: Incidentally, Aeneas was not the universally
: approved--and probably not even the
: majority--candidate as progenitor of Rome prior to
: Vergil's work. Several of the Aeneid 's scenes are
: expressly designed to combat support for alternate
: candidates, who now and again appear and expire
: heroically before they get a chance to found much of
: anything. Vergil selected Aeneas as his hero precisely
: because he was writing the Aeneid as a present for a
: Caesar, and it was Imperial backing that made the
: Aeneid the "Bible" of Roman origins for a
: time.
It's not a historical story, Sili. Nor is the Iliad or the Odyssey. Besides, a great number of Romans obviously accepted it as much as the tale of Romulus and Remus, otherwise Gaius Iulius Cæsar wouldn't have claimed himself decendent of Venus.
: Indeed? I had not heard that, though I know that the core
: story of the Iliad --that of a warrior whose pride
: causes the death of his male lover/comrade, whom he
: must then avenge--is told in all Mediterranean
: civilizations in various forms. Are there more conrete
: parallels in the Ramayana , and is there evidence
: that the Ramayana in something like its present form
: was available to influence the X number of people who
: made up "Homer?" (I don't know too much
: about Hindu history, but from the dates I've seen, the
: Ramayana was not made into a complete work until
: 50-100 years after the assemblage of the Iliad
: --although the Odyssey was written much later.)
The story is very similar, actually. The Valmikian story is taken from ancient Saskrit and Dravidian writings and tales. It's most likely this is what Homer heard, if he indeed exist, if he indeed had written the Iliad as early as some claim. In any case, this story is not unique to Homeric times. It is the same story that is described by Plato in his writings on Atlantis, the same as the Egyptian tales and beliefs in Punt, the same as the Lanka in the Ramayana, the Atala of the Hindus, just as the Aztlan of the Maya as recorded in their Troano, Oera Linda of the Frisians speaking of the "Atland" which sank beneath the waves…the list goes on and on. There some incredible connection between the most distant parts of the world, to be sure.
: Troy/Hissarlik was actually somewhat closer to the ocean
: in pre-Classical periods,
Actually, it's the opposite. The water level of the world has been slowly rising, even after the cataclysmic flooding of the world all at once for a millenium after the Pleistocene Ice Age. The rising water actually puts Hissarlik at a much further distance from the ocean, discounting it as being the site of Troy in any time, except maybe the recent present.
: and was much closer to the
: mouth of the Scamander, which has since silted up. A
: number of other physical characteristics are shared by
: Hissarlik and the mythical Troy; my grandfather (a
: classics professor) and a grad student I know have
: both described to me how eerie it is to stand on the
: Hissarlik site and, in particular, experience exactly
: the same wind patterns described in the Iliad.
The Scamander's change of location is certainly possible, but Hissarlik's location remains.
: It should be noted that Troy was never, so to speak,
: "on the waterfront;" the Iliad speaks of a
: wide plain separating the city from the coastal strip
: where the Greeks camp.
That's right; there are mountains in the area where this "plain" would have existed. This is more disproof that Hissarlik can be the site of Troy, for Troy requires a plain straight to the ocean.
: And its final end, as described
: by both Greeks and Romans, was simply by fire and
: manmade destruction--although the sea did have a hand
: in earlier stories, where Hercules builds and then
: tears down a wall to protect against the ocean or
: river.
That strata was Troy III, I believe, and was post-Homeric, discounting it as being chronologically accurate. Besides, many cities were burned and destroyed in such a manner. It's not a particularly unique thing.
: As for the size and opulence of Troy and the
: technological level--well, Odysseus probably didn't
: actually fight a six-headed sea monster either. :-)
: The pre-classical Greeks who developed the
: Trojan/Mycenaean myth cycle--the Iliad and the
: Odyssey are merely the survivors of a cycle which
: incorporated close to a dozen other epics--lacked the
: technology to build anything approaching the Mycenaean
: and Minoan ruins in whose shadow they lived, and
: naturally inferred that these were advanced and
: near-godlike people. Homer's essential ignorance of
: true Trojan and Mycenaean culture reveals itself in
: many inconsistencies, such as weapons and armor being
: of bronze while more mundane tools are of iron,
You mean that bronze is more primitive than iron, and that why would a good metal like iron be used for mundain tasks? That's pretty simple; bronze is stronger than iron. Iron is only used in the Iron Age because copper and, especially, tin are far less abundant than iron. The reason it's a more advanced age, coming after the, supposédly, more primitive Bronze Age, derives from the more advanced mining techniques required to get iron.
: or the
: famous "shoot an arrow through holes in twelve
: axes...or between twelves
: axes...or...something..." scene from the Odyssey
: . :-) Take all that could be inferred of Mycenaean
: culture from ruins and the contents of tombs--fill in
: the blank areas with Dark Age Greek culture--turn up
: the volume on how big and pretty everything was--and
: you have Troy. At least until the Romans arrived, and
: added their "Everyone from the East is a pansy
: girly-boy" flavor to the mix.
Well, they were :-). At least the tried to be…Romans didn't believe in the homosexuality thing, nothing like the "I can't love anyone but my equal, and women are inferior, and therefore, I can only love a man" ancient Greek attitude.
: Of course, there need not be a true "historical
: Troy," any more than there need be a historical
: Arthur or historical Camelot. Mycenae, Crete, and the
: many incarnations of Hissarlik/Troy all served as
: inspiration; poetry did the rest.
Aye, but perhaps some insight into more cultures will show us what truly did exist.
