Hi and welcome to Classical Stuff You Should Know, a podcast, a brand new podcast, no, I'm just kidding. But we have been on a bit of a hiatus and it was only supposed to be for maybe an episode, probably two, and then it was for a little bit longer. But we're back, and we're recording. And to make it up to you, faithful listener, what we are going to do is, AJ, Thomas, and myself, we're all going to do an episode at the same time.
Alright, boys, let's do it. Alright, okay, one, two, three. But we had the opportunity to do some travel and to see family and especially during crazy covid times when that opportunity presented itself. We jumped on it and threw caution to the wind and the podcast also to the wind.
But we now are back. And I think today, well, my name is Graham Donaldson, and I'm joined with AJ Hanberg and Thomas Magby. And we are, I don't know, talking about something big, something epic. What's our podcast about?
Oh, yeah, we do so our podcast about class education and old books and old things. And there's a movement of Christian classical education that is growing in not only the United States, but around the world. And we work at a school, or have worked at schools. We've been involved in classical education in some capacity in our professional careers.
And we love it. And so we do a podcast about it. In short, we want to talk to you about books. Sometimes statues know what you do, architecture.
Art and philosophy, and your three marks. And I'm planning on doing an invisible hand episode, which sounds creepy. Smooky, yeah, sir. You guys have it for all the way in there.
Oh, great idea. That's right. Okay. Today, I'm actually taking the recommendations of one of our Patreon supporters.
And he, when you support at a certain level, you have the opportunity to suggest things for topics. And one thing he suggested was to redo some of the earliest episodes of the first 10, because it was only Graham and I, and we were cheek to cheek next to one single microphone. We have since upgraded our setup, but we were just barely making it. Just barely making it.
And our episodes were 20 minutes long. And there's no Thomas. And that's the big drawback because we're missing our third part. And we want to redo some of those.
And so because it's fresh in my mind, I just did a couple of talks on this for some conferences. I'm going to redo episode three. So if you look back, what we should have done is put that into the vault. You might not be able to find it on our normal podcast anymore.
And this is sort of to replace our old episode three. So if our podcast now goes one, two, four, you'll know why. That's going to be weird. It's going to disappear one at a time.
Yeah. Okay. It's like Spotify and Joe Rogan. Well, they're all on Spotify.
Oh, are they? I thought they ban hammered some. Maybe. Was that the whole story?
I don't know. I don't know the story. Anyway, we do an episode three. And episode three was our intro to the epics.
It was also like 15 minutes long, so. Yeah, it was really short. And I'd like to give it a better try. Better it's time in the sun.
I want to give it that subject a little more thorough of a time, partially because I find it's helpful, especially for those people who are newer to classical education to be able to jump into some of the oldest and most important books, which is Homer and Virgil's Ennied. So the three of those books are all one story or at least different pieces of one big story. And if you aren't privy to that, if you don't know the story, then those books can be incredibly confusing. I talked to one dad outside actually, just today that says, I've tried to read the iliad a number of times and every time I stop 10 pages.
And because you don't know what's going on. You know who the people are or why they're there or what they're doing. Homer doesn't explain any of that because he expects you have a certain cultural currency that we just don't have anymore. It's like, when I watch a Marvel movie, I don't know what the heck's going on because I don't know any of these people.
Yeah, if I watch X-Men, I know what's happening. I know most of the X-Men. But yeah, you watch a Marvel movie, you have no idea. If I write a story today to someone American and I put in a character named Kanye, who has certain qualities, that mirror the actual Kanye, people be like, oh yeah, I know who that is, I know his history.
And if I have one named Abraham Lincoln, you're going to know exactly what he's all about, right? Or there's going to be some sort of cultural currency that comes along with that name. That would be cool. I watch that buddy cop movie.
But Lincoln and Kanye? Yeah, I should write that. It'd be fun. Yeah, they're trying to catch.
