4. The Trojan Cycle.—We now come to the Trojan war, the fourth and most celebrated of the common undertakings of the later heroic age. Here the sources of our information are far more plentiful than in any former period of mythic history, because both the grand national epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are commonly ascribed to Homer, relate to the Trojan war. As the contents of these immortal poems are probably well known to our readers, we shall only dwell on the most essential features of the story.
I. The Heroic Races of the Trojan War.—1. The Dardanidæ, or race of Dardanus.—The royal family of Troy were descended from Dardanus, a son of Zeus by Electra, a daughter of Atlas. Dardanus is said to have emigrated from Samothrace, or, according to others, from Italy to Arcadia, to the north-west portion of Asia Minor, between the range of Ida and the Hellespont, where he received from king Teucer some land to form a settlement. By a daughter of the river-god Simoïs, or, as others say, of Scamander, Dardanus had a son called Tros, from whom the Trojans derived their name. Tros had three sons—Assaracus, Ilus, and Ganymedes. The last, who, like all the scions of the race of Dardanus, was possessed of wonderful beauty, was raised by Zeus to the dignity of cupbearer to the gods, and thus became immortal. Ilus and Assaracus became the founders of two different branches of the Dardanian race. The latter remained in his native settlement of Dardania, where he became the father of Capys and the grandfather of Anchises, the father of Æneas. Ilus, on the other hand, emigrated to the plains of the Scamander, where he founded the city of Ilium, or Troy. After completing the town, he begged Zeus to bestow on him a sign of his favour. The next morning he found in front of his tent the celebrated Palladium—an image of Pallas Athene, carved in wood. On the possession of this depended the fortune and welfare of the city. After the death of Ilus, his son Laomedon became king of Troy. At his request, Poseidon and Apollo built the citadel of Pergamum. We have already related how this king, by his faithless conduct provoked the wrath of Heracles, and the first capture of the city. Of his sons only Priam remained; in him the race of Dardanus flourished afresh, for by his wife Hecuba and by his concubines he had a great number of sons and daughters.
2. The Pelopidæ, or race of Pelops.—The Pelopidæ, who were chiefly instrumental in the destruction of Troy, were descended from the Phrygian king Tantalus, who was renowned alike for his unexampled good fortune and his subsequent unhappy fate. He was the son of Zeus and Pluto (rich plenty), and inhabited a citadel on Mount Sipylus, whence his rich pasture-lands and fruitful corn-fields extended twelve days’ journey, as far as Ida and the Propontis. The very gods honoured him with their friendship, and lived on such intimate terms that they invited him to eat at their table. This unheard-of good fortune, however, begot in the puny mortal such presumption, that he began to indulge in the grossest outrages on gods and men. At length he went so far as to cut his son Pelops in pieces to boil them, and set them before the gods in order to test their omniscience. The cup of his iniquity now seemed full, and the gods brought down a heavy retribution on the head of the criminal by his well-known punishment in the lower world, where, though surrounded by the most delicious fruits, and standing up to his neck in water, he was nevertheless condemned to suffer the pangs of continual hunger and thirst. Another tradition relates that he was kept in constant anxiety by a huge rock which was suspended over his head. (See pp. [149], [150].)
The children of Tantalus were Pelops and Niobe. The unhappy fate of the latter has already been described in the mythic history of Thebes. Pelops was restored to life by the art of Hermes; and a portion of his shoulder, which had been consumed by Demeter, was replaced by the gods with a piece of ivory. Pelops is said to have grown up in Olympus, amongst the blessed gods. On being restored to earth, he proceeded to Elis, where he became a suitor for the hand of Hippodamia, the beautiful daughter of the king Œnomaüs. The latter had promised his daughter to the man who should vanquish him in a chariot race: whoever failed was obliged to expiate his temerity with his life, as Œnomaüs transfixed him with his unerring lance as he passed. Thirteen noble youths had already suffered this fate, when Pelops appeared to undergo the dangerous ordeal. By means of the untiring winged horses which had been given him by Poseidon, and also by bribing Myrtilus, the King’s charioteer—who, before starting, withdrew the linch-pins from his master’s chariot or replaced them with wax—he came off victorious. Œnomaüs either was killed by the breaking down of his chariot, or put an end to his own life on seeing himself vanquished. Pelops now obtained both Hippodamia and the kingdom of Elis; but he ill rewarded Myrtilus, who had rendered him such valuable service, by casting him into the sea, in order to release himself from his obligations. Hermes, whose son he is reputed to have been, set him amongst the stars as charioteer.
