Said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the Director of the Archaeological park of Pompeii, quoted in "Pompeii: a dining room decorated with characters and subjects inspired by the Trojan war has emerged from the new excavations" (pompeiisites.org).
April 12, 2024
"The mythological couples provided ideas for conversations about the past and life, only seemingly of a merely romantic nature."
"In reality, they refer to the relationship between the individual and fate: Cassandra who can see the future but no one believes her, Apollo who sides with the Trojans against the Greek invaders, but being a god, cannot ensure victory, Helen and Paris who, despite their politically incorrect love affair, are the cause of the war, or perhaps merely a pretext. Who knows? These days, Helen and Paris represent us all: each day we can choose whether to focus solely on our own private lives or whether to explore the way our lives are entangled with the broad sweep of history...."
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13 comments:
We may never know which of the many artistic designs found in these well preserved homes were respected by the neighbors as high culture demonstrating the taste and the wisdom of the owners, and which art pieces were secretly or openly derided as nouveau rich, gauche crap foisted on the idiot owners by grifting craftsmen.
Perhaps that is for the best, I say, looking around the walls of my home office.
"Helen and Paris who, despite their politically incorrect love affair, are the cause of the war, or perhaps merely a pretext."
Most definitely a pretext. During the Late Bronze Age Collapse even a noblewoman like Helen would've been worth about 20 goats. It flatters the vanity of later generations that such a woman existed and could've launched "a thousand ships", but the warlike men of that era - especially the Spartans - would've never fought over something so stupid.
Shedding blood and sacking cities over a woman is anachronistically tribal, and much too far removed to the prehistoric even for the taste of bronze age European society. They would've considered it 'uncivilized' LOL.
The unsavory aftermath of Helen's whoring around, as Anne Carson put it.
Men and women are forever viable in our Posterity.
"We may never know which of the many artistic designs found in these well preserved homes were respected by the neighbors as high culture demonstrating the taste and the wisdom of the owners, and which art pieces were secretly or openly derided as nouveau rich, gauche crap foisted on the idiot owners by grifting craftsmen."
I don't know. I was just there. After looking at enough of these houses, I think you do get a sense of this.
I thought Helen was married to Menelaus and that her skipping out on him with Paris (and taking the gold) was the cause of the war.
See: Apple of Discord.
Looking at the painting, I don’t find het that attractive.
Paris, a man, offended the social laws governing the behavior of guests. He stole his host's wife which was an insult by a man to a man. Moreover, since the husband and the wife stealer both belonged to royal houses and since Paris fled to the protection of his own royal family and to Troy, the city-state his family controlled, it was an insult from one political entity to another. So, since it was about men and power, a war between Troy and Argos is understandable. Then, you see, Troy and Argos had allies and when the two fought their allies ended up fighting, too. Not hard to see why. Whichever one lost, their allies would be dragged down with them. So I hope we can all be happy that the ten years war in Troy was not about a woman, Helen, but about the behavior of a man, Paris.
Or, if you want economic causes, it can be argued that rising Greek power naturally challenged Troy's control of the trade routes through the Bosphorus. Helen was a pretext.
Or you could say that the rising Greek power destroyed Troy and the Trojan exiles in Ionia wrote the war up to show that they were the indigenous owners of the land done out of their rights by a war over a woman.
Wildswan: Don't forget the gold Paris and Helen took with them.
Whatever happened to Bronze Age Pervert?
And y'all wonder why we think about the Romans all the time.
Wavy babes by gaslight in a black-walled room sounds pretty groovy. Toga! Toga! Toga!
The Legions brought back a lot of good shit when they conquered half the world.
Zuchtriegel has the oddest uses for some common words
but being a god, cannot ensure victory
But? Wouldn’t someone expect the word “despite”?
despite their politically incorrect love affair
Despite?
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