The dialogue, chit chat, humour just make this such an enjoyable series. And, real and informed history. I think you guys have squared the circle (sounds like a possible episode?) thank you.
The host/guest relationship and responsibility in Greek myths is such a wonderful thread. Heroes stop fighting one another after learning that their fathers had entertained the other's. It's the other reason Paris is doomed, for breaking this bond as Menelaus' guest.
yall are reading my mind.. when yall were doing the french revolution, i was reading charles dickens, tolstoy, schama, dumas, hugo...... now as SOOOON as i pick up a few translations of the ILIAD, yall wanna move on to Helen of Troy. lol, you gotta be freaking kidding me. this is great.
Never mind the education aspect of the historical rundown, the ancient gossip analysis is so delicious and juicy and they way they talk is so open I feel like I am part of the conversation and its just fabulous!
@@thetruekat6043 I haven't studied history in University but we learned most of what I know in highschool and later I read books about mythology and history!I am Greek I live in Greece and I have studied English language in the British council of Athens! History is an amazing way to understand humans and the reasons that they act the way they that we all do!Now I am starting to learn more about the native people of America Mexico Peru and their history! Reading is one of my hobbies!
I'm Greek I've studied Homer in highschool in the prototype and later read Odyssey and Iliad!One gets really obsessed by the stories! Helen is the bright one from Hel that comes Helios the sun and so Hellas name means Hel(sun)las(two L's)Las means stone or rock!By the way Eleni is one of the most usual names in Greece and elsewhere!
There is a new theory. One that comes out of PLASMA SCIENCE...it proposes myth & art came out of prehistoric skies, when HELIOS or SOL was actually on a closer orbit to Earth! The PLANET SATURN. ua-cam.com/video/t7EAlTcZFwY/v-deo.htmlsi=TGWqiRtfl7Zx2WHg
@@chrismichael5222sure but there's also a stories behind this !When the flood happened only one family was saved Δευκαλίων (Defcalion )and Πύρρα (Pyrra)and their children so Zeus told them to throw stones( Λάς-Λαός)behind them and those stones became people that they followed them and became their laós!
Wow, this was an incredible university level lecture that I listened to in pretty much one sitting and was enthralled about 95% of the time. I am becoming a real ancient Greek and Roman nerd thank you for that illuminating discussion of Helen of Troy. By the way in high school Mounted, “the Trojan women.“ And it was a dark and tragic play but very interesting to hear now about who Helen of Troy was.
Thesis: Helen , Klytemnaestra, Penelope, and Arete, at least, are avatars of the mother goddess. Marriage to one of them confers legitimacy to a kingship. That’s why Aegisthus was treated as a king and why the suitors wanted Penelope.
On the last point you guys discussed, I think in a way Clytemnestra as a figure does serve as a warning to women at the time to not disrupt the order of things. But she's also a warning to men not to mistreat their wives or kill their children as women with no agency have nothing to lose if the worst has happened to them. She's a warning of the madness of women who are pushed to edge I think.
So the murder of her husband is down to madness rather than revenge for him murdering her daughter because he thinks it'll change the weather? I think the madness comes from the men in this story!
@joannecheckley1280 Yes, and maybe she had no other option. She was having sex in the palace of Argos with a son of the family of her husband's ancestral enemy: one Aegisthos; and her husband, Agamemnon, could have killed her if he'd found out, or found a sneaky method of so doing (poison or getting someone else to do it, for example).
@@sohara.... She was left alone for ten years after her husband sacrifices her daughter (by this was the last human sacrifice if there were ever any) Agamemnon was a egopath lunatic man!
I consider myself a amateur historian.im from the first state Delaware.im into alot of different historical subjects.most is European history.i started watching these getleman about the french revolution.i always say America doesn't have history compared to europe.this subject of custard i really didn't know much more then he was a civil war hero and was flamboyantly dressed.after watching this whole thing.i learned so much.espescailly about the sue and custard of course.thank u very much.u guys are awesome
Achilles of heel fame ! From Greek hero to a sports injury I find your discussions of history oh so interesting and entertaining at the same time. Thanks and hopefully you can keep it up 👍
Guys. This is a brilliant recap of these mythologies. I think a diagram would be helpful. Can you imagine a world without myths? We use stories for identities (contrived of course) and entertainment. We needed heroes in WW2, and so McArthur was allowed to become a big hero despite repeated cock-ups and biased actions to serve his own giant ego.
Just found this channel and loved this video. I've heard of Tom before but didn't realise it was him until half way through! Great to listen to, very knowledgable.
This has been a fascinating episode. I really enjoyed it. The first time I read Homer's hymn to Aphrodite I said, "this is like ancient Penthouse letters." Studly shepherd, minding his own business on Mt. Edna, and some goddess is eyeballing him for his beauty from Olympus and then spends all day doing her hair and make up and then descends down to have a tryst with him in a farmhouse. One thing, mythologically speaking, about Helen going willingly with Paris or not, she does have an argument with Aphrodite in the Iliad after Aphrodite rescues Paris from death. She tells Helen to go to his bedside and she as much as says --why don't you go be his wife. When threatened she goes and mocks Paris. Aphrodite had threatened to make her loathsome to both Greek and Trojans, which maybe she did.
@@Janika-xj2bv Yes really true but only if you are bold haired with no hair on top of your head and you must be very very unlucky!Beware not to take walks in the countryside without a hat on !