The sons of Pelops by Hippodamia were Atreus and Thyestes, whose history, which is full of the most revolting crimes, formed a favourite subject with the tragic poets. First, Atreus and Thyestes murdered their step-brother Chrysippus, and were compelled to leave their country in company with their mother. They were hospitably received at Mycenæ by their brother-in-law Sthenelus, the son of Perseus, or by his son Eurystheus. On Eurystheus’ death, they inherited the sovereignty of the Persidæ in Argos, and Atreus now took up his residence in the proud capital of Mycenæ, whence, strange to say, the most ancient specimen of Greek sculpture has come down to us in the so-called Gate of Lions. Soon an implacable enmity arose between the two brothers, and Thyestes, in consequence, was banished from Argos. He took with him, in revenge, Pleisthenes, the young son of Atreus, brought him up as his own son, and despatched him, later, to Mycenæ to kill Atreus. His design was discovered, and he expiated his intended crime with his life. When Atreus learned that it was his own son whom he had condemned to death, he determined on a dreadful revenge. Pretending to be reconciled, he recalled Thyestes and his children to Mycenæ; and Thyestes, trusting to his brother’s word, returned. Atreus then privately seized the two young sons of Thyestes, slew them, and set this horrible food before their father. Horror-struck at this inhuman cruelty, the sun turned his chariot and went back in his course. Thyestes, uttering fearful curses against his brother and the whole race of the Pelopidæ, again escaped, and took refuge with Thesprotus, king of Epirus. Later, he succeeded, with the help of his only remaining son Ægisthus, in avenging himself on his brother. Atreus was slain by Ægisthus whilst offering up a sacrifice on the sea-shore, and Thyestes now acquired the sovereignty of Mycenæ. The sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaüs, fled from their barbarous uncle to Sparta, where Tyndareüs, the king, received them kindly, and gave them his daughters, Clytæmnestra and Helen, in marriage. With his aid Agamemnon recovered his father’s kingdom, slew Thyestes, and drove out Ægisthus. Menelaüs remained in Sparta—where he succeeded Tyndareüs—until the carrying off of his wife Helen by Paris gave rise to the Trojan war.
3. The Æacidæ, or race of Æacus.—After the sons of Atreus, the Æacidæ play the most important part in the Trojan war; in fact, we are almost justified in saying that the war was an exploit of these two races of heroes and their peoples, the Achæans of Argos and the Hellenes of Phthia. The ancestor of the Æacidæ was Æacus, who was renowned alike for his wisdom and justice, and on this account subsequently made a judge in the lower world. Æacus was a son of Zeus by Ægina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus. He ruled over the island of Ægina, and married Endeïs, the daughter of the wise Centaur Chiron. She bore him two sons, Peleus and Telamon. On reaching manhood they were compelled to leave their country, because, like the sons of Pelops, they had murdered, in a fit of jealousy, a step-brother who was a favourite with their father. Peleus betook himself to Phthia, where he was kindly received by Eurytion, who bestowed on him the hand of his daughter and a third part of his kingdom. Peleus afterwards took part in the boar hunt of Calydon, on which occasion he had the misfortune to kill his father-in-law. In consequence of this, he left Phthia and proceeded to Iolcus, where he took part in the funeral games which Acastus was celebrating in honour of his father Pelias, who had perished by the treachery of Medea. Here he experienced a similar fate to that of Bellerophon at the court of Prœtus. Astydameia, the wife of Acastus, finding herself unable to seduce him, slandered him to her husband, who thereupon sought to take his life. After hunting on Pelion one day, Peleus fell asleep, and was left thus unprotected by Acastus, who hoped by this means to get rid of him. He would, indeed, have been murdered by the Centaurs, if the gods had not taken pity on him, and sent him by Hermes a sword of wonderful power, with which he was enabled to repel the assaults of the wild inhabitants of the forest. Peleus, with the help of the Dioscuri, subsequently took Iolcus, and put the treacherous Acastus and his wife to death. As a reward for his chastity, the gods gave him the goddess Thetis—a beautiful daughter of Nereus—to wife. She bore him one son, Achilleus (Achilles), the greatest and bravest hero of the Trojan war. A later tradition asserts that Thetis left her husband soon after the birth of Achilles, because he had disturbed her when she was about to render her child immortal in the fire, just as Demeter intended to do to the child of Celeüs; but this story is unknown to Homer. According to a still later legend, she plunged her son into the Styx, and thereby rendered him invulnerable in every part except the heel by which she held him. Like all noble heroes, Achilles was instructed by Chiron, under whom he acquired such wonderful skill in all feats of strength and agility that he soon surpassed all his contemporaries. In addition to Chiron, Homer names Phœnix, the son of Amyntor, as the instructor of the youthful hero. Achilles proceeded to the Trojan war with cheerful determination, although he knew beforehand that he was not fated to return alive. The story that his mother Thetis, in order to avert his fate, sent him, disguised in women’s clothes, to the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros, where he was discovered by the craft of Odysseus, is a post-Homeric invention.
