Polypoetes and the Trojan War

“You ask me why, if she did not want this war, she has not given herself up to Menelaus since,” Polypoetes said, “but perhaps the question you should ask instead is why has Menelaus not given up Helen? Why, knowing where it might lead, did he insist upon marrying her to begin with? When she had made it clear she did not want him or the future that would follow. When she went so far as to arrange her own abduction, barely more than a child at the time, to escape his claim upon her body, her beauty, her life? This war was not caused by Helen, even if she escaped Sparta with Paris of her own free will—which Helen’s own brothers denied. It was caused by Menelaus, when he would not accept her refusal. Not as a girl, or as a woman, or as his wife. He could have ended this war long before it ever started and saved us all so much pain and suffering.” 

--A Broken Horse

You all know I swore I would never write the Trojan War. I was sure I had nothing new to say and didn't want to retread the same ground that had been overtrod already before me. But then, some time after I finished writing By Helen's Hand, I remembered Polypoetes.

Alexandre Jacovleff's Trojan Horse, via Wiki Commons

Who is Polypoetes?

I've talked about him before, I'm sure. A lesser king. Unremarkable by most accounts. There is no real mythology, no real fame attached to his name beyond being named as one of Helen's suitors. We know he earned a prize at Patroclus's funeral games. He is explicitly named as one of the men inside the Trojan Horse, though we don't know what he did inside it or after he slithered out of it. And he's the only named son of Pirithous, who together with Leonteus (a grandson of Caeneus, who we also talked about recently) led their region and the Lapith people in the fighting at Troy. (There were quite a few ships of them, if I recall correctly, too.)

He is a Background King who inexplicably takes a front row seat in the clutch moment of the Trojan War, where he continues to be treated as a Background Character still.

Fam, it's weird. And weird, to me, offers opportunity.

One of the things that strikes me about Trojan War retellings on the whole is how they focus themselves so entirely on the same handful of players. The great heroes who were all about fame and glory and embodied what we consider to be the prevailing cultural drives and sentiments of the time. Might makes right. Conquer and enslave! Get that Fame and Glory! 

Even the retellings that try to offer "a new perspective" are often just showing us these same characters and stale motivations through the eyes of the women around these heroes, sometimes romanticized, sometimes in order to reveal "the reality of abuse" they suffered inside a war camp, or the ugliness of war (which the Iliad itself doesn't shy from, either.) Often, the repeated stampedes of the rest of the men to their boats when Agamemnon tests them, in the Iliad, are entirely scrubbed out of the narrative. But those moments offer a key perspective: Agamemnon and Menelaus and the rest of the hero-kings and -princes we all know and love were leading a DEEPLY UNPOPULAR war.

And there were A LOT OF PEOPLE in that camp who were desperate to go home, with or without the sack of Troy.

There is no reason to think a Background King could not have been one of them.

And now we have a new story and untrod ground. We have something DIFFERENT.

"But Amalia," I hear you say, "What about glory and fame?! Those were driving forces!!"

WHY does EVERY HERO get a CHOICE, if a long life and a death of old age at home surrounded by your family is not some kind of temptation still? If they all, ALWAYS, choose glory and fame then the choice means nothing. We have to allow for the fact that there were some people in this society who chose OTHERWISE. It's right there in the construction of the myths. 

Part of what makes those particular heroes exceptional is that they chose glory--when other people MIGHT NOT.

It isn't even going against the grain. It's not modern to look at what is presented as options inside the myths themselves and connect the dots, to take the OTHER path presented. Odysseus never wanted to go to war, but we don't act like that's a break with history. If fame and glory were all that mattered, all that drove the people of this culture EVER, then Odysseus would not have playacted his own madness in order to get out from under the oath he designed.

Do you see what I mean, now, when I say: we are making choices TODAY to create in these myths something more monstrous, more violent, more cruel when we discard the variations that present something other? 

Dozens, maybe hundreds of people have retold this story. But if they keep leaving out the part where PEOPLE REALLY DID NOT WANT TO BE THERE, half of it, and all the nuance, is lost. To suggest that everyone in the past was driven by a bloodthirsty desire for fame and glory at any cost is a profound disservice to history and our ancestors. Perhaps even more so than by allowing people inside problematic power dynamics to fall in love (as attested inside the myths themselves.)

I think we all know why as a society we focus on a mythic hero falling in love as the bigger problem, though. Why that's the thing we need to expunge from the record, above all, by pushing to make sure those relationships are more "realistically" portrayed primarily as violence and assault, in our so modern and enlightened age. We are INVESTED in the idea that these heroes never looked at women as anything but objects, never saw value in them as people beyond the child they might provide. And we've been invested in that idea for a VERY long time.

