Greek

Civilization:
Homeric
Society
// The Women of
Homer’s Iliad //
Prof. Keren Freidenreich
Spring 2024
Helen: before Troy
• Helen was the daughter of Zeus and
Leda, the queen of Sparta and the
wife of Tyndareus
• Zeus disguised himself as a swan to
seduce Leda; she was impregnated,
and Helen was born from an egg
• In another version of the myth,
Helen's mother is the goddess
Nemesis, the personiMcation of
retribution
• Helen’s siblings included the hero
twins Castor and Pollux;
Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon

Birth of Helen. Limestone, 5th century BCE.

Archaeological Museum of Metapontum, Italy
 Helen: sins of the father
(Ancestral Fault)

• Tyndareus oWered sacriMces to all the gods, but forgot Aphrodite

• Angered at the slight, Aphrodite cursed Tyndareus, promising that all his
daughters would become infamous for their adultery; for Helen, even from
a young age, her beauty was her curse:
• Hesiod describes her as "fair-haired Helen" (Works & Days 165). Homer
repeatedly refers to her as "Helen of the lovely hair" (Od. 15.58), "white-
armed Helen" (Il. 3.119) and "Helen, queen among women" (Il. 3.422); yet,
Homer also calls her "hateful Helen" (Il. 19.324).

Attic red-Mgure krater showing Helen of Troy. c. 450 BCE

Louvre, Paris
The face that launched a
thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers
of Ilium

Christopher Marlowe,
Doctor Faustus
(1564-1593 CE)

Bust portrait of Helen

Pierre Woeiriot, 1555-1562
 Helen’s
engagement myth
• As part of the marriage deal, Tyndareus sacriMced a horse
and made all the Greek leaders swear to recognize Helen
as Menelaus' rightful wife and to protect his daughter
from harm
• This oath would have serious consequences when the
time came for war.
• Menelaus and Helen had one daughter, Hermione, and
three sons
 Helen’s nostos
According to some versions of the story,
upon seeing Helen again after ten year,
Menelaus Mrst draws his sword with the
intention of harming Helen, perhaps killing
her for disgracing him; however, he then
glimpses at her naked breasts, rethinks
and then embraces her.

In another Greek play, Menelaus is

presented as a silly Mgure, mostly
expressing concern with Helen’s weight.

Menelaus & Helen reunite. Attic red-Mgure hydria, c. 480 BCE

Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich
Attic krater, perhaps
showing the
abduction/elopement of
Helen of Sparta with
Paris which sparked oW
the Trojan War.
Other interpretations
include Ariadne and
Theseus as the two
Mgures.
Made c. 735 BCE.
British Museum, London
Recovery of
Helen by
Menelaus.
Attic black-Mgure
amphora, c. 550
BCE
red Mgure Attic hydra
c 450 BCE
Staatliche
Antikensammlungen,
Munich
Helen in Greek culture

Whatever the details of how or if Helen

ever got to Troy, whether she went of
her own free will or was abducted is a
diicult question to resolve. That Helen
was a willing lover of Paris is seen in
Archaic Attic pottery scenes, but in
others, Paris grabs her arm (and not
her hand). Yet other pottery scenes
show Menelaus brandishing a sword as
he reclaims Helen, suggesting she was
unwilling to return to her husband.
Then again, alternative scenes show
Menelaus dropping his sword,
seemingly in forgiveness, when he
meets Helen again. Attic red-Mgure skyphos (two-handled drinking cup) from
Suessula in southern Italy, one of the earliest certain depictions
of the abduction of Helen by Paris. Its date is c. 480.
Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus
intends to strike Helen; captivated
by her beauty, he drops his sword.

Attic red-Mgure krater c. 450–440

BCE
Paris, Louvre
Helen in Greek culture
Most Greeks considered Helen shameless. As
the historian Barbara Graziosi notes, "Nobody
in the ancient world thought that it was all
right for a real-life woman to behave like
Helen" (59) even if Aphrodite and Paris were
considered as much to blame as anyone for
the tragic consequences of the Trojan War.
Thus, Helen became a despised Mgure in the
ancient world, a symbol of moral failure and
the perils of placing lust above reason.