From Telamon, the second son of Æacus, was descended Aias or Ajax, a hero of but little less importance. Telamon, after his flight from Ægina, found a new home in Salamis, where he married the daughter of the king Cychreus. On the decease of Cychreus, he succeeded to the crown. After the death of his first wife, he married Peribœa, a daughter of Alcathoüs, king of Megara, who bore him Ajax. Tradition tells us much of the intimate friendship of Heracles and Telamon, who took part in the Trojan expedition of his mighty friend. Heracles, in return, gave him Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, by whom he became the father of a second son, Teucer. Like every celebrated hero of antiquity, he is said to have taken part in the Calydonian hunt and the expedition of the Argonauts. Nothing inferior to this brave and doughty father was his son Ajax, on whom the mighty hero Heracles had invoked the blessing of his father Zeus, when as a child he held him in his arms. He was of greater size and strength than any of the other heroes; though he appears somewhat uncouth and clumsy when contrasted with the swift and agile form of Achilles. His mighty shield was as characteristic of him as the ponderous deadly spear was of Achilles. Beside him, his brother Teucer ranks as the best archer among the Greeks.
4. Nestor, the Locrian Ajax, Diomedes, and Odysseus.—Associated with the heroes of the race of Pelops and Æacus were some other renowned chieftains. First among them was the aged Nestor, of Pylus, whose wise counsels were as indispensable to the Greeks before Troy as the dauntless courage of an Achilles or an Ajax. Nestor was the youngest of the twelve sons of Neleus, who was himself a son of Poseidon and Tyro, and twin-brother of Pelias. Neleus, having been driven out by Pelias, took refuge in Messenia, where he became the founder of a new kingdom. Later, however, both his sovereignty and the glory of his house were well-nigh extinguished by the hostility of Heracles, who slew all the sons of Neleus except Nestor. When quite young, Nestor defeated the neighbouring tribes of the Epei and Arcadians, and restored the dominions of his father to their former extent. He likewise took part in the contest between the Lapithæ and the Centaurs, in the Calydonian boar hunt, and in the expedition of the Argonauts. Though so far advanced in years—having ruled over three generations of men—he could not withstand the desire to take part in the Trojan war.
The Locrian Ajax—also called the Lesser Ajax, to distinguish him from his mighty namesake—was a son of the Locrian king Oïleus, of whom nothing more is known than that he took part in the expedition of the Argonauts. Ajax was renowned among the Greeks for his skill in hurling the spear and for his great fleetness, in which he was surpassed only by Achilles. He always appears in a linen corslet, and his followers, the Opuntian Locrians, are also light-armed troops.
Diomedes was a member of the oft-mentioned race of the Æolian Amythaonidæ. His father was the hot-headed Tydeus, who was killed in the war of the Seven against Thebes. Diomedes, who inherited no small portion of his father’s wild, untameable disposition, of course took part in the war of the Epigoni, and subsequently succeeded his grandfather Adrastus in his Argive sovereignty at Sicyon. He also restored his paternal grandfather, the aged Ætolian king Œneus, who had been dethroned by the sons of his brother Agrius, to his kingdom. In the Iliad he appears as a special favourite of Pallas Athene, and Homer makes him play an important part in the contests of the Greeks before the walls of Troy. In post-Homeric story he is represented as having carried off the Trojan Palladium.