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Menelaus in Helen of Sparta

There are two characters in my Helen of Sparta books who kind of got short shrift after all the trimming and cutting and editing was done: Menelaus and Clytemnestra. I really wish I'd been able to give a little bit more space to both of them, on the page, but for pacing and other reasons, I just couldn't quite make it work. For both of them, the cuts that left them behind took place long before the book even reached my agent, never mind my publisher. It was just part of the process of winnowing the book down to its core and finding its focus -- part of making Helen of Sparta a book about Helen and Theseus, rather than a book which addressed the entirety of Helen's story.

For Menelaus, particularly, this meant losing part of his character arc and some smaller moments illustrating his relationship with Helen before he goes off to war at his brother's side to reclaim Mycenae. Exchanges that showed my own desire to see Menelaus as a hero -- because in spite of everything that happens in Helen of Sparta and By Helen's Hand (which I can't promise not to spoiler as I write this post, BEWARE!), I don't think Menelaus himself ever wants to be anything else. I think he genuinely tried to be the love of Helen's life, and I don't think it's entirely his fault that he falls short.

This is part of why I say that more than anything, these books are A story of Helen, not necessarily meant to be The Definitive story of Helen -- because the small changes I made to the myths in my retelling created ripples, and I think a great many of those ripples washed over Menelaus. The man who began as Helen's best friend, as the prime contender for Hero of the Story slowly started to change and shift beneath my fingers with every word written. Because each time Helen pushed her best friend away to save her people, each time she made the choice to fight against her fate, I realized that she was rejecting not just the demands of the gods, but also Menelaus himself. And how long could I expect Menelaus to endure that very personal (and very impersonal) rejection without being hurt by it? Without fighting back, grasping desperately to keep hold of the woman he loved? The woman he was fated to marry and lose?

And this on top of what was already a clearly difficult relationship with his brother, Agamemnon -- the man who would later claim the title of High King and lead the great army of Greeks against the Trojans to reclaim Menelaus's own wife. The man who competed in his brother's place to win her at all. On top of an early life spent in exile from his own home. His own kingdom. How could the foundations of Menelaus's character not crack under so much pressure, so much strain?

In the Odyssey, Menelaus cannot think about the Trojan War without incredible distress. Understandably, those events left their mark upon his psyche. Perhaps the war, the devastating losses broke him. I don't doubt that after the war, after he had won Helen back and found security in her affections at last, that he loved her. Maybe she loved him back, too. Maybe having suffered and survived those events together, they were bound to one another in ways they themselves didn't understand, and that was, at last, what united them completely.

I'm inclined to believe that he loved her before the war, too. That he was devastated, too, by her loss -- stolen or abandoned, and he could not have known if she had gone willingly or been taken by force. I'm inclined to believe, too, that having Helen of Sparta as a wife was not all glory and sunshine and flowers. That the prize of her beauty had a cost. I'm inclined to believe that even for the best of men, knowing your wife inspires deep desire and overpowering lust in every other man who looks upon her -- and knowing intimately just how powerful those emotions are, as one entrapped by them as well -- is unlikely to be a foundation for a happy marriage or a peaceful union. And that's without all the rest of the complications and conflict embedded in the myths.

So did I treat Menelaus harshly in my Helen of Sparta books? Perhaps. Perhaps I didn't give him as much credit as he deserved. Perhaps he was a better man, a stronger man.

But I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that even the strongest man could not have stood for long against the power of Helen.

And as Theseus says in Helen of Sparta: 

Only a fool seeks to hold a daughter of Zeus against her will.

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We're blogtouring May 16-June 24th to celebrate the release of BY HELEN'S HAND (Helen of Sparta #2) -- available NOW in paperback, audio (cd, mp3, and audible), and for kindle. I hope you'll join us by sharing your own reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you like to talk books!

And if you enjoyed my take on Helen, don't forget to subscribe to THE AMALIAD for a free short story prequel to HELEN OF SPARTA: Ariadne and the Beast!

Mycenaean Names from the Linear B Tablets

Thanks to the awesome talk on Bronze Age Greece mentioned in my earlier post, I am now well stocked with Mycenaean names of all kinds -- or um, some kinds, anyway. This list is mostly for me and my potential future needs, but I thought some of you would appreciate the quick reference.

It seems like some names were based on occupation -- which shouldn't be too surprising, all things considered. In the modern world. we have that same kind of convention in our surnames (Smith, Potter, Cooper). A few examples from Linear B, related to Smithing:

Aithalos (Soot)
Arisbas (he who quenches very much)
Puraltas (Fire-feeder)
Purkoros (fire-sweeper)
Khalkeus (smith)
Melanthos (dark)
Pamphusos (all bellows)
Psolion (sooty)
Psolarkhos (he who rules over soot)

Other names were related to, it seems, characteristics:

Atukhos (Unlucky, armorer of the king)
Plouteus (Wealth/wealthy)
plus another name I didn't catch the spelling of but translated to "On the Lake" ha!

And still more were mentioned in passing and I have no idea what they mean:

Tantalos (like Tantalus? Kind of fitting if it was, what with him being the Great-Grandfather of Agamemnon.)