Helen of Sparta boards a ship for Troy: fresco from the

House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii, pre 79 CE
Helen in Greek culture
[fr. 16]

Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot
And some men say an army of ships – is the most beautiful thing
On the black earth. But I say it is
what you love.

Easy to make this understood by all.

For she who overcame everyone
In beauty (Helen)
left her Mne husband

behind and went sailing to Troy.

Not for her children nor her dear parents
had she a thought, no –
]led her astray

]for
]lightly
]reminded me now of Anaktoria
who is gone.
The Spartan Cult of Helen
Despite the poor standing of the literary Helen, she also
had a divine form and was the center of cults at several
Greek sites, notably Rhodes and Sparta.
It was at Sparta that she was most popular as a religious
Mgure, seen as a symbol of the transition from adolescent
to bride (parthenos to nymphê). Helen also represented
the adult married woman (gynê) and the Mgure of a sister
(adelphê).
She represented the aspects of erotic desire and beauty
which Aphrodite similarly represented.
The ruins of the “Menelaion” (Sanctuary of Menelaus and Helen) in ancient Sparta.
Laconia, Greece
Sparta: The Menelaion
Reconstruc4on (Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey)
Andromache (lit.
‘Mghter of men’)
• Daughter of Eetion, ruler of Hypoplacian (or
Cilian) Thebes (modern-day Anatolia)
• Her hometown of Hypoplacian Thebes was
sacked by Achilles, who killed her father and
seven brothers; her mother, abducted but then
released by Achilles, dies shortly after from grief
• Thus Priam’s household alone provides
Andromache with her entire familial support
• Andromache and Hector have a son together,
named Scamandrius but called Astyanax (lit.
Lord of the City) by both the people of Troy and
Homer

Hector and Andromache by Giovanni Maria Benzoni 1871 CE

 Andromache’s
Tragedy
Achilles killed her father and her seven
brothers; her mother was captured by him,
released, and died by Artemis’ arrow, and
so:
‘Hector, so you are father to me, and
honored mother
And my brother, and you are my strong
husband.’ (6.429-30)

Andromache intercep4ng Hector at the Scaean Gate

Ferdinando Castelli
Andromache’s tragedy
Following their victory, The Achaeans
divide the Trojan women as spoils of war,
permanently separating them from Troy
and from one another.
Hector's fears of Andromache’s life as a
captive woman are realized as her family is
entirely stripped from her by the violence
of war; thus, she fulMlls the fate of
conquered women in ancient warfare.
Without her familial structure, Andromache
is a displaced woman who must live
outside familiar (and safe) societal
boundaries.
Frederic Leighton: Captive Andromache, 1886-1888
Manchester Art Gallery
Andromache, ideal wife
In Iliad 22, Andromache is portrayed as the perfect wife,
weaving a cloak for her husband in the innermost
chambers of the house and preparing a bath in
anticipation of his return from battle; she is carrying out
an action Hector had ordered her to perform during their
conversation in Iliad, and this obedience is another
display of womanly virtue in Homer's eyes
However, Andromache is seen in Iliad 6 in an unusual
place for the traditional housewife, standing before the
ramparts of Troy. Although nontraditional, times of crisis
tend disrupt the separate spheres of men and women,
requiring a shared civic response to the defense of the
city as a whole. Andromache's sudden tactical lecture is
a way to keep Hector close, by guarding a section of the
wall instead of Mghting out in the plains. Andromache's
role as a mother, a fundamental element of her position Apulian red-Mgure column-crater (ca. 370–360 BCE) depicting an
intimate family scene: Hector removes his helmet as he says his
in marriage, is emphasized within this same Mnal farewell to his wife Andromache and to their child Astyanax.
conversation.