Episode 26O – We’ll Always Have Paris

Episode 26O Show Notes

Source: Greek Mythology

This week on MYTH, it’s finally time for the thrilling conclusion. You’ll see that the Greeks are sore winners, that happy endings are rare, and that fan fiction is older than you thought. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll see how blood from a severed penis and the curse of the House of Atreus are related. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 26O, “We’ll Always Have Paris”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Big news, myth fans! Myths Your Teacher Hated is coming to DragonCon in Atlanta this Labor Day weekend! We’re going to be in Galleria 6 on Monday at 11:30 to talk about Mythology in Popular Culture as part of the Podcasting track. I’ll have cards and stickers for anyone who wants them. I’m still waiting on final confirmation on some other irons in the fire for this convention, so I’ll announce that if and when I have more information. Hope to see you all there!
When we left the story last time, Paris former herdsmen and lost prince of Troy, had kidnapped Helen of Sparta, wife of King Menelaus, because a god promised her to him as a bribe. The Spartan king had summoned everyone he could to go get her back, over 1000 ships worth of soldiers, and set sail for Troy. They spent eight years of misadventures trying to get to the distant city before finally killing the right people to appease the right gods to find their way. There, they have spent another nine years besieging the city of Troy, with neither side really getting any decisive victories. After more inconclusive fighting, Agamemnon pisses off one of his most important allies by being petty, and Achilles goes to his tent to sulk, refusing to fight anymore. The Trojans had fought back fiercely, resulting in Menelaus of Sparta being willing to accept a challenge to single combat with Prince Paris of Troy to decide the whole damned war. After a lot of build up, Paris gets his ass kicked and is saved from certain death by the timely intervention of Aphrodite, who carries him away from the fight, leaving the battle to drag on. The battle becomes incredibly intense after Zeus orders all immortals off the field, and ends with the Greeks huddled behind a new wall around their ships, besieged by the Trojan army in one hell of a reversal. After a night full of cloaks and daggers, the Trojan spy lay dead and the Greek spies successfully raided and murdered the king and 12 soldiers of a Trojan ally in the darkness. The Greeks tried to buy off Achilles and get him back in the fight, but he preferred to be petulant and leave them to their fate. The Thracian dead were discovered in the morning, and the Trojans attacked anew, finally breaking through the wooden walls of the Greeks. With the help of a sneaky Hera fucking her husband into a magical coma, Poseidon supports the Greeks to prevent a total loss. The Trojans manage to push all the way to the Greek ships and start trying to burn them, prompting Achilles to allow his friend/lover Patroclus to dress as Achilles and go out to the fight to rally the troops. He promises to come back as soon as the threat to the ships is defeated, but in the thrill of his own victories, he forgets and chases the Trojans back passed the walls. Apollo slaps him around, making him easy game for the Trojans, and Hector finally slaughters the man and mocks his corpse. A grisly game of tug of war breaks out with Patroclus’ bloody body as the rope. The Ajaxes finally manage to hold off the Trojans long enough for Menelaus and his allies to rescue their friend’s body, but Hector makes off with Achilles’ armor. A messenger tells Achilles that his friend is dead, and he vows revenge, but first, he asks his mom for some sweet new armor. Iris tells Achilles of the fight for his friend’s body in secret, and he goes to do what he can without the armor. With a bit of god magic on his side, Achilles is able to shout the Trojans away long enough to get Patroclus away to safety. Achilles then spends the rest of the night standing vigil over his dead friend, who we refuses to bury until he has been avenged. Thetis arrives with some sick new armor, courtesy of Hephaestus, and Achilles gears up for the fight. He refuses to eat until the fighting is done, but Athena slips him some god-food without his knowledge anyway. His magical talking horses warn him that he may be riding to his death today, but he rides out anyway. Pretty much single-handedly, Achilles begins to rout and devastate the Trojan army. Aeneas, powered by Apollo, is the only Trojan willing to stand against his unrelenting assault. They fight before the gates of Troy and Aeneas gets his ass whooped, but is saved by the surprising intervention of Poseidon. Hector taunts Achilles and nearly gets killed for it, but Apollo saves him yet again. Denied his preferred target, Achilles drives through the army and traps half of it on the wrong side of the river, then rampages through the terrified soldiers, filling the water with corpses. The river god gets pissed and fights Achilles himself, who has to outrun a magical tidal wave chasing him across the field. Hephaestus enters the fray and uses the fires of his forge to beat back the river and spare Achilles. The gods themselves then begin to fight one another, and Athena proves she’s a better fighter than the god of war and leaves her brother writhing and weeping on the ground. Achilles chases the remains of the army towards the city gates and is only prevented from getting inside by a disguised Apollo, who leads him on a merry chase. He races back towards the city like an apocalyptic comet set to fall on doomed Troy. King Priam sees him coming and calls out a warning, but is ignored. The whole epic has been building to the fight between Hector and Achilles, and now is the time. Hector braces himself for the charge, but as Achilles races towards him, glittering in the sun, Hector pisses himself and runs the hell away. In full view of both armies, Achilles chases Hector around the city three times. On the fourth pass, Athena tricks Hector into thinking he has backup, and then throws him to the wolves. With nowhere to run, Hector finally faces Achilles, and pretty much immediately eats spear. Achilles, not content to simply kill the Trojan prince, drags his body behind his chariot. Everyone joins in with desecrating Hector’s corpse, and then they feast and go to bed. Achilles is haunted by the kind of bitchy ghost of Patroclus, who makes him promise to store both of their ashes in the same urn when Achilles dies. They have a series of sporting events to celebrate the victory they haven’t actually finished winning yet, while the gods argue for 12 days about what to do about the shameful treatment of the fallen Trojan prince. They finally agree to let Hermes, god of thieves, go and arrange a ransom of Hector’s body and to escort his father Priam to and from the Greek camp safely. Loaded down with gold, jewels, and treasure, Priam and a servant set out in the night, meeting the disguised god along the way. Achilles is shockingly polite about the whole thing once they finally arrive, and agrees to keep the Greek army from attacking for 12 days to allow for proper mourning. He even gives the old man his own bed to sleep in. Even so, the party decides to sneak out in the middle of the night with Hector’s body, but leaving the ransom in an honest trade. The city spends the next dozen days mourning the fallen prince and Achilles, true to his word, doesn’t attack.