Who's the Colonel? They're trying to catch. Modest Mouse. Perfect, I'd watch that.
Okay, anyway, Homer sort of assumed that you as a reader have the same cultural currency that the Greeks did, right? This was their central cultural story. It sort of defined who they were as a people for a really long period of time. So he just doesn't fill you in.
He assumes you know all that stuff and goes with it, right? It's as if I wrote a story about Lincoln and didn't take the time to tell you he was the president because you know he was the president, right? I don't have to tell you that, you know that. Or at least you should know that if you don't, well, maybe you should listen to more of our podcasts.
Okay, so called out. Yeah, I'm going to tell you all of the mythological background for the epics so that when you want to jump in, you aren't totally lost. That's the point of this particular podcast. I might, I'm not really going to do a big background about the authors, you can check out the history behind all this stuff at another time.
In brief, Homer was a blind bard who lived probably around the year eight to 600 BC in Greece. And his stories were passed down for a long time before they were written down finally. And he is inheriting a big oral cultural history that he is sort of codifying into one big tale. At least that's the theory.
Some people think Homer didn't even exist and it's just a collection of tales of multiple authors. But I prefer to think he did. And we just don't know much about his life because he wrote about other things that himself. Vergil lived way later.
I think it's between 70 and 20 BC kind of around there. And he lived in the Roman Empire. And they wrote, he wrote a part of this tale far after Homer was dead and gone because the Romans loved to steal other folks' culture. And so he was commissioned to write sort of a Roman puff piece to say, Rome is awesome.
And we come from this same heritage. That's kind of what the end is about. Okay. You guys kind of know this story already, at least generally.
Yes. Yeah. Okay. That's a bummer.
So I'm not because this isn't going to be a surprise to you guys. But maybe you can fill in the stuff that I miss. I'm bad at remembering. Okay.
So maybe some of it will be new. Okay. This story begins like all good stories with Zeus, right? Zeus is a great place to start.
And what is Zeus's most defining trait? Um, like siring animal with people. What? Like a second.
He's really into the ladies. Yeah. He's horny. He is just the most randy.
Did you say that? Oh my word. Brandon, E for explicit. For horny?
Oh my God. Stop saying it. He likes girls. And he likes girls a lot.
And his wife is not a fan of this. Of his. Isn't she the goddess of family? Isn't that...?
Oh man. I think she's the goddess of family. In any case, she doesn't like that he likes all the ladies. Yeah.
She's like, this one girl named Lita, she's a mortal person, catches his eye. She's really beautiful. She's already married to a fellow named Tindarius, but he wants to go and spend some quality time with Lita. But he's got to figure out a way to get out of his wife's view.
And so he turns himself into a swan. And the swan flies down. And as it's flying down, an eagle sees it and thinks a swan might make a good meal. So the eagle starts chasing the swan and the swan flies away and finds refuge in Lita's arms.
She catches it, gets ahold of the swan, and then the swan and Lita spend some quality time together. Sure. Just like right off the bat. Like that's weird, right?
Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. It seems like this is what a strange swan.
Okay. And if you were listening to this, you know, this is sort of your first jump into classical education. You should know that this story is pretty universal in Western culture. You, Michelangelo did a rendering of Lita and the swan, Da Vinci did a rendering of Lita and the swan.
You can find statues and pictures. A lot of people copied Da Vinci's version of Lita and the swan. It's, so if you ever see a woman that seems like she's smooching goose, that's what this is. It's this moment.
Okay. So she spends some time with the swan. And then the swan flutters off. It's had its fun.
And then she spends time with her husband, Tindarius, right? She's married woman, right? And nine months later, she gives birth to two eggs. And that's what's so entertaining about those paintings is often off in the corner.
You'll see hatching baby eggs. And so out of the eggs, pop four kids and different sources are different on which ones are mortal and which ones are immortal and in which eggs they come. But there are four kids in two eggs. You like Tindarius who has some questions.
