1183 BCE was a good year to be a Hellene. Not so good to be a flourishing coastal trade town that's a primary route into the east... with a REALLY hot princess ta boot Per chief librarian of the library of Alexandria Eratosthenes, among others, and his meticulous calculations today is the very same day that the night before a bunch of Greeks had a horrible idea, hid in a wooden horse, creating the phrase, per Trojan priest Laocoön, " " and then the next morning committed genocide, rapine and out and out skullduggery of an epic nature to echo through the ages And so ended the Trojan war. Funny but true, as some may recall, the end of the war is nowhere mentioned in the Iliad. Homer doesn't bring it up until the sequel, Odysseus Strikes Back! Would the epic story of a small skirmish between two burgeoning civilizations have made it down the ages of it weren't for this guy/group of guys? Ionia, Smyrna. Circa 125-115 BC. Æ 20mm (21mm, 8.27g). Phanokrates, magistrate. Laureate head of Apollo right / The poet Homer seated left, holding scroll. Milne, Autonomous 194a; SNG Copenhagen. Former Kairos Numismatik And how would it feel to bust your buns at war for a decade, NOT go on a kill crazy rampage of your own men like the other Ajax, and still be Ajax the lesser (also known as Ajax the Locrian, hence the coinage)?? Lokris Opuntia Hemidrachm around 350 BCE 2.60 g. Head of a nymph with reed wreath, simple ear pendants and necklace to the right / Ajax in the Corinthian helmet with drawn short sword storming to the right, holding above the left arm oval shield with a lion as inner jewelry, spear lying on the ground. BMC 26 Very nice (Don't worry, Athena made him pay the ultimate price for this one) Or how about the small part of Odysseus being made into a full blown leading man hero in the much more fantasy sci-fi The Oddesy? C. Mamilius Limetanus 82 BC. Silver Serrate Denarius, 4.06 g., 19 mm. Obv. Bust of Mercury right, wearing petasus and holding caduceus. Rev. Ulysses (Odysseus) greeting his dog Argos who wags his tail in recognition, the scene recounted in Odyssey 17.290 ff. Crawford 362/1; Sydenham 741. Here's one for the defeated. Much like the Greeks were known as Achaean, Danaad and or Hellene, the Trojans were also known as Dardanoi. Here's one from them or their neighbors at the early dawn of coinage... though @TIF would say it's just chicken n waffles : TROAS, Dardanos c. 450-420 BCE AR obol; 9 mm, 0.56 gm Obv: cock (or just cock head) standing left Rev: cross-hatch pattern Ref: Nomismata 3, 303; Demeester 98; SNG Ashmolean 1119 Former: Savoca And we can't forget the myriad of gods and Goddesses in the mix: So please show all of your coins related to the Trojan war (you've got more than you think)!
The legend of Troy was a saga much like Star Wars, composed of many episodes released at different moments during more than 2 centuries. Like Star Wars the episodes were not released in chronological order : The Iliad is Episode II, The Odyssey is Episode VII. And, still like Star Wars, the episodes are not of the same quality... The first ones to be composed were The Iliad and the Odyssey, by Homer, probably in the 9th or 8th c. BC. Iliad : episode II. The plot is about Achilles. He is the best gifted warrior among the Achaeans but also the youngest one, and his behaviour is that of a spoiled teenager with no father to educate him. He cannot overcome his own frustrations and his selfish uncompromising attitude does a lot of harm to everybody, Achaeans and Trojans, until in the end Priamus, the king of Troy, unexpectedly enters his tent while he is having dinner, like the statue of the Commander in Don Giovanni, tells him "Remember your father !" which makes him weep and, for the first time, adopt a more human attitude. Achilles is now a man. End of Iliad. Odyssey : episode VII. The plot is about Ulysses. The Trojan war has been over for years but Ulysses never came home, among mortals nobody knows what happened to him. He is in a marvelous island , enjoying perfect happiness and loved by Calypso, a goddess. She has the power to give him immortality and eternal youth if he stays with her, but Ulysses refuses: he wants to go back home and meet again his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Calypso (who is eternally young and more beautiful than any mortal woman) reminds him that Penelope is 20 years older, but there are feelings gods cannot understand... Ulysses leaves Calypso, loses all his wealth in a raftwreck, is rescued by the Pheacians who bring him to Ithaca, his home. Everybody there has forgotten him except one of his servants, his old dog and his loving wife. Ulysses kills all the bad guys who were plundering his estate, meets Penelope and has a last night with her. A last night, because he must now leave at once to avoid being murdered by the families of the bad guys he has killed, and this time it will be forever. Bitter ending of Odyssey. The other episodes were composed much later by other poets. Cypria : episode I, by Stasinos of Cyprus (8th c. BC). It is Iliad's prequel : the judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helena, the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the beginning of the siege of Troy. Aethiopis : episode III, by Arctinos (8th c. BC). It is Iliad's sequel: Achilles fights against allies of Troy joining the war, the Amazones and their queen Penthesilea and the Aethiopians and their king Memnon. Achilles kills them but in the end he is killed too. The war is not over yet. The Sack of Troy: episode V, by Arctinos too. Troy has been stormed and the Achaeans kill everybody, including children and the elderly, and reduce Trojan princesses into slavery. The Little Iliad : episode IV, by Lesches of Mytilene (7th c. BC). After Achilles' death his arms are given to Ulysses. He has a brilliant idea: the Trojan Horse. The Achaeans build it and it works : Troy is invaded. The Returns : episode VI (author unknown). The Achaean kings return home with their booty. Some will make it, some will not. Ajax becomes mad, Menelaus comes home with Helena, Agamemnon is murdered on arrival by his wife and her lover. But what happened to Ulysses? The Telegony : episode VIII, by Eugammon of Cyrene (6th c. BC). It is the Odyssey's sequel and it was considered by the Greeks the worst of all episodes, full of WTF plot holes. Ulysses has had a son from Circe, Telegonos. Not knowing his father, Telegonos kills Ulysses. In the end Telegonos marries Penelope and Telemachus marries Circe !!! Much later, in the 1st c. BC, the Latin poet Virgil composed a spin-off : the Aeneid. In Antiquity the Greeks considered that the Iliad and the Odyssey were, by far, the best epics of the Cycle. They are the only ones who have been entirely preserved to this day.