This was amazing. Takes me back to my classical mythology days at university. I loved the background to the Iliad and Odyssey. But I think the Oresteia was just as important. Clytemnestra got a raw deal, she lost a daughter to sacrifice, her husband was an a-hole and she took matters into her own hands. Good for her. I can’t remember, did women go to the theatre back then? I can see the first play as a little something for the ladies.
This is long before the rivalry between Athens and Sparta existed. Both were backwaters at the time when the Minoans were fading and the king of Mycenea was high king of greece.
1:25:01 well, arguably the building of Cyclopean Walls is a perfect answer to earthquakes. Almost nothing of the buildings inside might be left but the bloody things are still there 4000 to 3000 years and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of earthquakes (most of them minor ones) later, and still these Cyclopian Walls are standing.
Remember that the apple was dropped by Eris, the goddess of discord! There is massive discord throughout the the Illiad on both camps at every level. Be very careful with whom you invite or not to parties!
The Achaeans probably raided Troy for the same reason Jason and the Argonauts headed for the Black Sea - lots of native gold (and purple dye) passed down the Hellespont. But Helen makes a more elegant casus belli than mere greed…
You two are starting to trend toward Dan Carlin length podcasts and that's definitely not a bad thing. Thanks for the knowledge and keep it coming - big fan of your work.
Hitler had great disdain for archeology in Germany. When Goring (I think) showed him artifacts found by excavation, he fumed that all they proved was that Germans were living in caves while the Greeks were in decline! It seems he thought the Greeks shamed his master race theory. (If I remember correctly, Speer relays this in his autobiography. )
Yes this is true. He wrote that the Italians must be laughing at Himmler for getting excited about the mudhuts of Germania. It didn’t really do much to change is world view as their way out of that was that both the Greeks and Germans looked more like Germans back then than they do now. I.e. their race was diluted. There’s probably some truth to that as many Roman emperors had blond hair and the paintings in Macedon of the locals from 500 BC sure don’t look much like modern Greeks.
Speaking from my Highland Scottish heritage, women had a very powerful place in clans, sometimes even to the point of having equal inheritance rights to men, simply because the men were fighting each other so often in feuds, other people's wars or just livestock raiding. One of Robert Bruce's earliest major supporters was a woman called Christina MacRuari, who was powerful in the Western Isles. Maybe the same was happening in Bronze Age Greece, which then became symbolic of a chaotic era when Greece became more politically stable. This is perhaps mirrored in the Theseus myth, where he is continuously imposing a male dominated pantheon on older matriarchal religions and cultures, from Eleusis to Crete to the Amazons in the Black Sea. if that mythological period actually reflects history, passed down through the generations by word of mouth until Homer et al finally wrote them down, then you could say that the heroic period, including Troy, was when the culture turned, which is perhaps it is so clearly remembered in the ancient Greek psyche. And incidentally, that period would have been not much more than three generations, because they all knew each other. Castor and Pollux were Helen's brothers and they were on the Argo with Jason and Herakles and Orpheus and Philoctetes. Theseus was only a generation older, and he had seen Knossos before Thera blew.. You might say that the heart of the canon of Greek mythology might have been a historical period of fifty or sixty years when the young Achaean civilisation exploded out of Greece into the surrounding world.
There was a time in ancient Greece where people from across Asia Minor came to Greece in ships to steal property and women, in this time the myth of the beautiful Helen is mentioned. Then the Greeks went to steal from Asia Minor and this story was constantly repeated.
They have majority of the minor planets aka Asteroids named after them. Titians are still struggling over Vikings forgetting their Greek Titan oracle head
I think it’s the pin that holds the wheel onto the axle that was meant to be replaced with wax not the axles. It’s so that it would melt as it heated up and the wheel would come off. Probably a trick that was actually used at the games at some point
You guys remind me of the bbc's in our time podcast. Sure wish they'd bring that back to UA-cam, but since they've removed it from UA-cam, you two will do just fine ;). Thanks for your charts. Although, I don't always agree with your opinions, I do so love hearing them.
This was so interesting. I was fascinated by the ancient Greece, the gods and goddesses, and the Trojan War when I was a child. I remember making a Trojan Horse out of popsicle sticks for a school project. And I constantly played an old PC game from the 90s that was about ancient Greece and the Trojan War (the characters were all animals, I think).
Next topic suggestion: Joan D'Arc, Frederick Barbarosa, El Cid, Saladin, Genghis Khan, William the Conqueror, Cedric the Saxon. Please please please 🙏 🤲 🙏 🤲 🙏 🤲
At the time if the Trojan war it was not the Oersians who were the overlords of Troy, but the Hittites. We even have a hittite uniform text in which they talk of Walusa and how it os under siege and they will not b be able to send aid right away. This text doesn't specifically mention who is besieging Walussa(troy), but the timing and the location can only be that it is the myceneans who are attacking troy at the time of the bronze age collapse.