After so many days of doing nothing, the Greek army was done celebrating and ready to get back to the business of war. Achilles, fresh off his victory over the last great champion of Troy, decides to lead the charge. Unfortunately for him, he now had two major deities personally working against him. Apollo was angry with him for killing his favorite mortal and treating his body so disrespectfully, as well as for the desecration of his temple during the murder of Hector’s brother Troilus, and Aphrodite was getting tired of keeping Helen enamored with Paris. It had been ten years, and he was no longer young and beautiful, so it was more work than it used to be. Plus, he had made a name for himself in the war as a pitiful, honorless coward, which wasn’t helping her keep her lady boner. Aphrodite was ready to be done with his ass.
Aphrodite watched the army coming and was easily able to pick out Achilles in his bitchin’ armor. She reported his location to Apollo, and he took over from there. As the army was approaching the city, the god found Prince Paris hiding away from most of the army. Instead of massing before the gates, spear in hand, to meet the charge, he was hiding on the walls with his bow. Apollo smiled. Perfect. He was the god of archers, after all.
Apollo whispered in Paris’ ear, drawing his attention to Achilles’ shining form. The armor was perfect, covering nearly every inch of his body in magical, impenetrable leather and metal. It would take a miracle to find any kind of chink in that armor, especially from this distance. Apollo whispered again, encouraging him to take the shot anyway. What did he have to lose? Paris rolled his shoulders to loosen up, then nocked and drew. It was a mediocre shot at best, but Apollo wasn’t the god of archery for nothing. He nudged the arrow in flight, adjusting its course. As you may recall from back in Episode 26C, Achilles’ mother Thetis had dipped him in the River Styx as an infant to make him immortal, but had forgotten to dip him a second time to get the place on his heel where she had held him. The arrow flew from the walls towards the oncoming army, the only weapon fired. Apollo, who knew Thetis personally, was aware of his weakness, and guided the arrow to the place at his heel which was protected only by the leather of his sandal.
It took a miracle to make the shot, and Apollo provided it. The arrow ripped through Achilles heel as he raced along the sand. The bronze tip tore through his flesh and ripped open a major artery and tore his tendon (now known as the Achilles tendon). On his next step, his foot gave out from under him and Achilles, still undefeated in battle, fell to the dust in a crash of armor. Apollo smiled. Hector had cursed Achilles as he died and begged Apollo to help his brother avenge his death. Apollo had paid his debt.
Up on Mount Olympus, Aphrodite also smiled. Everyone had seen Paris fire the lethal arrow that had brought down the Greek hero that even the mighty Hector had fallen before. It was only his second kill in the war, but it was a doozy. If being a hero wasn’t enough to make Helen love him on her own, that wasn’t Aphrodite’s fault. She felt that she had upheld her end of the bribe for long enough, and she withdrew her power. Helen was no longer compelled to love him.
The Greeks halted, confused and scared. Achilles had been the best. He wasn’t supposed to be dropped like this, from a distance with a lucky shot. Everyone thought he would go down covered in the blood of his enemies and surrounded by the corpses of everyone who had tried to bring him down. The Trojans erupted into ecstatic cheering. Maybe Paris would be able to step up and fill the hole that Hector had left in the city. He was carried back into the city with honor. He came to see his wife Helen and excitedly told her of his great victory. He expected her to fawn over him and tell him what a brave man he was. She didn’t. Not only wasn’t she impressed by him, he got the distinct impression that she was sizing him up against Menelaus and finding him wanting. In a flash of insight, he realized that Aphrodite had abandoned him. Shit.
Helen grew more and more distant over the next few days, and Paris found more and more reason to stay away from home. The best excuse was to go out onto the battlefield and Paris, usually a coward, found the life and death struggle preferable to the icy chill at home. The death of Hector had been a blow to the Trojans, but the war was not yet over. The city still had secret magical protection. As the sun beat down overhead, Paris found himself facing the Greek hero Philoctetes (who Danny DeVito’s character in Disney’s Hercules is named after). The Greek had been a friend of Heracles, and upon the older hero’s death, he had been given his bow and arrows, dipped in hydra poison. In a another bit of poetic justice, Paris, who had only slain heroes from afar with his bow, was stuck with one of the poisoned arrows as he was trying to put his own arrow in the Greek, afraid to get close enough to fight with spears. The poison burned through his veins like wildfire, and he fell screaming on the battlefield.
Hydra poison is potent, but slow and vicious. He had plenty of time to suffer. Helen, no longer in love with her husband but not willing to just let him die in agony, went to Mount Ida to see his old flame, the nymph Oenone. Remember her from back in Episode 26A? When she and Paris had parted, she had told him to come back to her if he was ever injured and in need of healing. Paris had told Helen this story, and she knew that Oenone was her only chance to save Paris’ life.
