the Judgment of Paris by offer-ing him great power. Bitter enemy of Prince Paris and Troy. See also paris, zeus.
idomeneo Greek warrior. Grandson of King Minos. Leader of Cretan troops.
makon Greek healer. Son of Aesculapius.
menelaus Greek warrior. Husband of Helen. King of Sparta. Younger brother of Agamemnon, who was more important in political and military arenas. See also helen.
the muses Nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory). Goddesses of inspiration who preside
over the arts and sciences. Led by Apollo.
the nereids Fifty sea nymphs. Daughters of Titans Nereus and Doris. Cared for and represented various facets of the
ocean. Aided distressed fishermen and sailors. Lived in a cave in the Aegean Sea. See also thetis.
nestor Greek advisor. Oldest of the Greek heroes. Celebrated for his wisdom, eloquence, bravery, and experience with war and adventure. See also antilochus.
odysseus Greek warrior. King of Ithaca. Known for his cleverness, cunning, and elo-quence. Hero of Homer’s Odyssey, depicting his tumultuous journey home from Troy.
pandar Trojan archer. Broke the peace by wounding Menelaus.
paris Trojan prince, son of Priam and Hecuba, and brother of Hector. Raised as a shep-herd’s son on Mount Ida before discovering his royal lineage. Stole Helen from Menelaus after the Judgment of Paris, in which Zeus asked him to declare Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite the most beautiful goddess. Choosing Aphrodite earned Paris Helen, but also the enmity of Hera and Athena. See also aphrodite, athena, helen, hera.
Poseidon
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patroclus Greek warrior. Achilles’ beloved com-panion and his second in command. His death compelled Achilles to re-enter the battle.
poseidon God of the sea, earthquakes, and horses. Brother of Zeus. See also zeus.
priam King of Troy. Father of 50 sons (including Hector and Paris) and many daughters (including the priestess Cassandra).
scamander God of the Scamander River near Troy. Attempted to defend Troy from Achilles; defeated when Hephaestus set him on fire.
stentor Greek herald said to have been as loud as 50men.
thersites Greek foot soldier. The only low-level fighter described in detail by Homer. A vulgar, mis-shapen coward.
thetis A Nereid. Mother of Achilles. Married mor-tal Peleus after wooers Zeus and Poseidon learned of prophesy predicting her son would be mightier than his father. Attempted to make her infant son immortal either by covering him in ambrosia and burning away the mortal portions, or by dipping him in the River Styx, thus rendering him invulner-able except for the heel where she grasped him. See also the nereids.
zeus Supreme ruler of the gods, the earth, and the sky. God of
justice and civilization. Wielded thunderbolts. Son of the Titans
Cronus and Rhea. Freed his older siblings—Hestia, Demeter,
Hera, Hades, and Poseidon—from Cronus’s stomach and over-
threw the Titans. Father of many gods and half-gods, including
Helen and Athena.
Scamander
Zeus
Thetis
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a war music miscellanyDefinitions and explanations of terms and phrases presented in the order in which they appear in Lillian Groag’s adaptation of War Music.
by megan cohen
amphora A two-handled pot with a narrow neck, primarily used to store liquids.
chromium wash Chromium, from the Greek word chroma (“color”), is a lustrous gray metal. As early as the third century b.c.e., bronze weapons were coated in chrome to pre-vent corrosion. The phrase “chromium wash,” however, may be an evocation of the bright, fluorescent glare of streetlights in a parking lot late at night.
tower belts Tower belt machines are construction cranes used to transport concrete into place when building a dam. They’re used in pairs, with one on each end of the area being
El Alamein 1942: British infantry advances through the dust and smoke of the battle. Photo by Len Chetwyn.
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dammed. Tower belt is also the name of a piece of climbing equipment that allows one to stay in place, hands-free, midway up a tower, telephone pole, or tree. Logue may, however, simply be using the phrase to mean a row of towers, electrical or otherwise.
rommel and alamein Two 942 battles at El Alamein (a town in northern Egypt) were fought in the deserts of North Africa, led by Axis commander Erwin Rommel. The First Battle of El Alamein ended when Allied forces commanded by Claude Auchinleck halted the advance of Axis forces into Egypt. To end the Second Battle of El Alamein, Allied commander Bernard Montgomery defeated Rommel in one of the decisive moments of World War ii, marking the end of Axis expansion into Africa and the Middle East.
prussic glare Prussic acid, also called hydrocyanic acid, is highly flammable, poisonous, and colorless and smells of bitter almonds when it burns.