Less strictly Hittite and more in the Hittite sphere of influence, among the Luwian speaking kingdoms that were independent vassals to the greater power to the east
About the physical appearance of Helen - she’s described identically as Achilles and this is how the Thracians with their multiple tribes were described looking. Let’s not forget that the times that Homer was singing about the main original population of the lands mentioned in his Iliad were the Pelasgians (Pelops as their forefather) and other tribes who were all related, that includes the Thracian kingdoms, Trojans and the Hittites. Maybe we could look at the story of the kidnapping of Helen as simply taking her back to where she belongs, uh? Don’t forget that at that point of history, Greeks do not really exist, the war is between the Achaean kingdom and the Trojans and the Trojan’s allies who are in fact the related kingdoms of the Thracian confederation. Achilles himself is from a Thracian background.
The Thyestes story was taken up by Roman philosopher and dramatist Seneca (using Euripides) and indeed this influenced Elizabethan dramatists like Shakespeare specifically in "Titus Andronicus."
:1:18:12.. I saw that mask... At the Pushkin museum in Moscow in September of last year. I made a picture of it... It is supposed to be in Athens... But it is in Moscow as of last year and is probably is still there. As we speak. *Wink* oh and Priams treasure was there too. By the way.. I'm Remi.. studied Greek and Roman studies at the university Laval of Quebec.. your podcast is .. awesome. 😂😂
I'd forgotten about Dan Simmons books, thanks for the reminder! I liked them years ago and likely still have the books somewhere. Enjoy this presentation style, and this is fascinating, but I'll stick with Terry Pratchett's version of Helen of Troy. It's a lot simpler.
I had to teach a course on Greek mythology in the English Department of a university in a Muslim country and the students assumed that I, like all westerners, really believed this stuff and that i was trying to convert them!
I thought that Muslims regardless of how they feel about West they somehow respect Greek history and culture. Let's not forget how many greek texts were copied and preserved during the islamic golden age.
Read the Odyssey as well for context. Helen is a member of a class of queens who were tree godesses. Helen, Clytemnaestra, Arete, Penelope, Circe, and Calypso have a lot in common.
Thanks for the show although more of the things are known to me at least It's very entertaining thanks again!My grandmother and my sister are called Heleni Ελένη!!!
Sing muse! Achilles awesome in his ire remained immune to Helen's vaunted charm. She's fair, but not the type to light his fire and Paris never did him any harm. Unlike the other kings, he'd sworn no vow to court the heiress, he's not yet of age. He's told he's dying young, but can't know how but Destiny requires a broader stage. Nine years, the booty dangled out of reach the oak hulls rot, the linen sails lie furled. Our hero with his boyfriend strolls the beach 'til Agamemnon gives him back the girl. The Western Canon's greatest epic text makes no pretense that War's not twin to Sex.
this is good i love listening to re-examinations of these old stories i hope its ok to mention i made a 5 minute graphic reinterpretation / representation of this mythology to some music i wrote on this (my) channel last month, cheers
I had always understood that Helen in reality loved and was happy with menolaus until Aphirdites spell put a false love for paris in her heart. She even begins to see how he is not a man as Greeks understand it when she sees him fight menolaus.
And Helen loving Paris was still a later addition. All that really happens in the earliest version is Aphrodite awarded Helen to Paris for choosing Aphrodite in the test. Helen’s consent or desire is never mentioned. She was kidnapped
Perhaps the name Helen means 'silvery/moon/shining' and may relate to the metal Tin from the black sea supply route. Tin was a strategic metal in the bronze age.
Twin packs of suitors, bookends to the tale; one woos her cousin, one sought Helen's hand. At court in Ithaka, they're doomed to fail Penelope's true love has come to land. The oath that linked the first pack launched a war Ten years of strife and camping in the mud. This second crew are bound for something more; they'll seal their brotherhood in mingled blood. The twain tied with Odysseus' thread our bard grants him alone enduring joy. Achilles, shining bright, is ten years dead before he hugs his wife and strapping boy. One hero's epic if the reader'll look spans twenty years in Homer's double book.
Even back then the lads understood the risks it takes to be married to a beautiful woman. My wife is Tharcian and comes from the banks of Danube. I noticed there is a difference in culture how a relationship between a man and woman is valued and they seem to have all sorts of mystery and folklore surrounding relationships .
Helen of Troy is not real ? Next you'll be saying there is no Father Christmas, Beowolf, King Arthur or Robin Hood !!! Another excellent episode and well done as ever :)
Stories from the conflicts between Troy and the micenians appeared earlier, also from the Hatti side. Only one greek version survived, the one that Homer wrote down.
It is likely that the eagle that killed the great playwright Aeschylus by dropping a turtle on his bald head was a Bearded vulture (Lamergeier) which commonly drop their prey on rocks to soften them up.
Helen is representative of women of this area who had knowledge of the growing, spinning and weaving of linen. They produced great wealth and were coveted by neighboring states. Stealing girls and women across their borders was quite common. This idea has been around for years.
Speaking of shaping drinking glasses after famous chests, & to tie it back to a previous episode, isn't the myth that Marie Antoinette's breast was the mold for the champagne glass?
My interpretations of Helen''s abduction is that Aphrodite promised Paris Helen and since she "promised" Helen she cast a spell on Helen to go with Paris
The Spartan cuckold's never lived it down; new generations snicker at his name. Fair Helen's dowry brought a bonus crown, and an eternity of tainted fame. The epic's hero'd never sought her hand when all of Greece contested such a prize. He knows that war's the measure of a man and glory won there neither fades, nor dies. Loud Menelaus lived his fill of life while great Achilles never can grow old. The one's remembered for his errant wife; The other lives as long as tales are told. Great bards demolish jerks with just their breath, unstoppable by force of arms, or death.