Oenone, however, had had a change of heart. They had split amicably enough, but then he had abandoned his home for the cushy life of a royal and completely forgotten about her as he was besotted with Helen. He never visited, he never wrote. She felt hurt and betrayed by the man she had loved, and the hurt turned to bitterness. Oenone gently turns Helen back to Troy. Heavy with grief, she goes back to the city empty-handed. She went back to her home to see her husband, who had withered away under the venom. Sadly, she told him that his ex-girlfriend had refused to help. Something broke in him, and he stopped fighting. Paris, lost prince of Troy, died that same day.
In another version of the story, Paris himself goes to see Oenone, but he dies on the mountain slope after being turned away by his bitter ex. When she hears about his funeral, though, she rushes to the city and leaps onto the pyre to die in the fire with the man she had never really gotten over. Helen, who can’t seem to catch a fucking break, is then married off to Paris’ brother Deiphobus (the favorite brother of dead Hector).
With Achilles dead, but at a distance, the Greeks were able to keep his fabulous god-made armor. Naturally, anyone who was even close to the right size wanted the armor, and it ended up coming down to Odysseus and Ajax the Greater. Neither was willing to give way, so they decided to compete for the armor. Now, you might expect that they would duel for it, or compete in feats of strength, but no. These were the Greeks, not some uncivilized barbarians; they competed with a speech contest. Both men stood up before the Trojan prisoners of war and gave a passionate speech as to why they were the bravest remaining soldier in the army and therefore deserved the armor. The prisoners, with nothing better to do, took their duty very seriously and debated for a while before deciding that Odysseus had given the better speech (he was a clever bastard, after all, and very quick with his tongue).
Ajax was kind of a sore loser and cursed Odysseus for stealing the armor. This pissed off Athena, who honestly expected more from her champions. In retribution, she drove Ajax mad. In his rage and anguish at being denied the epic artifact, he began to rage through the camp slaughtering his fellow Greeks. They were unarmed and unarmored, unprepared for this sudden assault from a comrade, and they fell like lambs before the wolf. Only after he had slaked his bloodlust did Athena remove the madness from his mind. He realized what he had done and turned, horrified, to see the slaughtered bodies of his comrades in arms. Wait, what the fuck? Those weren’t his friends and colleagues! Those…those were sheep!
For a moment, Ajax was relieved. He hadn’t actually murdered anyone important, just a bunch of stupid fucking sheep! As he thought more about it though, he realized something: it was only divine intervention that had kept him from doing what he thought he’d done. If Athena hadn’t stepped in, he actually would have killed everyone. Shame and guilt quickly replaced relief. It swelled to a point where he just couldn’t take it anymore. He made a decision. Quietly, he slipped out of the camp while everyone was trying to figure out what to do with all of the dead sheep. He went to a small hill overlooking the camp from which he could see distant Troy. He whispered a broken apology to the gods for his shame, and the he drew his sword. His breathing ragged, Ajax pressed the point of the blade against his stomach, and then fell forward onto the hilt. The bronze weapon ripped through his intestines and exploded out his back as Ajax spasmed in agony and then died, alone on the hilltop. They would find his body much later, and Odysseus would start to feel a little guilty himself (not that he really had any reason to for this). He decided to give the armor to Achilles’ son Neoptolemus when he got back to Greece. IF he got back to Greece.
We’re going to digress here for a moment, but it’s important, so bear with me. Many years before the events of the war, a small wooden statue of Pallas, known as the Palladium, had come to Troy. Triton had been raising Athena, who was Zeus’ daughter, alongside his own daughter Pallas. The two were sparring one day when Zeus happened to look down on them. Thinking they were fighting in earnest, he distracted Pallas just as Athena thrust her spear. Athena’s spear, rather than being easily dodged, went straight into Pallas’ heart and killed her instantly. In sadness for her lost friend, Athena had created the Palladium in the image of Pallas.
Made by Athena’s own hands, it was a powerful artifact. Men were forbidden to look on it, and only virgin women could handle it. It had eventually made its way to Troy thanks to Elektra, though the stories disagree as to the specifics. Either she carried it there herself, or a god cast it to Troy after Elektra touched it as a pregnant woman and profaned it since she was not a virgin. King Ilus, founder of Troy, was later blinded for touching the sacred object as he was rescuing it from a burning temple (which seems harsh, but those were the rules). He considered it a fair price, though, since legend said that the city of Troy would never fall so long as the Palladium was safely enshrined inside it.
Helenus, a son of Priam blessed with the gift of prophecy like his twin sister Cassandra, had been captured while trying to flee the city shortly after Paris’ death, disgruntled after losing Helen’s hand to his brother Deiphobus. He knew full well how the Greeks felt about the siblings of Paris, so to spare himself a prolonged and painful death, he told them that only he could tell them what they needed to know to actually end the war. He told them of the Palladium, safe in its temple inside the city, and how the city could never fall until the statue was taken. It worked, and he was spared.
The princes gathered to discuss this new development, and it was decided that this would have to be a stealth mission. Since they had done so well at being sneaky back in Episode 26H, Diomedes and Odysseus were chosen to raid the city and steal the magical McGuffin. Helenus also revealed the presence of a secret passage into the city. It was small, too small to be able to sneak an entire army in through, but it would work just fine for sneaking in two stealthy soldiers. When night fell, the two set out.