“king agamemnon is not honor bound” Achilles’ honor monologue alludes to and refutes Falstaff ’s honor speech in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I:
’Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honor? A word. What is in that word honor? What is that honor? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.
hesperus The half-god, half-mortal personification of the evening star.
cubist In the style of cubism, an early 20th-century art movement in which the subject matter was deconstructed then reassembled in an abstracted form highlighting its geomet-ric planes. Leading practitioners included Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
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inland sea Likely refers to the Sea of Marmara, which connects to the Aegean Sea by the Dardanelles Strait and to the Black Sea by the Bosphorus Strait.
brickfield wind A brickfield wind would be smoky and stink of sulfur.
chased Chasing is a form of embossing, in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering designs into the piece from the front, thereby indenting the surface. It was practiced in antiquity, and surviving examples include Greek shields from the third century b.c.e. Pieces would be chased in copper, tin, or bronze, with the finer details done in gold or silver.
satraps Satrap means “protector of the dominion” or “ruler.”
thrace A region in southeastern Europe, north of Greece, of indefinite and varying boundaries.
bosphorus The Bosphorus Strait links the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, separating Europe from Asia. Its name translates as “Ford of the Cow,” a reference to the legend of Io, who, transformed into a heifer by Zeus, swam across this strait while fleeing an enraged Hera.
marmarine Bordering the Sea of Marmara.
phrygiland The land of Phrygia, a kingdom in the west-central region of Anatolia (east of Troy).
hittite anatolium The Hittites, a people of Indo-European descent, flourished in Anatolia, now part of modern-day Turkey, between 600 and 200 b.c.e.
dardan The Dardan line and the house of Ilium were the two familial branches of the royal house of Troy. The Dardans ruled from the city of Dardania, neighboring the terri-tory of Ilium to the north. Aeneas was the leader of the Dardans in battle. Although some translations consider the groups interchangeable, Homer makes a distinction throughout the Iliad between the Trojans and their Dardan allies.
ida Mount Ida was southeast of Troy. It is where Paris was raised as a shepherd’s son and it became the site of the Judgment of Paris.
lycia A division of Asia Minor, to the south of Troy, bordering on Phrygia and the Mediterranean Sea. Sarpedon, a native of Lycia, led the southern Trojan allies.
cyprus A Mediterranean island, to the southeast of Lycia. Some myths hold that Aphrodite was born from the foam surrounding the island when the Titan Cronus tossed the genitals of his father, Uranus, into the water.
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slag A metalworking term that refers to the discarded liquid impurities that float on top of molten metal. Sometimes slag is used as fertilizer. It is also British slang for a lewd or promiscuous woman.
philtrum The indentation between the upper lip and the nose on the human face. The Greeks considered it one of the most erogenous zones on the body, and named it after the word philein, which means “to love” or “to kiss.”
mammoth hog of caldyon Because King Oeneus forgot Artemis in his harvest-time sacrifices to the gods, the offended goddess sent a gargantuan boar to ravage the country of Calydon. The hog devastated the fields, slew the livestock, and killed many men who attempted to stop its rampage. It was eventually wounded by Atalanta, the female huntress of Arcady, and killed by Oeneus’s son Prince Meleager. When Meleager awarded the prize skin of the hog to Atalanta (with whom he was in love), his mother’s brothers were enraged that the hide would go to a woman and attacked. Meleager killed them, and his mother, Althea, in turn murdered Meleager, before hanging herself in remorse.
argolis A rocky peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea, bordered by Corinth to the north. Contains Mycenae, Agamemnon’s home.
shire-sized dust-sheet Shire is a term for county, first used to refer to the areas in southern England that were divided by the invading Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century c.e. A dust sheet is a large cloth employed to cover, and thereby protect, rarely used furniture.
dnepr A river in Russia, the third largest river in Europe.
moon-horned This descriptor was used most famously by Oscar Wilde in his poem “The Sphinx,” which refers to “Moon-Horned Io,” a girl transformed by Zeus into a heifer in the god’s attempt to hide his mortal lover from his jealous wife. The “moon” refers to the Turkish crescent.
acropolis The word “acropolis” translates to “city on the edge.” An acropolis is an elevated portion of a city, fortified for defense purposes. This protected metropolitan heart often served as the nucleus of an ancient urban area, containing a city’s most important public buildings. An acropolis was usually the site of the halls of government and of religious temples, such as the Parthenon in Athens.
abydos A town north of Troy along the Hellespont/Dardanelles Strait.
arisbe A town north and east of Abydos (north of Troy) along the Hellespont/Dardanelles Strait.
