#the iliad (sort of)

[thoodleoo]

trojan war WRAPPED

you spent 10 YEARS at war

overall, you killed 1685 trojan soldiers. that's almost 17 hecatombs worth!

aristeia moment! your best day of fighting was in year 9, where you sent 23 souls of warriors to hades in a single battle

you were saved by hera 4 times

you exchanged armor with 2 trojan warriors. zeus xenios smiles upon you!

check out your top 5 commanders:

nestor

odysseus

agamemnon

menelaus

ajax the greater

[glossc1]

my achilles design 🐟

[kexytimes]

Andromache :(

So this qoute is from a book about the french revolution by Chevalier Nicolas de Maistre, and the full thing is ;

" I was a queen, and you dethroned me. I was a wife, and you killed my husband. I was a mother, and you tore me from my children. Only my blood remains: you are thirsty. Drink it. Hasten to meet it that you may drink it."

[thelesbianthespianposts]

Pre-Iliad Dashboard simulator

⬜️ iphy-the-princess-deactivated12990415

Eeeee!!! Guess who’s getting married to swift-footed Achilles??!!!

34 notes

💪 bestofgreeks

hurts being the only competent Greek warrior but someone’s gotta do it

#aristos achaeon #suck it agamemnon #im so hot #trojan war

3207 notes

🪢 ilovemywife

I’m so strong for putting up with the other kings of Greece. #Except my bestie o-my-gods-just-let-me-die-omedes the only real one #if I have to hear agamemnon refuse to acknowledge the gods’ help one more time #he has so much hubris #could never be me

22 notes

🖕o-my-gods-just-let-me-die-omedes

why do people find Odysseus charming? He’s literally just lying about everything??

🖕o-my-gods-just-let-me-die-omedes

I get it

#i would legit die for him #hes the best of all of us ok?? 245 notes

👁️ pleaseimaprophetiswear

PLEASE SOMEONE LISTEN TO ME

🗡️ agamemnon

yes?

👁️ pleaseimaprophetiswear

SOMEBODY ELSE

2 notes

👑 prettiest-girl-ever-derogatory

Day 57 in Troy: living my best life, my new “husband” was away today thank the Gods. I heard there’s going to be a war over me. Love the sentiment but it’s a little much y’know?

#my husband is so nice but he’s so dramatic #hes pooled together all the armies in Greece to come together #no hector hate in the reblogs ok? #hes actually pretty ok #we make fun of paris together

12.980 notes

🏹 paris-not-the-city

Ok poll to prove I’m not crazy

No nuance option bc I wasn’t given one

#not my fault #its clearly aphrodite #olympian gods #i didn’t know kidnapping the queen of sparta would have consequences

34.672 notes

✨ queen-clytemnestra

im going to kill my husband. with an axe

109.376 notes

[bugbear55]

seriously i cant find ANY sources that agree ,, can anyone tell me how the fuck diomedes died

[likethexan]

my own contrapuntal poem based on my favorite Greek drama Helen by Euripides. Inspired by @two-bees-poetry

[nedlittle]

[nodding head, taking notes] translation is not a hot dog so true emily wilson

[id in alt text]

[moonlitenvyillust]

So... I have this weird ass scene I can see in some kind of Trojan war ahh banquet reunion and the adults are like knocked out by Trojans that somehow survived and now the 2nd gen (but none of them have beef just complications) is trying to figure something out but idk how to start this story- the scene I'm invisioning is:

- - -

Polycaste, Hermione, Peisitratus, Nausicaa, Neoptolemus, Telemachus and Orestes ran to the most secluded and hidden side of the Ithacan palace. Which apparently is Telemachus's room.

"Don't mind the paintings- don't touch them please" The son of Odysseus says as he silently closes the door and locks it "it's unfinished, what now?"

"We gotta help them!" Menelaus's daughter says, pacing around the room "but how? And why is your room in the furthest part of the palace?"

"Nevermind the allocations. We need a plan. And fast." Peisitratus looks at telemachus

".. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"This is your house!"

"Ugh... Follow me"

AND THAT'S ALL I COULD ENVISION

[littlesparklight]

That you are gonna fall / no matter if you're soaring

Arrow in the Wall got stuck in my head as the perfect song for some Trojan War + aristeia related things, and I had two perfect archers to use for splitting up between Achaeans and Trojans. And since I, again, can't do animatics, this will stand in for that.

So here's Paris, Achilles, Hektor and Teucer. And, erm. One of Hektor's unfortunate charioteers experiencing the dangers of the profession of being specifically Hektor's charioteer. :')

Some close ups under the cut!