That night, Helen was walking around the city, cursing her fate. Aphrodite’s spell had long since worn off, and while Deiphobus was a better man than Paris, she still longed to return home to her real husband, Menelaus. As she turned a corner, an unholy stench wafted from a truly disgusting looking beggar emerging from the sewers. It touched her heart to see someone who was worse off than her. She went to him to give him some money.
She approached him, holding her veil over her nose to block the stench. She held out the coin, but paused. “Wait. Don’t I know you? Did we date once? Oh, wait, Odysseus! You were one of my suitors way back before I married Menelaus!” “Shut the fuck up, woman! Do you want the whole goddamned city to know that I’m here?” She lowered her voice. “Sorry. You surprised me. Why are you here? Surely you don’t think you can murder the entire Trojan army one by one, do you?” “Don’t be stupid! We captured Paris’ brother Helenus, and he told us something very interesting. It turns out that the Trojans have something called the Palladium here in the city, and the divine magic is protecting the city so long as the statue is within the city walls.” Athena revered the statue and would not permit it to come to harm. Essentially, it was a cold war-style hostage situation.
“The Palladium? You mean that wooden statue they keep in the Temple of Athena? The temple right over there?” Odysseus smiled. “You dear, sweet woman! That is exactly what I needed to know. Your husband is going to be so happy I ran into you.” They parted ways. Helen went back to wandering the city by moonlight, and Odysseus snuck out the way he came in to get Diomedes, killing several Trojan soldiers along the way for good measure.
The moon rode high in the sky as the two Greeks snuck back into the city. More soldiers died on the tips of their spears as they stalked through the inky darkness to the Temple of Athena. The two men argued quietly in the darkness until Diomedes finally darted into the temple, leaving Odysseus to fume and keep watch. Diomedes had no difficulty finding the Palladium, and the Greek heroes skulked back out of the city again.
They made their way out of the city with surprising ease. They jogged across the sands towards the ships, and Odysseus found himself growing more and more jealous. It should have been him bringing back the Palladium and guaranteeing the Greek victory at long last, not that ass-clown Diomedes. His rage and jealousy grew until he decided to do something about it. Something drastic. Quietly, he drew his sword and picked up his pace, fully intending to literally stab his friend in the back and leave him dying in the dust to steal his glory.
The faint flash of steel in the moonlight caught Diomedes’ eye, and he whirled to find Odysseus advancing on him with murder in his eyes. The two fought briefly before Diomedes disarmed Odysseus (who was maybe coming to his senses a little bit) and bound his hands. He debated slitting the man’s throat for trying to kill him, but the man was clever and a deadly fighter. The war wasn’t over yet, and Diomedes knew the Greeks would need his cunning and his blade. He decided to use humiliation instead. He pushed the bound Odysseus in front of him and spanked him hard on the ass with the flat of his sword to drive him towards the ships.
It was a strange procession, but the Greek army didn’t waste much time trying to figure it out. What mattered was that they had the Palladium. The conditions to take the city had finally been met. Of course, now they had to actually take the city. The walls hadn’t gotten any lower, and the Trojan army, while definitely smaller than it used to be, was still more than enough to guard the walls. The Greeks still didn’t have the resources to completely encircle the city for a true siege, which meant that they would have to go back to drawn out, bloody, indecisive battles. Other than a few of the younger guys who had arrived well after the start of the war, no one wanted that. They were sick to death of war.
The princes decided to hold a council to try and figure out some other way to end this godforsaken war. They talked a lot, and a lot of truly terrible ideas were thrown out, but finally, one man had a stroke of genius. Some sources say that it was the Trojan prophet Helenus, but most agree that it was the ever-clever Odysseus (with a little nudging from Athena) who actually came up with the idea that would finally end the war. “Okay, guys, hear me out. This is going to sound weird, but let me finish before you judge. We build a horse. We build a big wooden horse as an offering to Athena. It needs to be a masterwork, something so beautiful that even the Trojans will admire it. Since the city was built by Poseidon, their symbol is, naturally enough, a horse. We leave it sitting on wheels in front of the city gates and then we all get into our ships and sail off beyond the horizon.”
“That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard. How the fuck are we supposed to take the city by leaving a motherfucking gift and running away? That’s the opposite of conquering, Odysseus. Idiot.” “I told you to let me finish, asshole. There’s more to the plan, of course. I’m crafty-assed Odysseus. I always think sideways.” Most of you probably already know what’s coming (and have been anxiously waiting for this moment), but for the few of you who don’t, I won’t spoil it.
Over the next few days, the Trojans watched in confusion as the Greeks spent all their time building a giant horse statue. It was weird, even for the Greeks. The building effort was led by Epeius, who had a reputation for being a coward. The Trojans watching from inside the city walls weren’t sure what the fuck the Greeks were up to, but if Epeius was in charge of it, then it couldn’t possibly be anything to worry about.
In a surprisingly short amount of time, the massive horse, taller than even the largest city gates, was complete. The morning light fell on the beautiful horse statue, built so cunningly that the wooden mane seemed to almost be blowing in the wind. Everyone went back to the tents, prompting a flurry of activity. King Priam couldn’t believe his eyes. It…it looked like they were packing the ships up to leave! He tried to keep his hope reined in. The Greeks were cunning motherfuckers, and he suspected a trick. That is, he did until that afternoon when the Greek army burned their tents, loaded onto their ships, and sailed out beyond the horizon. They were gone. They were gone!