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corinth A city-state of about 350 square miles, located on an isthmus between Athens and Sparta.
gla Fortress in Boeotia, north of Athens.
nemesis The goddess of just distribution and retributive justice.
palisade A palisade is a fence of defensive stakes, often wooden, usually a military forti-fication.
maginot line The Maginot Line was an elaborate defensive barrier in northeast France constructed in the 930s. At the time, the ultramodern barrier boasted the thickest con-crete, and the heaviest guns, ever used in combat. However, it was no match for German military strategy which directed forces into France on a route that rendered the Maginot Line defensively impotent.
“like a gangster in a barber’s chair” In 957, New York mob boss Albert Anastasia was gunned down by two hired assassins while he sat with his eyes closed in a barber’s chair in the Park Sheraton Hotel (now the Park Central Hotel) on 7th Avenue at 56th Street.
dardanelles The Dardanelles is a river connecting the Sea of Marmara (via the Hellespont Strait) with the Aegean Sea. Troy guarded the entry point of the Dardanelles, controlling the flow of trade between the Black Sea and the Aegean (the East and the West).
“Able,” plutonium bomb detonated in 1946 on Bikini Atoll by the U.S. military as part of Operation Crossroads. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Federation of American Scientists.
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bikini Between 946 and 958, the u.s. Navy conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll, a series of Micronesian islands in the Pacific. These tests included the detona-tion of two bombs comparable in size to those dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Three of the islands in the group were vaporized.
solti Sir Georg Solti (92–97) was one of the most highly regarded classical conductors of the 20th century. He made the first critically acclaimed complete set of recordings of Wagner’s Ring cycle and won more Grammy Awards than any other artist in history.
ilex The genus of plants more commonly known as holly.
pubic arch The bones at the lower front of the pelvis. The ligaments which connect the bones, and form the upper and lower boundaries of the arch, consist of fibers bunched with cartilage.
fricourt A town in France and site of a swift British victory during World War i.
okinawa A Japanese island and site of the 82-day Battle of Okinawa, the second deadliest battle of World War ii, during which a third of the island’s population was killed and the u.s. Navy sustained the greatest loss of life and ships in its history.
U.S.S. Bunker Hill hit by two kamikazes in 30 seconds on May 11, 1945, off Kyushu in the Battle of Okinawa. Dead: 372. Wounded: 264. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
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stalingrad west This term is an allusion to the Battle of Stalingrad in Russia, the blood-iest fight of World War ii. The phrase has become synonymous with prolonged violence.
ichor The fluid that ran in the gods’ veins in lieu of mortal blood. The word was used by the ancient Greeks in medical literature, where it meant an approximation of blood serum (the watery fluid that separates away from clotting blood), and appeared in culinary con-texts, where it referred to the juices that seeped from roasted meats.
corfiot armor Armor from Corfu, an island of Greece located to the west of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea.
missolonghi A town in western central Greece, on the north shore of the Gulf of Patras as it feeds into the Ionian Sea.
gilgamesh The epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps the first surviving written work of fiction (written on 2 clay tablets in cuneiform script and dating from between 2750 and 2500
b.c.e.) and one of the most popular stories ever told. From the beginning of Mesopotamian civilization, it tells the story of a half-mortal, half-god Sumerian king whose crimes against the gods led to the death of his friend Enkidu. The king’s lament over his companion’s body is one of the most famous poetic passages in the story.
empyrean The highest place in heaven. In ancient cosmologies, it was occupied by the element of fire.
Burning streets in Stalingrad. Deutsches Bundesarchiv.