I think Helen was a real mortal woman, she just was the excuse reason of a husband offended who must repair his reputation by taking her back. The Greeks want Troys wealth and destroyed entirely, so they make up rumours of this Helen to justify their greed. Helen may have been very pretty but I think she had sensual aura that may have been overwhelming to men. A Woman like this can have an attitude that with this ability I will use men’s lust to 54:04 survive a man dominated world. You guard your heart and never give it to a feckless male who will only see you as property, useful only until your beauty and fertile womb time is gone, than thrown away. A smart Woman in my books. You have no right to refuse a man your body but your Heart is a different matter. So use your body to your best advantage and men are offended by this. A wife in Greece is still just sex slave for the lust and advancement of men so Blame a Woman for Men’s lust for expansion and wealth. Make up a fantasy reason instead of being honest. Who said men had no imagination. 😮
Poseidon kept sweet Pelos for his bed once Tantalos' heir had been restored. He'd seen potential in what he'd been fed ambrosial boy has ways to please his lord. Thyestes frolicked with his brother's wife and Atreus nursed doubts about his sons. Mycenae's no place for the happy life; their royals don't know how that would be done. Aegysthos shirked while all Greece sailed to war and bedded Klytemnestra on the sly. When Agamemnon strode through his own door, the guy who'd won at Troy, came home to die. Orestes can't shrug off the family weight Until Athena will adjudicate.
There were various accounts of the cause of the death of Paris. One attributes it to Apollo, another to a stab in the back with a knife and the arrow is the latest version.
I always thought it interesting that if Helen was 12, then so were her brothers. Were they already heroes and Argonauts (is being stuck in Hades the reason Theseus doesn't join? We know Herakles rescues him on his Labor to collect Cerberus, so that fits). Also, if Clytemnestra is her twin, then wouldn't she be as beautiful as Helen, although not god-gifted?
I think a fatal mistake of this podcast is to present all the myths together without distinction. They are not one narrative but a vast number of different myths told by different authors in different centuries, all presenting a different political perspective. The story of Theseus, as you observed, does not weave well into the story of Trojan war so those are probably different myths created in different cities/nations.
@davegold oh absolutely! He was definitely Athens' favorite 'son', and therefore he became tied to myths he might never have been a part of. Actually, amoung the Argonauts, there are, at times, numerous additions whose names and stories are tied to city/states of the period, just to 'establish' their place in the great epic!
The dialogue, chit chat, humour just make this such an enjoyable series. And, real and informed history. I think you guys have squared the circle (sounds like a possible episode?) thank you.
The host/guest relationship and responsibility in Greek myths is such a wonderful thread. Heroes stop fighting one another after learning that their fathers had entertained the other's. It's the other reason Paris is doomed, for breaking this bond as Menelaus' guest.
yall are reading my mind.. when yall were doing the french revolution, i was reading charles dickens, tolstoy, schama, dumas, hugo...... now as SOOOON as i pick up a few translations of the ILIAD, yall wanna move on to Helen of Troy. lol, you gotta be freaking kidding me. this is great.
I am Helen of Sparta, but I will become Helen of Troy, a name that will be remembered throughout eternity.
Helen of Troy
Havent read the Iliad have you?
I have. I'll be honest now I would probably get it on audiobook and listen to it while I like painted the house or something
Never mind the education aspect of the historical rundown, the ancient gossip analysis is so delicious and juicy and they way they talk is so open I feel like I am part of the conversation and its just fabulous!
@@thetruekat6043 I haven't studied history in University but we learned most of what I know in highschool and later I read books about mythology and history!I am Greek I live in Greece and I have studied English language in the British council of Athens! History is an amazing way to understand humans and the reasons that they act the way they that we all do!Now I am starting to learn more about the native people of America Mexico Peru and their history! Reading is one of my hobbies!
Literally been spending my Sunday afternoon listening to the Custer collection on Spotify - already 4 episodes in - these two gents are top lads
I'm Greek I've studied Homer in highschool in the prototype and later read Odyssey and Iliad!One gets really obsessed by the stories! Helen is the bright one from Hel that comes Helios the sun and so Hellas name means Hel(sun)las(two L's)Las means stone or rock!By the way Eleni is one of the most usual names in Greece and elsewhere!
Las also means people -laos.
There is a new theory. One that comes out of PLASMA SCIENCE...it proposes myth & art came out of prehistoric skies, when HELIOS or SOL was actually on a closer orbit to Earth! The PLANET SATURN.
ua-cam.com/video/t7EAlTcZFwY/v-deo.htmlsi=TGWqiRtfl7Zx2WHg
@@chrismichael5222sure but there's also a stories behind this !When the flood happened only one family was saved Δευκαλίων (Defcalion )and Πύρρα (Pyrra)and their children so Zeus told them to throw stones( Λάς-Λαός)behind them and those stones became people that they followed them and became their laós!
@@ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΊΑΜΟΙΡΑ τότε το λαός είναι από την πέτρα!?
@@chrismichael5222 Ακριβώς!Και οι γιοί του Δευκαλίωνα έγιναν Βασιλιάδες (άνακτες σε διάφορα μέρη της Ελλάδας!
Her importance as a high priestess has been practically ignored.