Tentatively, the gates opened and the Trojan army poured out. No one attacked. The beach was deserted, except for the wooden horse. The Greeks were really gone! The decade-long war was over! A crowd was gathering around the massive, beautifully crafted wooden horse the Greeks had left behind. Carved on the horse were the words “For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this offering to Athena”.
There was a lot of muttering and murmuring after this inscription was read aloud. Thymoetes, a Trojan captain, was the first to speak up. “Athena is going to love this shit. We should bring it inside the city and offer it to her in her temple! It will help cement our victory and mend any fences that were damaged with her during the war.” A lot of people agreed with him.
Capys, another Trojan prince, disagreed. “Are you an idiot? There’s no way the Greek army built and left this behind to help us make up with Athena. This is clearly a trap of some kind. We should drag this thing down to the ocean and throw it in. They’re gone. We should let them go and get on with our lives.” A small but significant portion of the crowd began to grumble that Capys was right. They were starting to split into two distinct factions and were yelling arguments at one another.
Into the midst of this, a man came racing down from the heights of the city tower. It was Laocoon, a priest of Apollo, trailed by his two young sons. “What the hell is going on here? Have you all gone mad? Do you really think that, after ten bloody years, they just gave up and went home for no real reason? Do you think they would leave gifts if they weren’t part of some sort of treachery? The Greeks, especially Odysseus, are known to be crafty and clever. How do you know that this thing isn’t fucking stuffed with Greek warriors waiting to kill us all? Or maybe with explosives? Do not trust this horse. I fear the Greeks, even when they come bearing gifts!” To emphasize his point, Laocoon hurled his spear at the wooden horse. It struck the statue in the belly and hung there, quivering.
Laocoon made a convincing argument, and he might have swayed the crowd, but at that moment, a group of shepherds came into the mix. They were shouting loudly as they drove a young Greek man ahead of them, his hands bound behind him. He looked forlornly at the jeering crowd around him, who were hurling insults at the prisoner. “Alas, what is going to happen to me? I no longer have a home among the Greeks, and I surely will find no safe place here! Oh, woe is me!”
At his cry, the crowd quieted. This…this wasn’t what they were expecting. Previous Greek prisoners had been full of piss and vinegar, but this man was clearly defeated. The crowd called out “Who are you? Why are you still here? You’re a prisoner now, but we won’t treat you poorly! You’re safe now.” The man shuddered slightly and then visibly gathered himself. He addressed King Priam directly. “Oh king, I will speak truly, and I do not deny that I am by birth a Greek. My name is Sinon, and I am Fortune’s bitch. I’m sure that if I try to lie, she’ll fuck me over but good. You may have heard that my friend, Palamedes, was executed because Odysseus, that lying son of a bitch, made some fake crime up and told the better story, even though it was a pack of lies from beginning to end. When I heard what had happened, I vowed that if I ever got back home, I would see to it that the bastard was brought to justice for destroying an innocent man’s life. Word of my vow reached Odysseus, who has spies everywhere, and he conspired with Calchas to ditch me here! Fuck it, you don’t care about my sad story. I’m sure you just see me as a Greek, so go ahead and kill me for their crimes. Odysseus would love to know that you did his dirty work for him!”
The Trojans murmured at this. They hated Odysseus, and wondered if his enemy could be their friend. They began to call out to him to tell the rest of his story. When it became clear that they weren’t going to give up, Sinon took a deep breath and continued. “The Greek army often wished to give up this stupid fucking war and go home, and I wish to the gods that we had done so sooner! More than once, we were nearly decided to go when a fierce storm would blow in and convince the leaders that the gods would be angry if we gave up. Indeed, when this horse was ready, storm clouds thundered in the sky. Confused, we sent Eurypylus to ask the oracle of Apollo what was up, and he told us ‘With blood from a slain virgin, you appeased the winds; with blood from a Greek you must win your return.’
“A cold shudder ran through our army at these words. Who would be sacrificed? Greek soldiers dragged the seer Calchas into the crowd and demanded to know who the gods had marked for death. We could see the reluctance in his eyes to speak a name and doom that man to death, and somehow I knew that it was my name he would speak. He was Odysseus’ agent in this. For ten days, he refused to answer, but then he finally spoke a name, my name, and Odysseus’ plan was complete.
“I watched them, bound, as they prepared the altar I would be bled out on. I watched them sharpening the knife that would open my throat and I lost all bravery. I ran. I escaped captivity in the night and I ran away from the Greek army and hid in the bushes until they finally sailed away. Now, they’re gone, and they’ve burned anything left behind that I might have used. I have no way of ever getting home, and I fear that when the Greek army gets back, they’ll execute my family for the crime I committed, the crime of saving my life. I beg you, have pity on me! I have no friends and no family left. I am a man without a country now.”
The crowd couldn’t help but be moved by his woebegone story, and Priam ordered his bonds removed. “Forget who you used to be, and forget the Greeks. From now on, you’re one of us. But first, I have one small thing to ask you. Why the horse? Why build a huge, beautiful statue and then abandon it to sail away? It doesn’t make sense. Is it a ruse? An engine of war?” Sinon raised his hands to the heavens. “Hear me, you bloodthirsty gods. I escaped your sharp knives, but I beg you to free me from my bonds to my former countrymen. I renounce my oaths to them and am not bound by the laws of their country any longer. I am a man of Troy now!