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resistance to normalcyA Brief Biography of Christopher Logue
by lesley gibson
Christopher Logue is something of a para-dox. An antiwar protester who never studied
Greek, he spent almost 50 years immersed in ancient classical literature, rewriting Homer’s timeless war epic, the Iliad, to create for a 20th-century sensi-bility an entirely new poem that depicts Homer’s battle scenes in all their bloody glory.
Born in Portsmouth, England, in 926 into a middle-class family, Logue enlisted in Britain’s elite Black Watch infantry regiment when he was 7. A bashful and unfocused young man, he floundered in the army (without seeing combat) until 945, when, while stationed in Palestine, he was caught dealing stolen army identification cards and sentenced to 6 months in prison. It was during this period of incarceration that he began to write poetry, and after his release he moved to London anxious to find a literary scene. Postwar London was a sober environ-ment for a restless young poet, however, so Logue did what any bohemian artist looking for adventure did in the 950s—he moved to Paris.
Mid-20th-century Paris was a hotbed of the fervent and the progressive, and before long Logue found himself at the center of the action. He forged relationships with writers Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Richard Wright; briefly dabbled in literary pornog-raphy for Maurice Girodias’s newly founded Olympia Press (publisher of the work of Beckett and William S. Burroughs and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita); and began to publish slim collections of poetry, the first of which, Wand and Quadrant, appeared in 953. By the time he returned to London in 956, Logue was contemplating undertaking an epic-length work (on no particular theme) when a friend, Homeric scholar Donald Carne-Ross, approached him about contributing to a new translation of the Iliad for bbc Radio.
In his continuing rewriting of Homer’s epic, Logue has over the past five decades tackled short sections of the Iliad sporadically and in no particular order. The first two volumes, Patrocleia (based on Book 6 of the Iliad, the result of the bbc commission) and Pax (Book 9), appeared in 962 and 967 respectively, to much critical acclaim. The 960s brought a surge of excitement into Logue’s life, and he seemed to be everywhere, swept up
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in the current of political change. During those years he marched against nuclear arma-ment and spent a second (shorter) stint in prison for his political activism. Professionally, he kept himself afloat with an eclectic combination of creative gigs. He wrote short poems and songs here and there, curated for the satirical magazine Private Eye, wrote plays (for the Royal Court Theatre) and screenplays, and appeared as an actor in a handful of films. Logue was, he says, “constantly refusing the ordinary human side of life,” and by the 970s, his resistance to normalcy collided with a postsixties letdown that left him in a depression for the greater part of a decade.
Attention returned to Logue’s Homer project in 98, when Jonathan Cape published War Music, which included a reprint of Patrocleia and Pax, together with GBH (for “griev-ous bodily harm”), a new section entirely devoted to the battle scenes in Books 7 and 8 of the Iliad and intended to link the previous two sections. In the years that followed, Logue extended War Music with four additional installments: Kings (Books –2, 99), The Husbands (Books 3–4, 994), All Day Permanent Red (battle scenes from Books –4, 2003), and Cold Calls (Books5–9, 2005, winner of the prestigious Whitbread Poetry Award).
Today considered by many to be Britain’s greatest living poet, Logue is credited with helping to throw off the field’s pompous reputation. As a self-proclaimed “lowlitist” auto-didact who never studied Greek (and indeed never went to university, a fact of which he is still proud), Logue calls his version an “account” of the Iliad, based on five English transla-tions of Homer’s epic (George Chapman [6], Alexander Pope [720], Lord Derby [865], a. t. Murray [924], and e. v. Rieu [950]), from which he pieced together the basic struc-ture, plot, and characters. He then retold the story as he imagined it, viewed through the lens of his iconoclastic 20th-century experience and illuminated with brashly anachronistic pop culture references and allusions to contemporary military conflicts.
Narrated in a relaxed form of blank verse, the Homeric series reflects Logue’s affinity for the dramatic arts and his overlying intention that his work be spoken aloud. People often use the word “cinematic” when describing his Iliad, as the poetry is rich with sweep-ing aerials, quick cuts, mental close-ups, and striking sound effects that portray Logue’s violent Ilium with heart-stabbing immediacy. As one reviewer wrote, “Logue makes [Homer’s poetry] leap, twist, and revel in its sprays of blood.”
