Wrestling with Proteus

Toward a new analytic framework for understanding the Iliad, the Cyclic poems and the Trojan War.

The Trojan War is one of our oldest and most debated traditions. The conflict’s historicity has become increasingly accepted, but its nature is poorly understood. This essay suggests one issue may be the approach to both literary and historical analyses, which generally assume a basic outline for the Trojan War that is “taken for granted.” Performing an all-source analysis of the literature in the context of history from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period, I suggest taking this outline for granted may be an impediment to understanding the Trojan War literature and the history of the war itself.

Due to its length, I will be posting this essay in sections. In this first installment, I review the basic background of the Trojan War legend and introduce a concept I call the Unity: the idea that there is an overarching outline for the legend that unifies all the stories associated with it and which, according to Homeric scholars in general, can be “taken for granted” (in the words of one prominent scholar). I then discuss the internal logic of the Iliad, which is in some ways problematic.

References are indicated by brackets [1] but not linked (due to the current limitations of Substack when importing from MS Word files). Explanatory footnotes are linked. All works cited are listed at the end of the final installment.

Acknowledgements: I am indebted to Prof. Eric Luttrell for inspiring the title of my essay and my approach, generally, and to Dr. Cynthia Gralla for her encouragement, invaluable feedback and editorial assistance.

Keywords: the Trojan War, the Iliad, the Homeric poems, the Cyclic poems, Homer, the Age of Heroes, Late Bronze Age conflicts in Anatolia, Mycenaean activities in Anatolia.

Part 1: Introduction

The story of the Trojan War is an ancient tradition; the Iliad, the epic most closely associated with it, is the earliest text in the Western literary canon. Together with the Odyssey, this pair form what are considered to be the Homeric epics. However, they tell only part of the story: the Iliad takes place over 51 days in the last year of the war and mainly concerns the dispute between its primary hero, Achilles, and Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the Greeks’ overall commander. The Odyssey relates the homecoming of Odysseus, the Greeks’ other principle hero, in the decade after the war’s end, and recalls the events of the war in brief episodes. The rest of the story is told in six additional poems which, when combined with the Iliad and Odyssey, give a full account of the war: the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, the Sack of Troy, the Returns, and the Telegony. These six poems, all of which are lost, I refer to as the Cyclic poems.¹ We know of them from the summaries of Proclus (either 2nd or 5th century AD), various other ancient remarks and commentaries, and a few fragments.

The story they tell begins with the plan of Zeus. Details vary, but the heart of the plan is to bring about the end of the “heroic age” through a cataclysmic war.² The war was triggered when Helen, wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta, eloped with Paris (Alexander), prince of Troy.³ A great force (the “1000 ships”), led by kings from throughout Greece, went to Troy under the command of Agamemnon, Menelaus’ brother, to recover Helen on behalf of her husband. They fought for ten years before Troy was finally sacked by the ruse of the Trojan Horse, its people being slaughtered or enslaved, and the city burnt to the ground.

The surviving Greeks departed for home, but were scattered to the four winds.⁴ Agamemnon was famously murdered when he arrived; others wandered for years before they returned (Menelaus for seven years; Odysseus, ten). The rest founded colonies in the far corners of the world or vanished. Few enjoyed a happy homecoming (Nestor, the aged king of Pylos, is the main example). Thus, the Trojan War ended the “heroic age” and destroyed the “race of heroes.”

That is the basic narrative and we see it not just in the epic poems, but in the lyric poets, such as Stesichorus, Sappho, Alcaeus and Pindar; the plays of the great tragedians, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, and the Roman poet Virgil. In whatever form the story of the Trojan War is presented, we might say “the song remains the same.”

In the field of Homeric scholarship, the situation is no different. Analysis of the poems attributed to “Homer” dates back to at least the 5th century and continues unabated to this day. Throughout this period, it has been concerned with the same questions: Who was Homer? When and where did he live? Which of the texts, or parts of the texts, are authentic? In the era of modern scholarship, which began in the late 18th century, these questions became elaborated: Was Homer one poet or several or a fiction to explain the poems’ origins? Were they written, composed orally and dictated, or were they composed and transmitted orally for generations before being written down? What is the relationship between the Homeric epics and the Cyclic poems; between the Iliad and Odyssey?