Wow, this was an incredible university level lecture that I listened to in pretty much one sitting and was enthralled about 95% of the time. I am becoming a real ancient Greek and Roman nerd thank you for that illuminating discussion of Helen of Troy. By the way in high school Mounted, “the Trojan women.“ And it was a dark and tragic play but very interesting to hear now about who Helen of Troy was.
Thesis: Helen , Klytemnaestra, Penelope, and Arete, at least, are avatars of the mother goddess. Marriage to one of them confers legitimacy to a kingship. That’s why Aegisthus was treated as a king and why the suitors wanted Penelope.
@@gustavderkits8433 Aegisthus was cousin of Agamemnon and wanted to rule Mycene so he was of the royal family also!
this upload will end up with millions of views
Guys you are just a blessing to listen to
On the last point you guys discussed, I think in a way Clytemnestra as a figure does serve as a warning to women at the time to not disrupt the order of things. But she's also a warning to men not to mistreat their wives or kill their children as women with no agency have nothing to lose if the worst has happened to them. She's a warning of the madness of women who are pushed to edge I think.
"Where the Devil can't go, he sends a woman." - Polish saying
So the murder of her husband is down to madness rather than revenge for him murdering her daughter because he thinks it'll change the weather? I think the madness comes from the men in this story!
@joannecheckley1280
Yes, and maybe she had no other option. She was having sex in the palace of Argos with a son of the family of her husband's ancestral enemy: one Aegisthos; and her husband, Agamemnon, could have killed her if he'd found out, or found a sneaky method of so doing (poison or getting someone else to do it, for example).
@@sohara.... She was left alone for ten years after her husband sacrifices her daughter (by this was the last human sacrifice if there were ever any) Agamemnon was a egopath lunatic man!
I consider myself a amateur historian.im from the first state Delaware.im into alot of different historical subjects.most is European history.i started watching these getleman about the french revolution.i always say America doesn't have history compared to europe.this subject of custard i really didn't know much more then he was a civil war hero and was flamboyantly dressed.after watching this whole thing.i learned so much.espescailly about the sue and custard of course.thank u very much.u guys are awesome
The name is Custer, he was a man not a pudding.
Achilles of heel fame ! From Greek hero to a sports injury I find your discussions of history oh so interesting and entertaining at the same time. Thanks and hopefully you can keep it up 👍
Mate, i'll be bikepacking across Pennsylvania tomorrow while listening to this on my speaker, cheers!
Not sure the cops, who might translate your mode of transport as being 'provocative' won't give you a hard time.
You'll be enlightening the local Pennsylvanians!
Bettany Hughes does a few good ones on Helen of Troy. These guys don't disappoint.
The most hillbilly backwoods inbred state in the union. Bring lots of soap. So you can wash the filth from your flesh.
I love PA!
Guys. This is a brilliant recap of these mythologies. I think a diagram would be helpful. Can you imagine a world without myths? We use stories for identities (contrived of course) and entertainment. We needed heroes in WW2, and so McArthur was allowed to become a big hero despite repeated cock-ups and biased actions to serve his own giant ego.
Just found this channel and loved this video. I've heard of Tom before but didn't realise it was him until half way through! Great to listen to, very knowledgable.
I know him from reading his history books years ago.
Best presentation on Helen of Troy. Thank you.
Please do a podcast on the Russian Revolution
YESS
Oh my Proletariat yes please
I love these two! Always fascinating even if it's a subject I am not familiar with and they bounce off each other brilliantly.
This has been a fascinating episode. I really enjoyed it. The first time I read Homer's hymn to Aphrodite I said, "this is like ancient Penthouse letters." Studly shepherd, minding his own business on Mt. Edna, and some goddess is eyeballing him for his beauty from Olympus and then spends all day doing her hair and make up and then descends down to have a tryst with him in a farmhouse. One thing, mythologically speaking, about Helen going willingly with Paris or not, she does have an argument with Aphrodite in the Iliad after Aphrodite rescues Paris from death. She tells Helen to go to his bedside and she as much as says --why don't you go be his wife. When threatened she goes and mocks Paris. Aphrodite had threatened to make her loathsome to both Greek and Trojans, which maybe she did.
"Beware of eagles carrying tortuses, Dominic"
😂
😄
@@Janika-xj2bv Yes really true but only if you are bold haired with no hair on top of your head and you must be very very unlucky!Beware not to take walks in the countryside without a hat on !
@ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΊΑΜΟΙΡΑ 🤣
This was amazing. Takes me back to my classical mythology days at university. I loved the background to the Iliad and Odyssey. But I think the Oresteia was just as important. Clytemnestra got a raw deal, she lost a daughter to sacrifice, her husband was an a-hole and she took matters into her own hands. Good for her.
I can’t remember, did women go to the theatre back then? I can see the first play as a little something for the ladies.
Some classicists say, nope, only men attended the theatre. I'm sure they heard the stories
Thanks
Thank you so much for such great content. I love Greek myth. I've just subscribed and will listen to more. Chapeau. Much appreciated.
I love this podcast.
Great work. You pulled a massive cultural overview into a fascinating Uber Story.
This is long before the rivalry between Athens and Sparta existed. Both were backwaters at the time when the Minoans were fading and the king of Mycenea was high king of greece.
