Greeks And Trojans Notes

One might expect the author of the Iliad to show a strong bias towards the side of the war from which he was descended, however despite being a Greek, Homer portrays the two sides in a remarkably similar way. There are of course a few differences between the Greeks and Trojans, but they remain minor issues in the face of the overwhelming similarities between the sides, however they are interpreted. Later Greeks may have developed the concept of the Trojans as being Eastern and degenerate and barbarian, but this is not really a reading that can be made of the Iliad.

There are many ways in which the Greeks and Trojans in the Iliad are very similar. Firstly, the political structures of the two sides are almost identical: both are formed from alliances of different smaller states. These states each have one king ruling over his household and the surrounding area for example, Nestor is king of Pylos, and Rhesus is king of the Thracians. Kings from both sides interact with their subjects in similar ways – they enjoy sumptuous palaces and rich rewards, in return for providing their people with leadership and protection. These states form discrete political units, which then combine to create either the Trojan defence or the Greek invasive force. The Trojan force is made up of the Trojans themselves, led by king Priam, and his son Hector, with the various other contingents acting as allies, for example the Lycians and Thracians. In the same way, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, is assisted by many other kings, who have brought with them soldiers from their own kingdoms¹. Neither side could survive without her allies – Agamemnon says of the Trojan allies:

…ἀλλ ἐπίκουροι

πολλέων ἐκ πολίων ἐγχέσπαλοι ἄνδρες ἔασιν,

οἵ με μέγα πλάζουσι καὶ οὐκ εἰῶσ ἐθέλοντα

Ἰλίου ἐκπέρσαι εὖ ναιόμενον πτολίεθρον.²

Neither the Trojan nor the Greek allies are subjects to Priam or Agamemnon respectively: they are kings in their own right. This is shown clearly in the lines: ‘he spoke, and led the way out of the council, and the other sceptred kings rose up and obeyed the shepherd of men.’³ However Agamemnon is the strongest king:

ἐν δ αὐτὸς ἐδύσετο νώροπα χαλκὸν

κυδιόων, πᾶσιν δὲ μετέπρεπεν ἡρώεσσιν

οὕνεκ ἄριστος ἔην πολὺ δὲ πλείστους ἄγε λαούς.⁴

Hector is described in a similar way:

Τρωσὶ μὲν ἡγεμόνευε μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ

Πριαμίδησ· ἅμα τῷ γε πολὺ πλεῖστοι καὶ ἄριστοι

λαοὶ θωρήσσοντο μεμαότες ἐγχείῃσι.⁵

All the kings have a role to play in the decision-making process of each side however, as both sides have assemblies at the end of each day’s fighting: a marker of the transition between days when each side withdraws to their respective counsels and discusses the events of that day, and their plans for the next. For example in book 7 parallel assemblies convene: Nestor opens the Greek assembly in 7.327 and less than 20 lines later at the end of his speech the Trojan assembly is described: ‘so he [Nestor] spoke, and all the kings assented to it. And by the Trojans likewise was an assembly held in the citadel of Ilios, an assembly fierce and tumultuous, besides Priam’s doors.’⁶ It is also true in both cases that Agamemnon and Priam seem to have a veto over the other kings.

This system of an alliance of smaller kingships into two opposing forces explains why there are differences between contingents fighting on the same side. This means that on the Greek side there is not really any concept of Hellenicity. For example, there is no word for ‘Greek’: the men on the Greek side are described as the Achaeans, the Hellenes, the Danaans, and the Argives, but these refer to particular regions of Greece as opposed to Greece as a whole.

The second major similarity between the Greeks and the Trojans is that they speak the same language: there seems to be no indication that the Trojans speak Trojan, as the Trojan and Greek heroes often address each other, and have no difficulty understanding each other. There are, however, references to some of the Trojan allies speaking different languages:

ὣς Τρώων ἀλαλητὸς ἀνὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν ὀρώρει·

οὐ γὰρ πάντων ἦεν ὁμὸς θρόος οὐδ ἴα γῆρυς,

ἀλλὰ γλῶσσα μέμικτο, πολύκλητοι δ ἔσαν ἄνδρες.⁷

Hence Homer and the Greeks of his age were aware of the different languages spoken in different lands, but this does not seem to be a difference between the Greeks and the Trojans themselves, just the Trojan allies. In later Greek, speaking a different language was one of the markers of a ‘barbarian’. In Homer, however, the adjective ‘barbarophonoi’⁸ is used to describe the Carians, but here it simply means that the language of the Carians sounded like ‘bar-bar-bar’ to Greek ears. It seems that the mention of different languages is there just to show how far away the Trojan allies come from (and hence how many allies the Trojans have) as opposed to having the negative connotations that ‘barbarian’ later acquired.

A third similarity between the Greeks and Trojans is that they have the same religious beliefs. Both sides worship the Olympian gods – such as Zeus, Athena, Apollo and Poseidon– even though these were by the time of Homer’s composition specifically Greek gods. When they make a truce in book 3, it is explicitly mentioned that they offer up the same prayers:

…ἠδ εὔχοντο θεοῖς αἰειγενέτῃσιν.

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε·

‘Ζεῦ κύδιστε μέγιστε καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι

ὁππότεροι πρότεροι ὑπὲρ ὅρκια πημήνειαν

ὧδέ σφ ἐγκέφαλος χαμάδις ῥέοι…⁹

Each of the gods has their own favourite side, but there is no indication that the Trojan supporting gods are in any fundamental way different to the gods on the Greek side. It is also not true that there are more Greek-supporting gods, or that the most important gods favour the Greeks - Zeus says of the Trojans:

αἳ γὰρ ὑπ ἠελίῳ τε καὶ οὐρανῷ ἀστερόεντι

ναιετάουσι πόληες ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων,

τάων μοι περὶ κῆρι τιέσκετο Ἴλιος ἱρὴ

καὶ Πρίαμος καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο. ¹⁰

The fourth similarity between the two sides is their shared social code. Both sides have...

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