Logue, who has said that he finds the Iraq war “disgusting,” has succeeded in capturing for our times the essential human element at the heart of Homer’s visceral tale of divinely driven mortal conflict. The story of the Iliad continues to fascinate after almost three thousand years, says Logue, because it embodies Homer’s complex attitude toward war, “at once knowing how horrible it is, but also knowing that inside wars tremendous virtues exist—courage, bravery, self-sacrifice. And also feats of incredible daring. The whole busi-ness of warfare is very ambiguous for humans.”
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on christopher logue and war music
how do you get in the mood to write war poetry?Well, we’re all war experts, aren’t we? How do you get out of the mood might be more to the point. It seems to me that at one time or another during my life wars have been going on all around me.
the ancient greeks had homer, and we have had [television war correspondent] peter arnett. what are we sacrificing, language-wise? what are we gaining in imagery?I’m not sure you could compare actual imagery to literary imagery. The effects are quite different. That is to say there are some things that any audience—including you and me—would be repelled by if it were actually shown in images. It was one of the things that actu-ally helped force America to withdraw from Vietnam—the transmission of horrific images on television. As Aristotle says, you can say certain things at a certain distance, where if you say them on the day or close to it, it passes through the mind into the viscera, and you get that reaction of being sick like you’ve had too much to drink or something. Somehow the body starts to act. Words allow you to say much more than you can show. . . .
do you think it ’s proper to find poetry in war?Yes, I do. It’s a very important part of human activity. That’s all there is to it. You can ask the same question about murder or rape or anything. It’s the way humans live. It’s what we do. And that’s the subject for poetry.
is it possible there are a hector and an achilles in iraq, or are modern soldiers anonymous?The Iliad is a poem, not history. The answer is “I don’t think so.”
didn’t the battle of troy really happen?Not for me. Troy for me is a city of the mind. My version of the Iliad, War Music, is a poem. It’s not reportage. You want to make it as vivid and lean as you can, but everyone knows it’s a set of marks on a page in the end. That’s what it is. It’s not a report in the sense of something having happened. At least I don’t think of it like that.
—“Battle Lines: Questions for Christopher Logue,” by David Bowman, New York Times Magazine, April 3,2003
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Homer’s poetry is, above all else, specific and concrete: Emotion is yoked to action, the gods are persons, and their jealousies have consequences. There is little abstraction or speculation: Here are these men, here are the gods, and here is the war. After reading the Iliad, you needn’t feel philosophically enlightened: Your muscles should be sore. And this is where Logue triumphs. His adventures in the cinema . . . have served him surprisingly well on the page. His style is relentlessly filmic: the lapses into present tense, the quick cuts, the reliance on montage, the emphasis on the visual. . . .
The Iliad is, of course, a war poem, framed by Achilles’ sulking refusal to fight and his fierce re-entry into battle when his favorite, Patroclus, is killed in his stead. But however revered and absorbing the book may be, the poetry itself can be tedious in more literal translation; made to be memorized and recited aloud, it is long-winded and repetitious. Logue makes it leap, twist, and revel in its sprays of blood. . . .
Logue stays mostly with the battle itself, with the flight of arrows and the sound of metal entering flesh. The resulting book is both thrilling and somewhat exhausting, like watching the first reel of Saving Private Ryan extracted from the rest of the movie and presented as a grueling short. . . .
I doubt very much that Logue’s “rewritten” Iliad will replace any of the standard transla-tions. It is much too radical for that, and much too removed from the original. Still, if All Day Permanent Red is not Homer, quite, it is nevertheless epic and exciting and possessed of a very terrible beauty. In fact, it’s some of the best poetry being written in English today, and it should be read widely and with great pleasure by anyone still interested in the art of verse.
—“24-Hour War: Is Christopher Logue a Genius or a Madman?” by Jim Lewis, Slate, May 3,2003, http://www.slate.com/id/2082824
Readers of War Music are confronted with a poem written not just with the spoken voice in mind, but with performance in mind as well. . . . As with Homeric epic, so with Logue, the poet’s verbal art cannot be disentangled from performance. The layout of Logue’s poem is often likened to a script, with the very deliberate alternation of text and blank space controlling the pace at which the reader moves through the text, signalling performance. In fact, Logue’s Homer contains a veritable soundscape; to the sound of the dramatic voice we can also add music, insofar as Logue’s language strives to reproduce both visually and aurally (on the page and in the ear) the music of war.—“Sounding Out Homer: Christopher Logue’s Acoustic Homer,” by Emily Greenwood,
forthcoming in Sound Effects: The Oral/Aural Dimensions of Literatures in English, a special issue of Oral Tradition (N. Rhodes and C. Jones, eds.)