But many of the narratives themselves were written during the era in which conflicts and tension were prevalent between them
Thanks So much, guys for presenting these great Greek Gifts to us!!!!!!🙃😊💚💚💚
EXCELLENT! … as always
Birth of history; Bravo, inspiring! 35:48 Waiting for essential narcissism of biology, the central transactionalism of selfishness
Wow, 2 episodes for the price of one? Greek mythology is fantastic....
This is really good!
That's a great connect -Castor Troy and his little brother Pollux as played in the movie Face Off. Great video!
I like you both so much I wish I would hear you more often!
Fantastic discussion and content
46:21 I would love to hear what you think of “The Birth of Pleasure.” I suggest it explains why Helen is as significant for women as men
Queen Leda is such a good sport
I’ve listened to around 50 hours of the podcast and have only seen these fellas faces now. They look nothing like I imagined
1:25:01 well, arguably the building of Cyclopean Walls is a perfect answer to earthquakes. Almost nothing of the buildings inside might be left but the bloody things are still there 4000 to 3000 years and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of earthquakes (most of them minor ones) later, and still these Cyclopian Walls are standing.
Remember that the apple was dropped by Eris, the goddess of discord! There is massive discord throughout the the Illiad on both camps at every level. Be very careful with whom you invite or not to parties!
The Achaeans probably raided Troy for the same reason Jason and the Argonauts headed for the Black Sea - lots of native gold (and purple dye) passed down the Hellespont. But Helen makes a more elegant casus belli than mere greed…
The Trojan war was probably a dirty little trade war; the Hittites were blocking some into the Black Sea, and Asian trade.
Amazing info! Please, more Bronze Age exploration. ✌🏻
Thank you. Watching from Alaska 🤔
You two are starting to trend toward Dan Carlin length podcasts and that's definitely not a bad thing. Thanks for the knowledge and keep it coming - big fan of your work.
Hitler had great disdain for archeology in Germany. When Goring (I think) showed him artifacts found by excavation, he fumed that all they proved was that Germans were living in caves while the Greeks were in decline! It seems he thought the Greeks shamed his master race theory.
(If I remember correctly, Speer relays this in his autobiography. )
Yes this is true. He wrote that the Italians must be laughing at Himmler for getting excited about the mudhuts of Germania. It didn’t really do much to change is world view as their way out of that was that both the Greeks and Germans looked more like Germans back then than they do now. I.e. their race was diluted. There’s probably some truth to that as many Roman emperors had blond hair and the paintings in Macedon of the locals from 500 BC sure don’t look much like modern Greeks.
More podcasts on ancient greece please maybe Anthens and Sparta and Delphi
Speaking from my Highland Scottish heritage, women had a very powerful place in clans, sometimes even to the point of having equal inheritance rights to men, simply because the men were fighting each other so often in feuds, other people's wars or just livestock raiding. One of Robert Bruce's earliest major supporters was a woman called Christina MacRuari, who was powerful in the Western Isles. Maybe the same was happening in Bronze Age Greece, which then became symbolic of a chaotic era when Greece became more politically stable. This is perhaps mirrored in the Theseus myth, where he is continuously imposing a male dominated pantheon on older matriarchal religions and cultures, from Eleusis to Crete to the Amazons in the Black Sea. if that mythological period actually reflects history, passed down through the generations by word of mouth until Homer et al finally wrote them down, then you could say that the heroic period, including Troy, was when the culture turned, which is perhaps it is so clearly remembered in the ancient Greek psyche. And incidentally, that period would have been not much more than three generations, because they all knew each other. Castor and Pollux were Helen's brothers and they were on the Argo with Jason and Herakles and Orpheus and Philoctetes. Theseus was only a generation older, and he had seen Knossos before Thera blew..
You might say that the heart of the canon of Greek mythology might have been a historical period of fifty or sixty years when the young Achaean civilisation exploded out of Greece into the surrounding world.
There was a time in ancient Greece where people from across Asia Minor came to Greece in ships to steal property and women, in this time the myth of the beautiful Helen is mentioned. Then the Greeks went to steal from Asia Minor and this story was constantly repeated.
Helen of Troy is likely just the excuse not the reason for the war.
What a GREAT program!
They have majority of the minor planets aka Asteroids named after them. Titians are still struggling over Vikings forgetting their Greek Titan oracle head
I think it’s the pin that holds the wheel onto the axle that was meant to be replaced with wax not the axles. It’s so that it would melt as it heated up and the wheel would come off. Probably a trick that was actually used at the games at some point
You guys remind me of the bbc's in our time podcast. Sure wish they'd bring that back to UA-cam, but since they've removed it from UA-cam, you two will do just fine ;). Thanks for your charts. Although, I don't always agree with your opinions, I do so love hearing them.
@phillipstroll7385
9
In Our Time is still on the BBC website last time i looked; and some episodes you can download
This was so interesting. I was fascinated by the ancient Greece, the gods and goddesses, and the Trojan War when I was a child. I remember making a Trojan Horse out of popsicle sticks for a school project. And I constantly played an old PC game from the 90s that was about ancient Greece and the Trojan War (the characters were all animals, I think).
Next topic suggestion: Joan D'Arc, Frederick Barbarosa, El Cid, Saladin, Genghis Khan, William the Conqueror, Cedric the Saxon. Please please please 🙏 🤲 🙏 🤲 🙏 🤲
Saladin, yes.