All these issues are included in what became known as the Homeric Question and since the early 19th century, different schools of thought tried to deal with them; each have made their contributions to addressing the Homeric Question, but consensus remains elusive. After two and a half millennia of investigation, these questions are still debated.

But throughout, one thing has remained constant: the basic outline of the Trojan War. It is not without reason that Margalit Finkelberg, in her paper “The Formation Of The Homeric Epics” says “the overall story of the Trojan War is taken for granted.”^[1] The belief is that this one Trojan War tradition unifies the composers of the Homeric epics and the Cyclic poems. It also unifies Homeric scholars through the ages. Whatever their differences, their conception of the overall story is the same.

The “Unity”: Our lens for the Trojan War

This belief, which I dub the “Unity,” drives much Homeric scholarship; it is the lens through which the poems are viewed. I will limit myself to a few examples that are characteristic. It is not controversial that the end of a heroic age represents a memory of the Bronze Age collapse, which struck mainland Greece and most of the civilizations in the near-east around 1200 BC,⁵ just as it is widely accepted that the dispersal of the surviving heroes after the Trojan War is symbolic of the Greek diaspora that followed the collapse of Mycenaean civilization.⁶

Exactly what happened in Greece during the early Iron Age has long been debated. Current scholarship no longer accepts the specter of a “Dorian Invasion” (it has been questioned since the mid-1960s) and as Eric Cline explains in his 2024 book, After 1177 B.C, even the idea of Greek-speaking peoples from the Balkans (the Dorians) migrating into southern Greece has been called into question. Rather, current scholars are leaning toward the idea that the Dorians were already present in the Peloponnesus in the late Bronze Age, and the evidence of migrations can be explained by movements of the current inhabitants rather than the arrival of outsiders.⁷ The same can be said for the various "innovations” the outsiders were thought to have brought with them, some of which have been found to also date back to the Bronze Age. Further, the severity of the collapse has been reduced from earlier assessments of 75 to 90 percent of the population disappearing to around 40 to 60 percent.^[2] Therefore, continuity throughout the early Iron Age in Greece seems to have been greater than once believed.

Despite all the uncertainties, several things are clear: there was widespread relocation of peoples in Greece; many Greeks left the mainland, often for the west coast of Anatolia, and there were several dialects of Greek being spoken, implying a heterogenous population. Finally, all these circumstances made a strong and lasting impression on Greek culture.

By the 8th century, these diverse Greek-speaking groups had begun to forge a common identity and one factor, which emerged in this century, was adopting a shared vision of their past.^[3] Archaeological studies of 8th century Greece show a marked resurgence of interest in the past over much of the mainland during this century, with the beginning of ritual activity at Mycenaean graves, new shrines being established at Bronze Age sites and the appearance of heroic imagery in art.^[4] Alongside this came the rise of epic poetry, apparently encouraged by Ionian forms. This dramatic effloresce of art, poetry and ritual activity concerned with the past and heroic themes speaks to the formation of this shared vision of the past, and Finkelberg states epic poetry became “the main vehicle” for disseminating it throughout the Greek world.⁸

The plan of Zeus to end a heroic age and the Trojan War’s role in it were part of this new vision, so it is no wonder that Homer and Hesiod are often assigned to the latter half of this century.⁹ There are issues, however. While Zeus’ plan is prominent in the Cyclic poems and the Trojan War is mentioned in Hesiod along with the Theban War, it is absent from both Hesiod and the Iliad. Hesiod does not mention it all and in the Iliad, Zeus’ plan relates to his promise to Thetis to force Agamemnon to redress the insult to her son. How can this be?

Finkelberg’s paper presents a solution to this “paradox,” as she terms it. The Iliad does portray the heroes of the past as being stronger and grander than the men of its day, and it is believed that Homer could not have been ignorant of a myth that is central to the whole Trojan War tradition. The Neoanalyst conclusion that Homer was quite familiar with the main themes of the Cyclic poems is held to support this. Therefore, quoting Finkelberg: “his failure to integrate this myth into his own picture of the Trojan War can only be interpreted as due to deliberate suppression.” The reason given for such suppression is that Hesiod’s depiction of his current age, echoed in the Cyclic poems, was notably pessimistic.