[thoodleoo]

banned from homeric scholarship circles for calling achilles a ragepilled kleosmaxxer

[masterofthewarcry]

thinking about everyone constantly telling Diomedes he looks like his father. that he reminds them so much of his father. that he has his father's spirit.

and what if when the Argives first land at Aulis, Nestor comes to greet them? and what if he recognizes Diomedes immediately? and Diomedes expects him to tell him how much he looks like his father, like everyone else, but Nestor tugs on one of his curls and tells him he looks like his mom?

[jeyaam]

apollo u r everything to me

[nikoisme]

Going absolutely insane over the concept of name and identity in The Odyssey. The concept of recognition. Like, the reveal of one's identity is present in both The Iliad and The Odyssey, but specifically The Odyssey drives me into despair.

The Phaeacians don't recognize Odysseus. His family doesn't recognize Odysseus (except his dog!! all praise Argos). Odysseus doesn't recognize Ithaca. There's barely any recognition without revealing, and Odysseus takes a while to reveal himself. Chronologically speaking, his first disguise in The Odyssey is Nobody. And when he does reveal his true identity, it causes him and his crew pain and suffering. Maybe that instilled a fear of revealing his true identity. His name invoked the death of his men. And all his other identities (too tired to remember/look for all the names he's gone under), while realistic and authentic sounding, are non-existent. All those people he claimed he was are not real. They are nobody. If he is not Odysseus, he is nobody, and if he is not nobody, he is Odysseus. But Odysseus, his fucking name drives me insane. His name means to hate. Since his childhood that hatred was imprinted on him. Do you think it left an lasting impact?? Some sort of "expectation" that he had to meet?? A curse, a constant shadow following him everywhere he goes?? Something he inherited, that is tied to him even if it's not his?? Hate was tied to him directly through his name that his grandfather gave him. In The Iliad, everyone refers to him as "Son of Laertes (which is obviously the way they identified as back then)", "sacker of cities", "long-enduring" etc etc. But Odysseus refers to himself as "Father of Telemachus". Also this:

He swears by his son's name, by the name of someone, something that is his. Something that is not inherited, that isn't placed upon him. Something that he earned himself. Something that he loves, the opposite of the hate that is his name. It's a part of him, part of his identity. And if he is not the son of Telemachus, then he isn't Odysseus. He is nobody.

But in The Odyssey, he refers to himself as the sacker of cities. When he introduces himself to the Phaeacians, he says that he is the sacker of cities. His invention of the Trojan horse was the bane of Troy. And that trick is a part of him, his cunning and trickery. He destroyed the home of hundreds, thousands of people. And do you think, that after every hardship he faced on his journey back home, he lost his sense of self?? In the war, he had the hope of going back home. He had the hope that he would see his wife and son again. As long as the other kings and soldiers are there, also longing to go back home, then his hope is real. He is real. But after all of his men died, he was alone. No one to share his longing, to share his hope. No one is there to remind him that he is real. So he only has his newer memories, new things that are tied to him. Sacker of cities. Long enduring. Doesn't sound all that happy. It almost sounds like hate. Without the hope of seeing everything that is his because he earned/worked for it himself, he goes back to his name. It might be the only thing grounding him, reminding him that he is real. And when he hears the bard sing of the fall of Troy, the man absolutely weeps. Because he sings about him. He sings about the fall of Troy, and it fell because of him. It fell because he is the sacker of cities. He is the sacker of cities because he is Odysseus. Because he doesn't know who he is. And even Penelope when she listens to the bard wants him to sing about something else. Someone else. Because that is not her Odysseus, her husband, her son's father. It hurts her to think that even though he might be alive, her Odysseus is gone. He is dead either way. And even his son when he sees him first thinks he is a god. That he is not human, that he is not a man. Because gods are immortal, ever lasting. And mortals have only a lifetime to make it worth it, to attach something to themselves and their names. And Telemachus thinks that his father is a god, that his father has no name and no identity of his own.

And when his loved ones recognize him, it's by the things he attached himself to during the war. The things that are a part of his real identity, of his identity. Odysseus tells his son that he is his father. Argos recognizes him as his master. Eurycleia recognizes his scar that he earned when he went hunting. He tells his father about the trees in the orchard. And Penelope finally believes it's him because of the olive tree bed story. The bed that he built himself. That he built his home around. And Penelope doesn't believe it's truly Odysseus, because he is not the man that left Ithaca twenty years ago. But when Odysseus is able to tell her about the bed, she can believe it's Odysseus. Or atleast a part of him is there. It's Odysseus Odysseus, the name and identity that he built. And not Odysseus, the name that simply means hate.