Super. Thanks.
Friedrich II Hohenstaufern (Stupor mundi)
A great selection. 👍 👌
Sultan Baibers or Timur or Akbar thr Great ...rather than Saladin
I made pilgrimage to the tomb of Schlieman in Athens. I made pilgrimage to the tomb of Kazantzakis in Heraklion.
You have to make a series about the peloponnesian war
Having moved to, and lived in Wales - 38 years so far.
This nearly approaches what happens here.
This is a great channel 😮.
:28:47 Hellen sound a bit like Circe the witch too with that potion.
At the time if the Trojan war it was not the Oersians who were the overlords of Troy, but the Hittites.
We even have a hittite uniform text in which they talk of Walusa and how it os under siege and they will not b be able to send aid right away.
This text doesn't specifically mention who is besieging Walussa(troy), but the timing and the location can only be that it is the myceneans who are attacking troy at the time of the bronze age collapse.
Less strictly Hittite and more in the Hittite sphere of influence, among the Luwian speaking kingdoms that were independent vassals to the greater power to the east
About the physical appearance of Helen - she’s described identically as Achilles and this is how the Thracians with their multiple tribes were described looking. Let’s not forget that the times that Homer was singing about the main original population of the lands mentioned in his Iliad were the Pelasgians (Pelops as their forefather) and other tribes who were all related, that includes the Thracian kingdoms, Trojans and the Hittites. Maybe we could look at the story of the kidnapping of Helen as simply taking her back to where she belongs, uh?
Don’t forget that at that point of history, Greeks do not really exist, the war is between the Achaean kingdom and the Trojans and the Trojan’s allies who are in fact the related kingdoms of the Thracian confederation. Achilles himself is from a Thracian background.
The Thyestes story was taken up by Roman philosopher and dramatist Seneca (using Euripides) and indeed this influenced Elizabethan dramatists like Shakespeare specifically in "Titus Andronicus."
:1:18:12.. I saw that mask... At the Pushkin museum in Moscow in September of last year. I made a picture of it... It is supposed to be in Athens... But it is in Moscow as of last year and is probably is still there. As we speak. *Wink* oh and Priams treasure was there too. By the way.. I'm Remi.. studied Greek and Roman studies at the university Laval of Quebec.. your podcast is .. awesome. 😂😂
I'd forgotten about Dan Simmons books, thanks for the reminder! I liked them years ago and likely still have the books somewhere.
Enjoy this presentation style, and this is fascinating, but I'll stick with Terry Pratchett's version of Helen of Troy. It's a lot simpler.
56:33--Really disappointed in Dominic's lack of gratitude; Tom's just looking out for him.
I had to teach a course on Greek mythology in the English Department of a university in a Muslim country and the students assumed that I, like all westerners, really believed this stuff and that i was trying to convert them!
I thought that Muslims regardless of how they feel about West they somehow respect Greek history and culture. Let's not forget how many greek texts were copied and preserved during the islamic golden age.
@@Ennea9 That was centuries ago. It doesn't reflect modern practices and attitudes.
Lol dangerous stuff
40:37 isn’t that the point existentially, all conflict springs from desire inflamed by hallucination and fantasy?
Read the Odyssey as well for context. Helen is a member of a class of queens who were tree godesses. Helen, Clytemnaestra, Arete, Penelope, Circe, and Calypso have a lot in common.
Thanks for the show although more of the things are known to me at least It's very entertaining thanks again!My grandmother and my sister are called Heleni Ελένη!!!
Sing muse! Achilles awesome in his ire
remained immune to Helen's vaunted charm.
She's fair, but not the type to light his fire
and Paris never did him any harm.
Unlike the other kings, he'd sworn no vow
to court the heiress, he's not yet of age.
He's told he's dying young, but can't know how
but Destiny requires a broader stage.
Nine years, the booty dangled out of reach
the oak hulls rot, the linen sails lie furled.
Our hero with his boyfriend strolls the beach
'til Agamemnon gives him back the girl.
The Western Canon's greatest epic text
makes no pretense that War's not twin to Sex.
this is good i love listening to re-examinations of these old stories i hope its ok to mention i made a 5 minute graphic reinterpretation / representation of this mythology to some music i wrote on this (my) channel last month, cheers
So, drunken young men fighting over a pretty girl outside a pub.
Male spider dies to betroth the black widow.
Universal truths.
I hope someday you can male video about diomedes one of the hero in illiad, video about this guy really rare. Thank you for the video as usual
Check out Dr. Ammon Hillman at Lady Babylon
I had always understood that Helen in reality loved and was happy with menolaus until Aphirdites spell put a false love for paris in her heart.
She even begins to see how he is not a man as Greeks understand it when she sees him fight menolaus.
And Helen loving Paris was still a later addition. All that really happens in the earliest version is Aphrodite awarded Helen to Paris for choosing Aphrodite in the test. Helen’s consent or desire is never mentioned. She was kidnapped
Rorke´s Drift Mutiny on the Bounty Please
Helen of Troy.
The woman that launched one Bronze Age Collapse.
Perhaps the name Helen means 'silvery/moon/shining' and may relate to the metal Tin from the black sea supply route.
Tin was a strategic metal in the bronze age.
Twin packs of suitors, bookends to the tale;
one woos her cousin, one sought Helen's hand.