As Finkelberg sees it, this pessimistic view, with its emphasis on humanity’s degraded condition, historical discontinuity and the Greek diaspora, reflects the period right after the Bronze Age collapse. This world view survived into 8th century Greece but as it conflicted with the aspirations of the still-emerging Greek society, she believes an “adjustment was required,” and the Iliad and the Odyssey represent that adjustment. In this view, the Iliad and Odyssey represent a second stage in the development of Greek epic tradition; an idea supported by Greek art, where images related to the Cyclic poems appear in the late 8th century while clearly identifiable Iliadic images are not found until the last quarter of the 7th century, suggesting that “prototypes” of the Cyclic poems were widely known well before the Iliad and Odyssey. Accordingly, some scholars date the Iliad and Odyssey to the latter half of the 7th century, rather than the latter half of the 8th century.^[5]

My second example is provided by Gregory Nagy. In his article “Helen of Sparta and her very own Eidolon,” he says that Helen in the Iliad contradicts Helen in the lyric tradition, first attested in Stesichorus, and in another article “Just to look at all the shining bronze here, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” he makes the same point about the Odyssey. In both Stesichorus and the Odyssey, Helen is portrayed as a goddess while at Sparta but in the Iliad, where she is at Troy, she appears as a mortal woman. Like Finkelberg, Nagy proposes an elegant solution to this problem: “immortal Helen… needs a mortal stand-in who can serve as her image-double at Troy”; but both his solution and Finkelberg’s rely on the Unity to underpin them.¹⁰

Another example is the long, and at times spirited, debate over what appears to a reference to the Judgement of Paris in Book 24 of the Iliad.¹¹ The debaters fall into two camps: those who believe the reference is a later interpolation to make the Iliad more consistent with later works (which include Martin West) and those who feel it is genuine (which include Malcolm Davies).

The former camp cite any number of the objections, largely on textual grounds, while the passage’s defenders do so on the basis of its relevance to the “broader context of the whole poem.” The latter is an explicit appeal to the Unity to argue for the passage being authentic.

My fourth example is from Jonathan Burgess and his influential work, The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle (2001). He says: “there is no ‘early’ version of the Trojan War on which the Homeric poems are based” and “no ‘later’ version… represented by the Epic Cycle,” though he acknowledges the Cyclic poems and the Homeric poems “concentrate on different topics, have different styles and were created with different purposes in mind.” He also observes the tales that later became the Cyclic poems were initially independent and not intended to by joined together.^[6] Unlike Finkelberg and Nagy in the previous examples, Burgess sees no paradox or contradiction that requires explanation, but his assertion that there is no early version or later version of the legend is also an explicit statement that the Unity is basic to understanding the ancient material concerning the Trojan War.

My next example is Mary Bachvarova’s From Hittite to Homer (2016). Similar to Burgess, she adopts the position that there has always been one tradition of the Trojan War; throughout her book, she often refers to it as the “legend of the fall of Troy.” One of her major points is that the Trojan War legends, including the Iliad, incorporate the plot of the Hittite Song of Release, which concerns the destruction of a famous city due to the obstinacy of its ruler.¹² Her analysis is thorough and quite interesting, but it assumes that the legend of the Trojan War was the legend of the fall of Troy from the beginning.¹³

My last example is the eminent scholar Moses Finley, who maintained the Trojan War was a fiction until his death in 1986. Finley accepted the Unity, looked at the evidence, and concluded it did not support the historical existence of a Trojan War. He also appears to have conflated data from the Iliad and Odyssey, assuming them to be composed by the same person, confusing the picture further. Finley suggested that the Iliad may represent a minor event that was exaggerated by poets. His example was the Song of Roland, which took a small ambush and amplified it into a heroic sacrifice that led to a great Christian victory over a vast infidel army. His faith in the Unity guided him down this path, as it did the other scholars in the examples I’ve mentioned.

Although I have limited myself to these examples, a survey of the literature shows that it lies at the heart of much Homeric analysis. If the Trojan War tradition was consistent across all its constituent poems, this would present no issue, but it is not. As these examples show, the Iliad stands out from the Cyclic poems, and while the Odyssey is closer to them than the Iliad is, on some topics, it occupies a middle ground between the Iliad and the Cyclic poems. Moreover, when the tradition is considered as a whole, it contains elements from three different eras.