“The Greek hope for winning this war always lay with Athena. They knew that it was only with her help that they could topple such a magnificent city. They thought they could secure victory by stealing her favorite statue, the Palladium, but their blood-soaked hands were not worthy to touch it, and Athena withdrew her protection. The seer Calchas proclaimed that the Greeks must take flight immediately, that Troy could no longer be defeated by us…by them, rather. They were dismayed and began to prepare to leave, but Calchas had another vision. He bid them to make this massive horse and build it so large that it could never fit into your city gates. He said that if we offered this to Athena, and you refused to bring it into the city and house it in Athena’s temple, in replacement of the Palladium, then she would destroy your city herself and the Greeks wouldn’t have to do the dirty work.”
It was one hell of a story, and people weren’t sure what to make of it. On the one hand, it was sneaky enough to be a Greek plan. On the other hand, it would be an incredibly audacious and dangerous ruse. Laocoon was certain it was the former, and he stepped forward to speak. “I repeat what I said before, trust not the Greeks, even bearing gifts!” As soon as he spoke, however, two massive sea serpents rose out of the sea and raced over the sand. They wrapped Laocoon’s two sons in their thick coils, strangling and devouring them before the horrified eyes of the crowd. Laocoon drew his weapon and rushed in to try and save them, but he two was crushed and eaten. They knew the serpents had been sent by Poseidon, and they were sure that he had been struck down for trying to destroy the city and for profaning the offering by hurling his spear at it. Poseidon had built the city walls, they said, and he didn’t want Laocoon’s bad advice to give Athena a pretext to destroy it.
No one else dared to speak out against bringing the horse into the city after that. One of the gates was torn down to make room for the horse, but since the Greeks were gone, the Trojans would have time to make repairs in the next few days and get it back to being almost as good as new. The horse was dragged inside and placed in the Temple of Athena. Priam’s daughter, Cassandra, saw the horse coming into the city and cried out that it bore the doom of the city on it’s back, but everyone ignored her (as they always did).
Evening gave way to nightfall, and the city went to bed. The fires burned low, and the city was silent. Then, from the Temple of Athena, faint furtive noises could be heard (if anyone had been around to listen, that is). Out of the darkness skulks a lone figure – Sinon, abandoned by the Greek army. He sneaks up to the wooden horse and, careful to make sure he is not observed, pulls a cunningly hidden catch in the horse’s belly. A hatch pops open, which had been impossible to see when it was closed, and a rope curls down. From inside the horse climbs 30 men, including pretty much all of the major heroes, and led by Odysseus. This had been his idea, after all.
In the heart of the city, Aeneas was in the throes of a nightmare. Before him stood Hector, dead and rotted, still bleeding from his many wounds. Aeneas tried to ask him where he has been and why he had come, but Hector ignores him. ‘Run, Aeneas. Flee this city and escape the flames. Troy is fallen, and the towers of Ilus will burn tonight. Take the city’s holiest objects and get the hell out of here! Seek your fortune over the seas to find the land of the great city you will found!”
He awoke to hear the sounds of combat outside. He rushed out of his home to see the Greeks slaughtering the sleeping Trojans. He gathers a small group of Trojans and tries to defend the city, but it is too late and his men are too few. His comrades are quickly killed off, and he decides to listen to Hector’s warning. He grabs his father, wife, and son and tries to flee. He races for the ships, but as he approaches, his wife Creusa is hit with an arrow and drops lifeless to the earth. Aeneas has no time to mourn, and ushers his father and his son towards the ships. With the few survivors he can gather, he boards the ships and flees the fallen city.
After emerging from the horse, some of the heroes and gone to open the rest of the gates, some had gone to light a signal fire, and the rest had gone to kill as many Trojans as they could without being seen. The Greek fleet, hidden in one of the outlying barrier islands, saw the signal fire and sailed for Troy. They disembarked and raced through the open gates. The fall of Troy had begun.
Priam fled to the altar of Zeus in the courtyard, where he was killed by Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. Menelaus went straight for his long-lost wife Helen, and found her guarded by Hector’s brother Deiphobus, who was her new husband. The two fought in single combat, but Deiphobus was no match for the Spartan king and was quickly slain. Menelaus advanced on Helen, sword drawn. This bitch had abandoned him for that pissant Paris and caused everyone untold hardship, but when he saw her again, after all these years, he was overcome by her beauty and cast down his weapon. He swept her into his arms, still wet with the blood of her late husband, and kissed her, then took her to his ship.
Ajax the Lesser found his way into Athena’s temple and saw Cassandra hiding behind the altar. Licking his lips with an evil grin, he ripped off her dress and raped her right there on the altar. Later, when this was discovered, Odysseus would urge the Greeks to stone him to death (not for raping her, mind you, but for raping her on the altar, which was considered impious). He managed to flee to Athena’s altar before they could decide, though, and was eventually spared.
Antenor, who had given such gracious hospitality to Menelaus and Odysseus when they had first come to ask for Helen back, and had advocated for her return, was spared in thanks for his kindness, along with his family. According to the stories, Antenor and Aeneas were the only Trojan men to survive the slaughter, but many of the women were taken as menial or sex slaves. Cassandra, already raped by Ajax, was awarded to Agamemnon to rape as he saw fit. Andromache, wife of Hector, was given to Neoptolemus. Priam’s wife, Hecuba, was given to Odysseus. Hector’s son, Astyanax, was ripped from his mother’s arms and thrown from the top of the city walls to splatter like an egg on the flagstones below, thus ending the royal line of Troy and ensuring there would be no one to seek revenge. Neoptolemus also sacrificed the princess Polyxena on his father’s burial mound in response to a dream he had where his father’s shade demanded her blood.