At court in Ithaka, they're doomed to fail
Penelope's true love has come to land.
The oath that linked the first pack launched a war
Ten years of strife and camping in the mud.
This second crew are bound for something more;
they'll seal their brotherhood in mingled blood.
The twain tied with Odysseus' thread
our bard grants him alone enduring joy.
Achilles, shining bright, is ten years dead
before he hugs his wife and strapping boy.
One hero's epic if the reader'll look
spans twenty years in Homer's double book.
Yes. Helen is an example of feminine power, not a victim.
Re Helen's mammaries - as Dave in Minder would say "You could 'ang your 'at on them"
Even back then the lads understood the risks it takes to be married to a beautiful woman. My wife is Tharcian and comes from the banks of Danube. I noticed there is a difference in culture how a relationship between a man and woman is valued and they seem to have all sorts of mystery and folklore surrounding relationships .
Helen of Troy is not real ? Next you'll be saying there is no Father Christmas, Beowolf, King Arthur or Robin Hood !!! Another excellent episode and well done as ever :)
No Father Christmas! You mean some strange man has been leaving me little presents every year. Should I call the police?😮
@@skadiwarrior2053 Brilliant, in a word, probably :)
Menolaus is the brother of Argememnon. Doesn't being the only brother of the high king of the Greeks give him status beyond helen?
Stories from the conflicts between Troy and the micenians appeared earlier, also from the Hatti side. Only one greek version survived, the one that Homer wrote down.
It is likely that the eagle that killed the great playwright Aeschylus by dropping a turtle on his bald head was a Bearded vulture (Lamergeier) which commonly drop their prey on rocks to soften them up.
Russel Crowe is in the Elysian fields? Does he still make movies there?
At 3:41, the title under the pottery is "Peleus Pursuits Thetis." Are you KIDDING me? How about "Pursues"?
Helen is representative of women of this area who had knowledge of the growing, spinning and weaving of linen. They produced great wealth and were coveted by neighboring states. Stealing girls and women across their borders was quite common. This idea has been around for years.
Speaking of shaping drinking glasses after famous chests, & to tie it back to a previous episode, isn't the myth that Marie Antoinette's breast was the mold for the champagne glass?
Madame Pompadour I believe
My interpretations of Helen''s abduction is that Aphrodite promised Paris Helen and since she "promised" Helen she cast a spell on Helen to go with Paris
The Spartan cuckold's never lived it down;
new generations snicker at his name.
Fair Helen's dowry brought a bonus crown,
and an eternity of tainted fame.
The epic's hero'd never sought her hand
when all of Greece contested such a prize.
He knows that war's the measure of a man
and glory won there neither fades, nor dies.
Loud Menelaus lived his fill of life
while great Achilles never can grow old.
The one's remembered for his errant wife;
The other lives as long as tales are told.
Great bards demolish jerks with just their breath,
unstoppable by force of arms, or death.
Dan Simmons Trojan war on Mars best sci fi!
I think Helen was a real mortal woman, she just was the excuse reason of a husband offended who must repair his reputation by taking her back. The Greeks want Troys wealth and destroyed entirely, so they make up rumours of this Helen to justify their greed. Helen may have been very pretty but I think she had sensual aura that may have been overwhelming to men. A Woman like this can have an attitude that with this ability I will use men’s lust to 54:04 survive a man dominated world. You guard your heart and never give it to a feckless male who will only see you as property, useful only until your beauty and fertile womb time is gone, than thrown away. A smart Woman in my books. You have no right to refuse a man your body but your Heart is a different matter. So use your body to your best advantage and men are offended by this. A wife in Greece is still just sex slave for the lust and advancement of men so Blame a Woman for Men’s lust for expansion and wealth. Make up a fantasy reason instead of being honest. Who said men had no imagination. 😮
Poseidon kept sweet Pelos for his bed
once Tantalos' heir had been restored.
He'd seen potential in what he'd been fed
ambrosial boy has ways to please his lord.
Thyestes frolicked with his brother's wife
and Atreus nursed doubts about his sons.
Mycenae's no place for the happy life;
their royals don't know how that would be done.
Aegysthos shirked while all Greece sailed to war
and bedded Klytemnestra on the sly.
When Agamemnon strode through his own door,
the guy who'd won at Troy, came home to die.
Orestes can't shrug off the family weight
Until Athena will adjudicate.
There were various accounts of the cause of the death of Paris. One attributes it to Apollo, another to a stab in the back with a knife and the arrow is the latest version.
I always thought it interesting that if Helen was 12, then so were her brothers. Were they already heroes and Argonauts (is being stuck in Hades the reason Theseus doesn't join? We know Herakles rescues him on his Labor to collect Cerberus, so that fits). Also, if Clytemnestra is her twin, then wouldn't she be as beautiful as Helen, although not god-gifted?
I think a fatal mistake of this podcast is to present all the myths together without distinction. They are not one narrative but a vast number of different myths told by different authors in different centuries, all presenting a different political perspective. The story of Theseus, as you observed, does not weave well into the story of Trojan war so those are probably different myths created in different cities/nations.
@davegold oh absolutely! He was definitely Athens' favorite 'son', and therefore he became tied to myths he might never have been a part of. Actually, amoung the Argonauts, there are, at times, numerous additions whose names and stories are tied to city/states of the period, just to 'establish' their place in the great epic!