The Iliad raises important issues that seem to belong in the turbulent 8th century. It questions the traditional heroic view of war and raises the issue of unquestioning obedience to constituted authority.¹⁴ The Iliad asks why wars take on a life of their own, such that they cannot be ended even when both sides no longer have a desire to prosecute them; what the value of honor and glory is when weighed against life; where a person’s true loyalty should lie; how social obligations work in view of inevitable inequality and inequitable results; what the point of striving in life is, if all men die.¹⁵ Yet these are not the main themes of the Iliad, which has as its driving force, the rage – mênis – of Achilles. Homer uses the Trojan War as a frame for showing the power and danger of mênis, as well as breaking new ground with his resolution to Achilles’ conflict, while exploring other themes that relate to his day.

However, the Trojan War story itself is quite old and Homer’s depiction reveals its Mycenaean origins. Latacz provides a detailed defense of this, and while not all his conclusions are accepted, that the Trojan War story originated in the late Bronze Age seems undeniable.^[7]

However, the bulk of the material concerning the Trojan War outside the Iliad, chiefly the Cyclic poems, is older still.¹⁶ It is from ancient Indo-European myth and folklore: cattle theft, divine twin sacrifice, abductions, elopements, serpents, magic weapons, enchanted apples, dead heroes translated to “otherworldly” realms, and magical agents (the Trojan horse) are all present. The practice of human sacrifice is suggested.¹⁷ Also included are divine beauty contests, the tale of the returning husband, and the one-eyed ogre.^[8] Lastly, the war is being fought over a woman, Helen, who was worshipped as a goddess in Greece from the late Bronze Age into the Archaic period, but whose divine origins are proto-Indo-European.

At issue is the way the Iliad treats this material. Finkelberg says Homer represents the Cyclic poems’ tradition “idiosyncratically” and that he uses “subtle strategies of inclusion and exclusion” to make it suit his own purpose.^[9] C.J. Mackie makes the same point: “Homer’s rather austere way of keeping some narratives to the margins of the Iliad… a ‘policy of exclusion’ is accompanied by a policy of allusion.” He added: “Some traditional narratives are kept out of the poem, only to be alluded to in the barest of ways.”^[10]

Why would Homer do this when the Cyclic poets took a different approach? If the Trojan War were a mythical event, we might put the marginalization of all these folkloric narratives down to Homer’s “idiosyncrasies” and be done with it. However, during the last 30 years, archaeology and study of relevant Hittite texts make it more likely the war has a historical basis. Therefore, Homer’s behavior in regards to these folkloric narratives cannot be easily dismissed. Before moving on, however, we must note another characteristic of the Iliad’s narrative: its internal logic.

Twisted Logic: The Trojan’s suicidal obstinacy

The idiosyncrasies noted by Finkelberg and Mackie (as well as numerous other scholars) are not the only ones in the Iliad. The plot itself presents us with a problem. The logic of the war goes like this: Paris and Helen elope => the Greeks demand her return => the Trojans refuse => the Greeks sack Troy.

The justification is that Paris abused the hospitality of Menelaus by seducing Helen and absconding with much of his wealth. Doing so is a violation of the sacred law of xenia (“guest-friendship”) which is overseen by Zeus himself (Zeus Xenios). Thus, when the Trojans refuse to restore her and the stolen wealth, the Greeks have the moral right to attack the city, slaughter or enslave its people and burn down what is left. The details, however, are more complex.

Paris agrees to a duel with Menelaus to settle the issue, indicating Greeks are not adamant that Paris transgressed xenia. Menelaus insists he did (Iliad 3:351-54) but the prayer offered by both armies asks Zeus to grant that whichever man is at fault die and they be given friendship in accordance with the oath that sanctified the duel (Iliad 3:320-23). This suggests Zeus may see either man as guilty. In the event, the duel is inconclusive, thanks to Aphrodite, and the gods contrive to have the truce broken. Then, it is (shall we say) “game on.”