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questions to consider
. What role do the gods play in War Music? What effect do they have on the Trojan War? How might the outcome have been different if they had not intervened?
2. War Music is a modern adaptation of a 3,000-year-old epic poem, that itself is a compila-tion of ancient stories traditionally told verbally or sung. In what ways does the play reflect its classical roots? In what ways does it appear more modern?
3. Do you find yourself sympathizing more with one side or the other in the war? If so, why?
4.War Music has been adapted for a cast of 3 actors, who collectively play some 50 differ-ent roles. How do the actors convey the differences in the multiple characters they each play? How do you think the play might be different if each of the roles were played by a different actor?
5.Consider the use of movement in this play. How do the actors’ physical actions help tell the story?
6. How is music used to enhance this production? How does it help you better understand the characters or action? Why do you think the play (and Christopher Logue’s poem) is called War Music?
7. Consider the great warriors of the play: Achilles, Hector, Ajax, Patroclus. How does each of them perceive his responsibilities as a fighter? How are their views on war similar or different? What makes them “great”?
8. What does War Music suggest about the role of a leader in society, particularly in war-time? Who among the characters is a good leader? Who is not, and why?
9. How does love drive the actions of the characters?
0. What role does honor play in the decisions of the characters in this play?
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for further reading . . .
bbc. bbc History: Ancient History: Greeks. http://bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks.
———. bbc Schools: Ancient Greece. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ancientgreece.
Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Ancient Greeks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
D’Aulaire, Ingri, and Edgar Parin. D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths. New York: Doubleday, 980.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. New York: Penguin, 955.
Fagles, Robert, and George Steiner, eds. Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, nj: Prentice-Hall, 962.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 942.
Hansen, William F. Handbook of Classical Mythology. Santa Barbara: abc-clio, 2004.
Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 990.
———. Iliad. Translated by Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett, 997.
———. The Iliad of Homer. Translated by Alexander Pope. Penguin Books, 996.
Jenkins, Ian. Greek and Roman Life. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 985.
Logue, Christopher. All Day Permanent Red: The First Battle Scenes of Homer’s Iliad Rewritten. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
———. Cold Calls: War Music Continued. London: Faber and Faber, 2005.
———. Prince Charming: A Memoir. London: Faber and Faber, 999.
———. War Music: An Account of Books 1–4 and 16–19 of Homer’s Iliad. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 997.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Death, Burial, and the Afterlife in Ancient Greece. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dbag/hd_dbag.htm.
Mikalson, Jon D. Honor Thy Gods: Popular Religion in Greek Tragedy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 99.
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Nilsson, Martin Persson. Greek Piety. Translated by Herbert Jennings Rose. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 948.
Pearson, Anne. Eyewitness Books: Ancient Greece. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 992.
Rosie6409. Ancient Greece: Essays. Remembrance and Commemoration in the Iliad. University Press, Inc. http://www.ancientgreece.com/essay/v/remembrance_and_ commemoration_in_the_iliad.
Rexroth, Kenneth. Classics Revisited. New York: New Directions Publishing, 968.
Robinson, c. e. Everyday Life in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 933.
Sacks, David. Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World. New York: Facts on File, 995.
Strauss, Barry. The Trojan War: A New History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Thomas, Roy, and Miguel Angel. Marvel Illustrated: The Iliad. New York: Marvel Comics, 2008.
Webster, Michael. Guide to Reading the Iliad. http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Read_Iliad.htm.
Wilkens, Iman Jacob. Where Troy Once Stood. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 99.
Willock, Malcolm M. A Companion to the Iliad. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 976.
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U.S. Army Spc. Lonnie Kirk from 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, attached to 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division patrols between Iraqi army checkpoints in the village of Tawilla in the Diyala province of Iraq, February 27, 2009. Department of Defense photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter J. Pels, U.S. Navy.