The Lion Gate At Mycenae
By Du Moncel Theodore (1821 - 1884), via Wikimedia Commons

Warnotaios

Lakhuros
Phalaikos
Kusos
Kerawios
Kotullon
Aikhweus
Aithiops
Adamaos
Atukhos
Pikreus
Alksoitas
Komawens son of Dewos
Pakhullos, son of Dewos
Khalkeus
Euestor
Awekseus


Finally, a couple of titles:**

Wa-na-ka (Wanax, or King -- in the PALACE context, as opposed to the hamlet context)
Ra-wa-ke-ta (Iawagetas, Leader of the Host -- Kind of like the king, but not quite as impressive.)
E-qe-ta (Hequetas, Follower -- hypothesized as similar to Alexander the Great's companions, aristocratic companions to the Wanax.)
Qa-si-re-u (Basileus "community leader" or chief, which came to mean "king" in later Greek)

Also: Telestai (not explicitly discussed but presented in a chart as "governors" and "chiefs")


**Hyphenated words are the Linear B representations, and inside the parentheticals you'll find the later Greek and the meaning.

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Don't forget HELEN OF SPARTA was selected for Kindle First! Grab your e-copy now before it's official release on April 1st!

Long before she ran away with Paris to Troy, Helen of Sparta was haunted by nightmares of a burning city under siege. These dreams foretold impending war—a war that only Helen has the power to avert. To do so, she must defy her family and betray her betrothed by fleeing the palace in the dead of night. In need of protection, she finds shelter and comfort in the arms of Theseus, son of Poseidon. With Theseus at her side, she believes she can escape her destiny. But at every turn, new dangers—violence, betrayal, extortion, threat of war—thwart Helen’s plans and bar her path. Still, she refuses to bend to the will of the gods.

A new take on an ancient myth, Helen of Sparta is the story of one woman determined to decide her own fate.

Theseus Is Not Your Typical Bronze Age Hero

In the Bronze Age, the definition of Hero was very different. The raiding and the stealing women and the warlording, the pirating. It's something we've touched on quite a bit on the blog in relation to Pirithous, particularly. But what about Theseus?

At a later age, Theseus was known both for his kindness to women and his kindness to slaves and the weak, and I've always felt that Theseus' myths reveal a great contradiction, even inside his own character, between what was considered heroic in that time period, and how he behaved -- for example, his abandonment of Ariadne (while perfectly in line with heroics of the time) doesn't really jive with his creation of this feast day to honor the woman who lent him her cow in order to tame the bull at Marathon, and the way he continued to honor her in perpetuity for her help. Would a man who repays that small help from a woman so grandly repay Ariadne for HER sacrifice and aid so cruelly as to abandon her without a moment's thought or regret?

I have a hard time reconciling it, personally, which is why I think keeping the gods in these myths is so important. Without the hands of the gods manipulating and abusing these heroes, their actions make so much less sense. Their *characters* make so much less sense.

Yes, Theseus must prove himself, and there are plenty of ways in which he does so in a way that is related more to self-sacrifice than self-service. Yes, his primary motivation is to preserve the memory of his name, to build reputation and be known. But Theseus takes up this call differently than, say, Heracles. He doesn't just go about looting and pirating for the sake of looting and pirating. He clears the Isthmus road of the monstrous villains who lurk upon it, making the way safe for travelers and trade. He goes to Crete to liberate Athens. He even gives up some small measure of his power as king to allow for his people to have a say in their governance, if the Theseus as the Father of Democracy is to be believed. These are the things Theseus is known for, the way in which his name is remembered.

No matter what the meaning of hero was in the bronze age (or the Homeric age), these are all still remarkable achievements, and it opens the door to allow for a slightly different KIND of hero, for that period. (With Pirithous at his side to remind us of all the less savory meanings of the word Hero, of course. The braggarting, the swagger, the arrogance and righteous belief that anything you had the strength to take was yours to make off with, the glory without consideration for anyone else, at the expense of everyone else.) Theseus would NEVER have sat out during the Trojan war, and let his fellow soldiers die just because his prize was stolen from him, and the slight to his honor as a result. But then again, Theseus would probably not have served under Agamemnon to begin with. (Would Agamemnon even have been able to hold so much influence, to be the warlord he was, if Theseus had still been King of Athens?)

But is it any wonder that the Athenians would latch on to these virtues? That Theseus would possess the seeds for them, when he is THEIR hero, particularly. The answer to Heracles. I mean, we can sit here and debate the chicken or the egg -- which came first, and what does it mean for the actuality and historicity of Theseus, King of Athens. Did the Athenians read all of these virtues back into their hypothetical founding father, or did he possess these virtues to begin with, and those ideals carried forward through the ages, a lasting mark of his reign?

For myself, I want to believe the latter. I want to believe that Athens developed as it did (in contrast to Sparta and the other city-states) BECAUSE there was some seed planted by those early kings. That Theseus came first, and the rest followed.