I Think That One Of My Favorite Parts Of Studying The Iliad And The Trojan War Is How Incredible The

I think that one of my favorite parts of studying the Iliad and the Trojan war is how incredible the world building is. The fact that you can research any of the characters and find their life prior to and (in some cases) after the Trojan War, their families and typically fathers which themselves form parts of different epics (Telamon, Peleus and Laertes all being Argonauts who sailed with Jason for the golden fleece) (Depending on the version Herakles, Orpheus, Theseus and Atalanta could’ve also been there with them), and just how much content there is about each figure in the war that you wouldn’t know just by reading the Iliad.

Why was Paris chosen by the gods to pick which goddess was the most beautiful? He proved to the gods on a previous ocassion in a bull competition he hosted which Ares won that he was a fair and honest judge (I guess he lost that fairness in judgement by the time the goddesses appeared before him)

How did Achilles become such an almost undefeatable warrior? He was the son of an Argonaut and a sea-nymph raised by Hera whom both Poseidon and Zeus wanted to bed, and was trained by mighty Chiron who taught heroes like Orpheus and Herakles.

Why are the walls of Troy “impenetrable”? They were built by Apollo and Poseidon disguised as humans due to a punishment from Zeus.

And this is all known with thousands of lines of the Trojan War’s story being lost to time. Imagine if we had more of the Nostoi or Cypria or Little Iliad, if we still had plays like “Myrmidons” or had a better historical understanding of Mycenaean Greece.

And still, with all this content, the Trojan War is just a section of the greater greek myths. The mythologized greek world existed far before Troy, and it continued to push forward far after.

More Posts from Mavicabrita and Others

mavicabrita

1 year ago

#greeks #i love this #cool design #diomedes

Diomedes, King of Argos

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

Something I really like about Hadestown is how Orpheus always speaks as if he’s singing and expecting the responder to finish his tune. It really emphasizes his proficiency in song. Something that adds to this are Hermes responses, he doesn’t reply in song to Orpheus. Why? Hermes said it himself “…and I liked to hear him sing/and his way of seeing things”. He doesn’t match Orpheus’ tunes because he only wishes to hear them and perhaps doesn’t see himself worthy of replying in song. Perhaps after Orpheus’ and Eurydice’s separation and Orpheus’ death Hermes felt as though he had to maintain that memory of Orpheus living, breathing — somehow. So he did, and that’s how we got Hadestown. It’s an old song after all, and he’s been singing it for a long time.

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

You think Helen ever dreamed of Castor and Pollux saving her from Troy like they saved her from Athens as a young girl after being kidnapped by Theseus? Did she ever awake breathless and scared not understanding that she was in Troy after vivid dreams back with her family?

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

Aristos Achaion

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

!!!

“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel”.

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

Realize I missed these old sketches, these feature some possible designs for Apollo, Athena, Zeus and Poseidon along with an old design for Achilles

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

a meme

a patch of flowers growing in the middle of a sidewalk labelled as "a brief period of boundless inspiration and writing/drawing"

the surrounding sidewalk without flowers is labelled: will i ever cook again?, save me new hyper-fixation... hyper-fixation save me, WHY WON'T I CREATE???

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

Really sucks how Agamemnon is typically portrayed as a monster in most modern-ish Iliad retellings in order to make Achilles’ anger seem more justified. Feel like in trying to make Achilles more of a modern hero many forget that his anger was meant to be a warning to readers, not some sort of admirable trait. Pretty much every major character in the Iliad is morally gray (They’re killing people for their pride for god’s sake) and the flanderization that these characters have gone through throughout the thousands of years they’ve existed for should REALLY be analyzed.

(I might do that later actually)

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mavicabrita

1 year ago

I love your drawings so much!!