Who is most responsible for the fall of Troy?
The Trojan War. One of the most mysterious and fascinating battles in all history and mythology, whether or not it was real is heavily debated, but what can be agreed on is that the reason for the conflict was Helen of Troy. For some this would be enough to put all of the blame on the runaway Spartan queen, but there are many other people involved in this tale who could also be blamed, including some of the oldest gods. I believe it comes down to either Priam and Hecabe, Themis, Gaia and Zeus, Eris, Paris or Helen, so in this blog I want to explore: who really was to blame for the destruction of Ilium?
According to the stories about the war, it was predicted long before it actually happened by the Priestess of Apollo, Cassandra. She told her parents, Priam and Hecabe, the king and queen of Troy that their newborn son, Paris; would bring about the downfall of Troy and that the only way to prevent this was to kill him. Unfortunately for Cassandra, Apollo had made it so everyone would ignore her prophecies as she had refused to lie with him, and so Hecabe and Priam ignored the advice that they kill Paris and instead sent him away to live with a shepherd. This was the first mistake and so the monarchs of Troy could be blamed for the downfall of their own kingdom, however they did not set out to cause a war and nothing they did after that had any influence on the overall outcome.
Not only was a war prophecised by Cassandra, it was also, according to Hesiod, planned by the gods. In fact one of the eldest gods, a Primordial Deity named Gaia had the strongest desire for a war. Gaia felt the weight of every human and animal on her body as she was the embodiment of the earth. The population had grown too great and it was beginning to hurt her and so she went to see her daughter, Themis who was the Titaness of justice and the law. Gaia told Themis of the pain she was feeling and Themis said she would go and see her ex husband whom she was adviser to, Zeus, and see what he could do for Mother Earth. The Titaness went to see Zeus who was helping plan a wedding for the water Nymph, Thetis, and the mortal king, Peleus; Themis told Zeus what Gaia was feeling and together they began to plan what they could do for her. They decided that a war would be the easiest way to lighten the population as it had worked with previous battles with the Titans and the Giants in both the Titanomachy and Gigantomachy, and they decided that the best way to do this was to use Zeus’ own daughter, Helen, the most beautiful woman to ever exist. They knew that they could get Aphrodite involved using her vanity, they knew they could get Hera involved using her pride and they knew they could get Athene involved using her competitiveness. Themis went to the garden of the Hesperides and took a golden apple from one of the trees, she carved the words “Te Kalliste” onto it meaning “For the Fairest” and then she gave it to Zeus.
The golden apple made its way to the cave of the goddess of strife and discord, Eris, which was halfway up Mount Olympus- the home of the gods. Eris found it one day and went up to Mount Olympus to see if any of the gods had lost it. When she got there she found it completely empty; they had all gone somewhere without her. After searching she found that they had all been invited to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus that day and she had not. In anger she decided she would cause a little chaos at the wedding. An interesting tactic used by Eris is that she was incredibly subtle in her trouble-making, she did not make a scene, but instead she took the apple (now known as the Apple of Discord) to the ceremony and mid way through she rolled it into the centre of the room and did not hang around to watch the outcome, she was happy knowing it would cause any kind of drama. Immediately Aphrodite, goddess of love, Athene, goddess of wisdom and battle strategy and Hera, goddess of marriage and queen of the gods; all reached for the apple. They began fighting for it in the middle of the wedding, taking all attention from Thetis and Peleus. To stop them arguing Zeus sent the three goddesses to a field where a mortal shepherd stood before them, his name was Paris. They gave him the apple and told him to give it to the fairest, to try and convince him they all stripped naked and offered a bribe; Hera offered power and any kingdom of his choice, Athene offered him wisdom and the ability to win any kingdom he chose and Aphrodite offered love, the love of the most beautiful woman on earth, Helen, queen of Sparta. Being a romantic, Paris picked Aphrodite and gave her the apple and together they travelled to Sparta. Hera and Athene took this incredibly personally and never forgot.
Now, Helen is usually blamed the most for the Trojan war, however it is not known whether Helen went with Paris freely or if he and Aphrodite kidnapped her. What we do know thanks to Homer’s “Iliad” is that she wanted to go home throughout the final year of the war and I don’t blame her, in my view Paris was a complete coward; but Priam and Aphrodite would not allow her to and she could hardly challenge an omnipotent goddess.
It seems to me like everyone I have mentioned in this could be blamed for the fall of Troy, if Priam and Hecabe had killed Paris when they had been told to the war could have been avoided. If Thetis and Peleus had invited Eris to their wedding then the golden apple would not have been used and Paris would have had no way of getting to Helen. Of course, there are many other potential culprits such as Odysseus and even, to some extent, Menelaus; but in this blog I wanted to focus on the major, yet somehow often forgotten characters who manipulated fate to cause a war that is still spoken about to this day. It is this manipulation of fate that helped me to decide who was most to blame for the fall of Troy and that would have to be Gaia, Zeus and Themis. While this may not be the most popular view, my opinion is that no matter how, Zeus, Gaia and Themis would have found another way to decrease the population of the earth and I think this is quite an interesting way of looking at it. This is why I think that it is the immortal deities Zeus, Themis and Gaia who are most responsible for the destruction of Ilium and the Trojan war, who would you blame?
If you are interested in mythology and Classics, I have a YouTube channel called The Mythology Manifest, please feel free to follow this link and check it out: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAUvo_NgQsQ6Fxs3KCVo1Kg
If this blog has peaked your interest in the Trojan War, here are a few videos of mine about the War: https://youtu.be/c70FEWukeso — Keeping Classics Alive https://youtu.be/JsIkYzCDANI — The Golden Apple: The Seeds of War https://youtu.be/FqhZzbHpLVs — The Trojan War: a summary https://youtu.be/2krYhyJqDzo — Achilles and Patroclus https://youtu.be/lykWZAqgAuA — Troy film review
And, finally, if you wish to you could follow The Mythology Manifest on Twitter by following this link: https://twitter.com/TheMythologyMa1