Why do the Trojans refuse to return Helen? The refusal, which threatens the destruction of their entire society, seems “suicidally” obtuse, in the words of Stephen Mitchell in his translation of the Iliad.^[11] Homer nowhere explains the Trojan’s reasoning. Hector, the main Trojan hero, roundly castigates Paris (his brother) for his actions, but despite this, he never insists on Helen’s return or stops fighting the war. Unlike Achilles, who withdraws himself and his troops from the war over a serious transgression of social mores (Agamemnon’s insult), Hector never considers this even though it presages his death and the fall of Troy. (His musing on this in Book 22:111-22 comes far too late.) When Paris agrees to the duel with Menelaus, he reacts to with joy, though moments before he wished Paris had never been born and says that he should have been stoned to death for his “crime.”¹⁸

Neither does Priam insist on meeting the Greeks’ demands. When Paris, in response to Antenor’s suggestion they give Helen back along with the wealth she brought, offers to return the wealth and add some of his own but refuses to part with Helen, Priam does not countermand him. Paris is a younger son; he should have no authority to decide whether Helen stays or goes. Priam could easily override him – so could Hector, for that matter – but all Priam does is order the herald Idaios to deliver the proposition to the Greeks the next morning and ends the meeting (Book 7:371-374).

Scholars have long noted that the Trojans seem aware of their fate; at times, they even seem fatalistic, while hopeful thoughts (which Hector occasionally has) are dismissed as delusional. How are we to explain this behavior?

Mitchell suggests this conundrum is behind the idea that Helen was never in Troy in the first place (recall Stesichorus). Herodotus also asserts it, claiming Helen spent the war in Egypt based on the alleged testimony of Egyptian priests. This idea absolved the Trojans of insanity: they were unable to return Helen and the Greeks simply refused to believe them.

However, there is no hint of this idea in the Iliad, or that Homer had any notion of it. To square the Egyptian story with the Iliad therefore depends on the myth of Helen’s eidōlon (phantom double) being taken to Troy in place of the woman herself. But from the historical perspective (which Herodotus claims to represent), this mythological explanation cannot solve the problem of the Trojan’s suicidal obstinacy.¹⁹ If the Trojan War was historical, as Herodotus and his contemporaries believed, Homer must be wrong about Helen being in Troy if we accept his account. In which case, we confront the problem of why Homer believed she was.

In a nutshell, either the Trojans were insane, or Helen was never present but the Greeks refused to accept this and Homer made up Helen’s presence at Troy for his own reasons. What do we make of it all? Mitchell offers an explanation that speaks for most Homeric scholars: fate. As he puts it, they “couldn’t return Helen because they didn’t return her. Troy had to fall because it did fall.”²⁰ In other words, “it is what it is.”

I do not find this explanation satisfactory. On the one hand, it seems a bit too facile – rather than dig deeper into the issue, we invoke fate as a “catchall” solution. On the other, I question if it is consistent with the genius we know Homer to be. His grasp of the human condition is unsurpassed in literature and while the Iliad is not a model of consistency, it has a high degree of coherence, such that when an incongruity like the Trojan’s “insane” behavior appears, it is worth exploring in more depth.

In this regard, I ask: how to explain this incongruity and how can a single, coherent outline apply to a story whose main elements come from three different eras? To what extent is the Unity coloring our view, so the only way to deal with to the issues we encounter is to fall back on “idiosyncrasies” or “fate”? Are we justified in believing the accepted story of the war and that the logic behind it can be “taken for granted” or must we look beyond that for explanation? The persistent lack of consensus on so many of the questions in Homeric scholarship indicates that this crucial assumption – the Unity – deserves a close look.

Greek myth says that if we can get a good hold on Proteus and maintain it through his myriad transformations, he will be obliged to answer a question. I believe answers are too much to ask for, especially in an essay such as this, but perhaps a match with the Old Man of the Sea might provide some clues that may spur further inquiry. Let us proceed.

This concludes Part 1.

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References

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^[1] Finkelberg (2020, 17).

^[2] Cline (2024, 1-2).

^[3] Finkelberg (2020, 27-28).

^[4] See Thomas (2003), Latacz (2004), West (Hellenica, ch.1 and 4), Bachvarova (2016) and Cline (2024).

^[5] Finkelberg (2020, 30-34).

^[6] Burgess (2001, 4-5).

^[7] Latacz (2004).

^[8] See Davies (2002) and West (2014) for more on this topic.

^[9] Finkelberg (2020, 29).

^[10] Mackie (2013).

^[11] Mitchell’s translation of the Iliad (2011, xxv).