Yeah. That's what I want to get that checked out. That's not. And I feel like the scientists of Greece would be like, wait a minute.
We thought we knew how kind of how all this works, but we have, I guess we have no idea. Anyway, four kids come out, two girls, two boys. And all of the sources say that there's one daughter of Zeus and one daughter of Tindarius. The daughter of Zeus is named Helen.
The daughter of Tindarius is named Clitum Nestra. And that's a bummer because Helen is super crazy hot. She's just a total smoke show the likes of which the earth has never seen before. She is attractive.
Her attractiveness is dangerous to everyone around. And her. And her. It turns out to be a curse for her.
But can you imagine growing up as Clitum Nestra? You know you're the ugly one. It's not even up for a debate. You just, you are the ugly one.
And she's still pretty good looking, I think. And then there's two boys, Caster and Pollux. They have their own tales and stories, and I won't go into them. But stories do differ on which one is the daughter of the son of Zeus and which one is the son of Tindarius.
Anyway, these four kids happen. And Helen, Helen is a problem, right? You mentioned that her beauty was a curse. And it does end up being a curse for her.
She's kidnapped, I think, at the tender age of 14 by Theseus, who's the, he's a golden fleece guy, I think. Not Jason. Oh, it's Jason? What do Theseus do?
He did some other stuff. Is he the guy that killed the snake-haired lady? The Mase? The Mase?
The Mase? He's a hero. He's his own right. Yeah.
I forget which hero he did. Those are the hero bathrooms. Yeah, okay, I found her. Yes, I found her.
Anyway, he came after 14 because he felt like he wanted to marry a daughter of Zeus, and there she was. She didn't end up staying with him. She was retrieved by her brothers. And that's what I'm following?
Yeah. And so this would cause a problem for her, right? I think she's kidnapped multiple times in her life. And all of the guys in Greece want to marry this girl because she's so attractive.
And there are sources differ on how many come out of the woodwork, but some as many as I think 37 come to try to get her hand in marriage, and so they all gather and they ask the father for her hand. And Tindarius being a wise king, says, I can't give her away. Because what will happen is I'll give her to one of you and then everyone else will try to kill that guy and take her for their own And what we will end up with is war and I'll probably get killed in the mix Right my daughter is gonna be in trouble and I'm probably gonna die for not choosing somebody individually And it's gonna be more for Greece. This is a bad situation and everyone's like yeah, that's true We would totally kill the other guy so I get your point and so he says as things stand.
I cannot give her her way So Odysseus who is a fellow you should remember he is the star of the Odyssey and he's gonna pop up a few times Odysseus his defining trait is cleverness. He's quick. He's good with taxes tactics He's good with speaking and he comes up with a plan and his plan is to make every single guy that wants to sue for Helen's hand promise To protect the sanctity of the marriage once it is established So say the three of us are going for the same lady You guys are married up for imagine for a moment you weren't and we all wanted the same girl Well, whoever gets chosen say that somebody eventually you know kidnapped Donson's wife He was the one that got chosen and somebody runs off of his wife Well, we would be on the hook for going and getting her back right protect the sanctity of the marriage Yeah, everyone Regudgingly says okay and swears fealty to this pact and so tinderius feels safe to choose somebody and he chooses What is this guy get it who the guy who eventually marries Helen mentally us he's kind of a derp He's a big red bearded dope. No eggamemnon's the dope Alright, in any case I forget exactly how he pulls it off But he does get chosen for Helen and he is the king of Sparta and this isn't the Sparta that you are thinking of as a listener right the militant You know this is Sparta kick me to a whole kind of Sparta that that wasn't the thing yet at this point in history This is the dark ages of Greece and Greece are it's a bunch of loosely allied city-states Yeah, and there's a bunch of different kings.