The Greeks rampaged through the city and ravaged it, desecrating many of the temples and angering the gods. They decided that, after all of this, most of them would never return home. Many ships were lost in a storm off the coast of Tenos island and Nauplius, father of Palamedes, set up fake lighthouse lights on the coast, driving many more into the rocks to drown. Agamemnon would make it back to Argos safely with Cassandra in tow, and the rest of the story will be part of Gods and Monsters. Nestor, who had always been honorable and did not take part in the looting, was the only hero to make it back swiftly and safely. Ajax the Lesser, in punishment for defiling Athena’s altar, never made it home. His ship was wrecked in the storm, hit by a lightning bolt hurled by Athena herself with her father’s permission. The crew managed to cling to a rock in the stormy sea, but Poseidon smashed it and drowned all of them.
Teucer, Ajax’s half-brother, stood trial before his father for his brother’s death. He was acquitted of responsibility, but found guilty of negligence for not returning his body or armor, and disowned. He left with his troops and founded Salamis in Cyprus. Neoptolemus, on the advice of Helenus, was always accompanied by Andromache. He later had a son by her, who was the ancestor of Alexander the Great, according to legend. Helenus founded a city in Molossia, and Neoptolemus gave him his own mother as a wife in thanks for his help. Neoptolemus took over his father’s kingdom when his grandfather died, but died in a feud with Agamemnon’s son Orestes over Menelaus’ daughter Hermione.
Diomedes was thrown into the storm off the coast of Lycia, where he was to be sacrificed to Ares, but the king’s daughter took pity on him and helped him escape. He landed in Attica, where he was killed by mistake by Athenians who didn’t realize he was an ally. The Palladium, which he had been carrying, was taken by Demophon, who carried to to Argos.
Philoctetes was driven from his home by an uprising and went to Italy, where he founded many cities. He finally settled in a shrine to Apollo, god of archers, where he dedicated his bow. Idomeneus was hit by a terrible storm, but promised Poseidon he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw on land if he and his crew were spared. Poseidon relented, but he was greeted at the seashore by his excited young son. Weeping, he duly sacrificed the boy, which angered the gods. A plague was sent to Crete in punishment, and he was exiled to Calabria and then to Colophon where he died.
Menelaus was blown off-course to Crete and Egypt and becalmed. Only five of his ships survived. In desperation, he sought the shape-shifting sea god Proteus to try and discover what sacrifices he needed to make to escape alive. He eventually found him and was told that he and Helen were bound for the Elysian Fields after death. It took eight years from the day they left Troy to finally return home to Sparta, but their marriage is forever after strained. He constantly revisits his losses in Troy, and the two never have a male heir.
Lastly, Odysseus would spend ten years having a number of crazy adventures in his attempts to get home. It’s a hell of a story, but it’s a long one (it does have its own epic, the Odyssey, after all), so we won’t be covering his journey home. With everyone more or less accounted for, it’s time for the last Gods and Monsters of the Trojan War. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monsters are the Erinyes, better known by their Roman name – the Furies.
As you may remember from our very first episode, the Greek gods have a habit of overthrowing their dads and then cutting off their dicks. When Zeus cut off his father Cronus’ schlong, the god cum fell in the ocean, got it pregnant, and out came Aphrodite, goddess of sex and love. Well, before that, Cronus had cut off his own daddy’s purple helmet warrior and thrown it down into what would become the Underworld. Instead of semen, this dick dripped blood and gave birth to the female personifications of vengeance known as the Furies. The actual number of furies varies depending on the story, but Virgil specifically identifies three: Alecto (“unceasing”), Megaera (“grudging”), and Tisiphone (“avenging murder”).
The furies were nominally human, but warped into monstrous forms. Their heads were wreathed with serpents (not unlike the Gorgons) and blood dripped from their eyes. Some stories say they have bird or bat wings, and others that they have the bodies of massive dogs. In all accounts, they were terrifying to behold.
They protected the natural order, which sometimes included the gods. Heraclitus claimed that if Helios tried to change the course of the sun across the sky, the Furies would stop him. Usually, though, they existed to punish wicked humans who broke the fundamental natural laws, especially violations of guest right and family murders. They were also the head torturers of Tartarus, and would fly down there to punish the Titans and other truly wicked souls whenever they weren’t actively pursuing some wrongdoing on earth.
There are references to them in a number of stories, and some of them get a little odd. One story says that one of the Furies struck Achilles’ horse Xanthus mute for daring to tell him off for being an idiot (I’m with the horse on this one), and another says that Tisiphone actually fell in love with a mortal man named Cithaeron, but he rejected her. Furious (pun intended), one of the vipers in her hair bit him right in the fucking face, killing him. In another, she drives Diomedes’ father Tydeus to cannibalism. He has been mortally wounded in battle, but has brought his killer down with him. With his final breath, he bites off the face of the dying man as revenge. Interestingly, Athena had been planning to make Tydeus immortal, and had even prepared a potion to do just that, but after witnessing this brutality, she abandons him to his death.
The most famous of their stories, however, takes place in the aftermath of the Trojan War. After a long time at sea, Agamemnon returns home with his slave, the Trojan princess Cassandra. Unsurprisingly, he forces the woman to become his sex slave. He’s already married, but his wife, Clytemnestra, isn’t particularly bothered since she’s been carrying on an affair with her husband’s cousin Aegisthus throughout the war; in some stories, she is forced into the affair, and in others, she’s a willing participant. Either way, they never expected to see her bastard of a husband again. She’d hoped he’d died on the battlefield that he’d murdered his own daughter, Iphigenia, to reach (way back in Episode 26C). Plus, the fuckwad had murdered the husband she’d actually loved, raped her, and forced her into marrying him, so she really, really hated him.