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Footnotes

1. They have also been called the Epic Cycle but as this is not used consistently, I prefer the Cyclic poems.

2. The Cypria says the war was a response to a complaint to Zeus by Gaia that she was overburdened with humanity, an idea that likely originated from a Mesopotamian myth, attested before 1600. See West (2013, 66) for more on this. For those who wish to a deep dive into the topic, there is this 2019 article by Malcolm Davies. Personally, I prefer West’s analysis, but it not easily accessible to non-specialists (the book is expensive).

3. Hereafter, Paris.

4. Athena is said to have dispersed the Greek fleet with a storm because of enormities committed during the sack. This motif is common in Greek myths.

5. All dates from here on are BC, unless otherwise noted.

6. See Cline (2021) for an up-to-date and highly accessible discussion of the Bronze Age collapse.

7. Specifically, Cline reports these scholars, who include Gregory Nagy, “see no need to posit” a “Dorian invasion” or even a migration to explain the archeological and other data. Of course, “no need” is not the same as “did not happen” so while an “invasion” (implying a violent incursion) has been largely dismissed on solid grounds, the question of more peaceful migrations may still be unsettled.

8. The efflorescence of Arthurian literature in the 12th century AD was similar; the situation in 12th century Britain was reminiscent of that in 8th century Greece and the tales themselves have a similar basis. See Finke (2004).

9. I use “Homer” strictly to refer the poet of the Iliad, distinct from the “Odyssey poet” due to strong indications, accepted by most scholars, that they were separate individuals, neither actually named Homer.

10. Nagy’s gets his idea from the myths of Heracles and Helen’s brothers. His essay deserves to be read in full.

11. Mackie (2013) provides a good overview of the debate. For more see: Nicholas Richardson, The Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. 6, Books 21–24, Cambridge, 1996, 276ff (referenced by Mackie).

12. The story may relate to the destruction of Ebla in northern Syria, around 1600. The song mentions captives from a nearby town (Ikinkalis), whose capture is recorded the Annals of Ḫattušili I. (Bachvarova 2016, 111.)

13. Bachvarova estimates the Trojan War legend was created around 1160 to 1050, but her method is questionable. She accepts Herodotus’ date as the date of the Trojan War’s end and supposing this to be beyond the three-generation limit of reliable memory, thus existing in “legendary” time (per Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, 1985), she subtracts 90 years to arrive at earliest date for the legend’s creation (pp.401). The problem is she does not explain how Herodotus got his dating; the only way her method could be valid is if Herodotus knew a separate tradition that allowed him to date of the fall of Troy because, according to this method, the people of the early Iron Age could not have known it. That is, the knowledge somehow skipped over people living in the region 90 years after the event and landed on Herodotus over 700 years later; this is implausible.

As I shall discuss later, Herodotus’ ability to date the Trojan War (in his own context) shows continuity in ancient chronological understanding, so if his date is accepted the three-generation horizon cannot be (it should not be accepted uncritically anyway, as there is no evidence it applies to Bronze Age cultures and indications it does not). If Herodotus’ date is not accepted, then there is no basis for the 1160 date. Given this and the other evidence, Bachvarova’s estimate of the earliest date of the legend’s creation cannot be accepted. Her estimate for the latest date of the legend’s creation (1050) is better supported, but less important.

14. It is noteworthy that this issue is raised not just in Greek army, but also on Olympus. See Porter (2014).

15. See Alexander (2009) for an in-depth discussion of this topic.

16. That the themes of the Cyclic poems and Greek lyric poetry are consistently older than those of the Homeric poems has long been recognized. (Finkelberg 2020; she also references Nagy).

17. The instances are Iphigeneia, Astyanax and Polyxena; only the death of Astyanax is alluded to in the Iliad. The practice of human sacrifice in dire circumstances (e.g. a besieged city) is suggested by archaeological findings.

18. The depiction of Paris and Helen’s relationship is inconsistent: adultery deserved stoning but the Iliad portrays them as legitimately married. This is not the only issue with the idea Paris and Helen eloped; Helen stating she has been in Troy for 20 years has long vexed scholars. I deal with this elsewhere, but the upshot is that Paris and Helen were originally said to married legally and the elopement was a late change to the story.

19. Even from the mythological perspective, there is a problem: Helen’s eidōlon is depicted as so real that we can wonder why they did not hand it over, since they did not seem to be aware it was an eidōlon and not the actual Helen. However we approach the issue, the logic does not work out.

20. Mitchell’s translation of the Iliad (2011, xxvi). Note the Unity being applied once again.