Troy is not the beginning of the heroic age. It is the point where the heroic age destroys itself. The Greeks understood this. Their myths do not describe a long golden era stretching indefinitely backward into legend. The heroic age is startlingly brief. From the first monster-slayers to the sack of Troy spans only aContinue reading “Troy”
Tag Archives: Tydeus
Diomedes and Aeneas
In Calydon, Oeneus made his offerings to the gods, and in the counting of names he forgot Artemis (Ov. Met. 8). The first fruits rise in smoke to Zeus, Hera, the household powers, the immortals who tolerate men so long as men remember them. It is the old economy of reciprocity, the one James FrazerContinue reading “Diomedes and Aeneas”
KAIROS AND THE GEOMETRY OF TIMING
Book Five of the Iliad contains the most outrageous act of combat in all of Greek myth: a mortal wounds a god. Homer opens the Iliad with the anger of Achilles and his retreat from the field of battle. His mother, Thetis, bargains with Zeus, and the war is no longer a simple contest ofContinue reading “KAIROS AND THE GEOMETRY OF TIMING”