He survived the war and the trip home, though, and he brought another woman home to rape, so Clytemnestra and Aegisthus begin to plot Agamemnon’s death. Aegisthus had his own complicated reasons for wanting Agamemnon dead. The house of Atreus had begun with Tantalus (from whom we get the word ‘tantalize’), who was on good terms with the gods. Familiarity breeds contempt, though, and he decided to test their omniscience. He murders his son Pelops and bakes him into a meat pie for dinner with the Olympians. Everyone immediately recognizes the abomination placed before them except for Demeter, who was distracted by the kidnapping of her daughter Persephone; Oblivious, she ate Pelops’ shoulder. Tantalus was cast into the Underworld to stand in a pool of water up to his chin with a fruit tree hanging in front of his face. Every time he stooped to drink, though, the water would drain away; every time he reached for the fruit, the wind would blow it just out of his reach. Pelops was brought back to life and Hephaestus fixed the bite in his shoulder with ivory.
Pelops then married Hippodamia by sabotaging her father’s chariot in a race, killing him. Pelops then killed the servant who had helped him with the cheating, either because he had been promised Hippodamia’s virginity and Pelops had a change of heart, because the man tried to rape her, or because Pelops just didn’t want to share the glory. Either way, his actions cursed the house, adding to the stain from Tantalus.
Pelops and Hippodamia had many children, two of whom, Atreus and Thyestes, murdered their half-brother Chrysippus and were banished. Hippodamia, in grief at losing three sons, hanged herself. Atreus, safe in Mycenae, vowed to sacrifice his best lamb to Artemis, but when he searched his flock, he found a golden lamb. Rather than following through with the miracle, he gave the animal to his wife Aerope to hide from the goddess. She in turn gave it to her lover, Thyestes (who was her brother-in-law), who convinced his brother that whomever had the golden lamb should be king. It’s the golden rule: whoever has the golden lamb makes the rules.
Upon the advice of Hermes, Atreus gets Thyestes to agree to give the kingdom back when the sun moves backwards in the sky, which Zeus then obligingly does because he’s bored and this is the best soap opera around. Atreus takes the throne back and banishes his brother. He learns of his wife fucking his brother and plots revenge. He murders Thyestes’ sons, cooks them, and saves their hands and feet because creepy. He tricks Thyestes into eating his own children, then taunted him with the severed hands and feet (possibly playing the most fucked up version of ‘stop hitting yourself’ ever).
For his accidental cannibalism, he is exiled completely, and asks an oracle for help. It tells him to rape his daughter and have a son with her who would then kill Atreus. That son was Aegisthus, but he is abandoned as an infant by his horrified mother, who doesn’t want to raise her incest rape child. A shepherd finds the baby and gives him to Atreus, who raises him out of compassion. Only when he is an adult does Thyestes reveal to him that Atreus isn’t his father, Thyestes is (and his grandfather to boot). Aegisthus, horrified at everything that has happened, kills Atreus, father to Agamemnon and Menelaus. So because of all the murder, cannibalism, rape, incest, and adultery, Aegisthus pretty much hates his family and is down with his lover’s plan to murder her husband, who will be arriving back home soon.
On the night that Agamemnon arrives, Clytemnestra plans a huge feast to celebrate his return. Before dinner though, she insists on drawing him a hot bath so he can wash the travel off him before eating. He gets in and washes, and when he’s ready to get out, she puts a huge purple robe over his head. The problem is, it doesn’t have a hole for his head. Confused, he tries to claw his way out, but gets tangled up, giving the two lovers time to draw knives and stab him to death.
Agamemnon had one son, a boy named Orestes. He was very young when all this went down, and was sent into exile. Some versions say that Clytemnestra sent him away so he wouldn’t have to see what was about to happen. In others, his sister Electra rescued him and took him away from their parents to save him. Either way, Electra wants Orestes to swear an oath of vengeance to avenge his father, even though it meant killing his mother. It was a son’s duty to slay his father’s killer, but it was abhorrent to kill his own mother. It was an impossible choice.
He prayed to Apollo, who tells him his only choice is to avenge his father and then expiate the curse on his house with his own ruin for murdering his mother. He returns home as an adult and kills both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, who had usurped the throne with the legitimate heirs gone. For years after, he is pursued and harried by the Furies. They tormented him with madness and sickness until finally, after years of suffering, he prayed to Apollo, who gets Athena to help out. She holds a trial for him, with the Furies as the prosecution. The jury ends up split, and Athena decides to acquit since mercy should rule over vengeance. She turns the Erinyes to the Eumenides (or “kindly ones”), which were their beneficial aspect and finally breaks the curse on the House of Atreus.
Many scholars believe that the references to the Eumenides were not a reference to the Furies having a good side, but a superstitious taboo on saying their names aloud. They were the original “He Who Shall Not be Named” since to speak it was to risk inviting their wrath. I hope that isn’t true because I’ve said it, like, a lot here today. Think good thoughts, people.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you like what you’ve heard, I’d appreciate a review on iTunes. These reviews really help increase the show’s standing and let more people know it exists. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, we’re finally going to be doing something totally different. No more Greeks! Yay! You’ll learn that Wile E. Coyote has a mythological background, that animals have a wicked sense of humor, and that sweating is dangerous. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll meet a literal two-faced monster who might just eat your face. Or your baby. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.