[johaerys-writes]

WIP Wednesday

I have been working on As Fate Would Have It, so here's a sneak peek from the next chapter!! We have some Thetis POV, and sort of an intro into the next arc of the story 👁👁

The nymphs’ tittering laughter echoes lightly across the beach like windchimes. Few of the oceanids are strangers to the Trojan shores—the Dardanelle straits are rich with fish, and the Trojans generous with their sacrifices—and many of them have seen Priam's sons and daughters first-hand. They know of Hector's piousness and his famed skill with spear and sword, and of his brother Paris' love of wine and women.

“Helen, Zeus' daughter, is known the world over for her beauty and her glib tongue,” Cymothoe says, her usually placid blue eyes dark like stormy seas now, “but young Paris must have grown to be handsomer and glibber still to have been able to convince her to leave behind her husband's bed and her daughter. I hear she's but a baby in the cradle.”

“Ah, but he wasn’t acting alone, my lady," Hermes says with a knowing smile. "It was—"

"Aphrodite," Thetis finishes quietly for him. "Aphrodite acted for him."

The nereid's laughter and excited chatter dies down as they all turn to stare at her. Thetis has been silent all along, frozen and numb as she listened to Hermes’ tidings, but now the words rise like waves to her lips. 

“Lady Hera, queen of the gods, and the wise Athena offered that boy power, wisdom and riches beyond counting," she continues, "but it had been Lady Aphrodite of the white sea foam that promised him Helen’s hand. Is that not so, Lord Hermes?”

The god’s winged foot, which had been tapping impatiently on the sand all the while they have been talking, now stops its ceaseless motion. His flashing coal-black eyes focus on her in a hawk-like stare. “Quite right, my lady, quite right!” he exclaims. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you know this; after all, it was at your very own wedding that the seeds of strife were first planted among the goddesses.” 

The reminder brings bitter memories to her. Thetis had been but a young goddess then, but already Zeus and Poseidon had been clamouring for years for her hand. When goddess Themis of the white hands had delivered to her the prophecy—that she would bring forth a son, of strength mightier than his father—all attempts at courting her or claiming her by force had swiftly been abandoned. No god, no man wanted a child whose fame would come to eclipse their own. 

All but one.

How small and unassuming he had seemed to her when he had arrived to the shore she dwelt, with carriages filled to the brim with precious gifts, all the wealth he had gathered after sacking the city of Iolcus. A king of men in his own right, but of modest fame, from a small kingdom. But he was favoured by Zeus, and that alone had been enough for Peleus Aeacides to summon the courage to ask for her hand. 

Thrice she had refused him, and thrice he had returned, each time bearing gifts more rare and priceless than the last. And when Zeus, the king of the gods, had made it clear that she had no other choice but to submit to the man's advances, only then had Thetis finally accepted.

The wedding had been an extravagant affair, with every god, nymph and lesser spirit bringing gifts and paying their respects, wishing them every happiness—everyone, except for Eris, goddess of strife, who never received her invitation. She had been the one to plant discord among the three goddesses, and disagreements such as these never reach a happy ending. Not for anyone.

“Menelaus," Hermes continues, "much distressed by his queen's abduction, has already sought counsel with his brother Agamemnon. Night and day they have been talking, rumour has it, and not a few of those nights have been spent with the king of Sparta crying on his poor brother's shoulder," he adds with a mocking little laugh. "But not all of this time has been spent lamenting. Atreides are a proud and stubborn folk. It is said they are preparing—” 

“War,” Thetis whispers. “A war unlike anything mortals or gods have witnessed before.”

Silence falls among the sisters. They all look at each other uneasily, the full magnitude of the situation now dawning on them. After all, they all have sons and daughters, either in Greece or Troy, that might get caught in the crossfire. The waves fall quiet, not even the sea birds along the rocks making a sound.

Hermes clears his throat. 

“Yes. Well. You are not wrong about that,” the god says, evidently miffed that Thetis stole from him the pleasure of breaking the big news to them for the second time.

Tagging forth to (no pressure): @baejax-the-great @rowanisawriter @darlingpoppet @hekateinhell @babyrdie @glossc1 @supernova3space @tragediegh @iiktend to share some art or writing you're working on, as well as anyone else who'd like to grab a tag and do this!

[cjbolan]

Rest in peace Briseis. You’d be so happy to see how much Anatolia a.k.a. Turkey has rebuilt itself since your time.

[aradeia]

Bettini, Maurizio. "Ghosts of Exile: Doubles and Nostalgia in Vergil's "Parva Troia" ("Aeneid" 3.294ff.)." Classical Antiquity, vol. 16, no. 1 (1997): 14.