It's not it's not you know, they haven't unionized and so there's uh-huh It's all one you know, they're it's Sparta, but it's not Sparta yet, right? So he he takes her home and he's got a brother named eggamemnon and eggamemnon takes home Clite and Esther the sister so two brothers marrying two sisters eggamemnon clite and Esther and Helen and mentallyus what Helen doesn't Know is that she's marrying into a cursed house their house is a huge problem It's a total mess and I'm not gonna go into it in this episode But there is an episode called the house of atria's way back when and it might be of appropriate link I'm not sure we need to redo that one but But based on the house of atrias are Hundreds and hundreds of stories that I think even South Park steals some of the house of atrias shenanigans We're talking at least twice does someone kill another guy's kids and then feed those kids to the guy twice two times This happens I think and South Park are in house of atrias only once in South Park. Thank you But but in the house of atrias, I think it happens twice in any case There's so much murder and craziness if you are interested go listen to that episode It is a hoot anyway She marries into this cursed house and all the guys are on the hook to protect the marriage Okay, that is Greece. We are going to leave Greece for a moment and go to another people group the Trojans Okay, the Trojans they're different from Greece, right?
There's one big city and they rich they got a lot of money and partially because they are the doorway to trade with the east and they have Massive massive city walls and they have the name they're named the skiing gates and no one can penetrate these giant massive walls It and they are safe behind them their streets are well ordered if you like drive chariots on these walls Yeah, they're huge and Yeah streets are well ordered plenty of wealth. Everything's well organized well-run Like the guy at the top of the food chain is named king pryam king pryam has 50 sons And then I think another I might get this number wrong 26 daughters And I used to wonder how his poor wife managed all that but he had lots of concubines and so we had all these kids He's wise heck you but heck you but yeah, so his wife heck you but at one point in their history She is pregnant and as she can probably a bunch of times But she she has a dream and her dream is that she gives birth to a torch and the torch Run wanders over the city and sets the city on fire and burns a whole place to the ground and she says well That was an uncomfortable dream comfortable birth. Yeah, everything about it was pretty uncomfortable and so she She says that's a pretty bad thing and she consults a seer of the town and the seer says well You're this particular offspring is going to cause a problem for us and if we let him live he's gonna ruin the whole place We got to get rid of it and she says okay later. I think it's a separate prophecy But that same seer says any kid born today will mean ruin for the entire nation if you're born today It's bad and of course he comes on that day So twice two different prophecies that say this kid is bad news So the king he's got plenty of kids he knows that he can get rid of one else to be all right So he he decides to get rid of it and he can't bring himself to do it So he recruits a huntsman and he says huntsman Please go kill his child and huntsman says can do boss and he takes the child and he also can't bring himself to kill a small human child And so he exposes it on the hillside which seems incredibly heartless to us these days I think there are we can get into a whole conversation about the exposing of children and how that worked economically back then and Just we talked in history private life.
It was pretty common Yeah, it's a pretty common thing and and so he exposes the child But he doesn't want to get in trouble for not doing his job And so he takes a dog tongue back and presents a dog tongue as the child's tongue and as I said in the first time I did this I think I'd be able to tell the difference between a dog tongue and a baby tongue It's like it right maybe the dad just doesn't even want to like everyone wants to believe that it's happened Yeah, right yeah And I don't I don't have a guys shown me a tongue I'm not sure I'd want to inspect to be like hold on just the cotton picking minute Let me see this thing and right, you know, put my t-shirt stuff away. Yeah, yeah, exactly So he leaves the baby there and thinks job well done I'm off the hook and he leaves and then a week a couple of weeks later. He goes back He doesn't pierce the baby's heels does he that's a different story really cooks a rod in the heels of the baby? I don't I don't think that's different.
Yeah, that's horrible. I know who to that Guy who said yeah, I'll go kill your baby I mean get to the elements is pretty bad too. Okay in any case he goes back out and it turns out the baby lift It had been suckled by a she bear Awesome. It's not amazing.
What a story, right? I feel like if you need to one up people at a dinner party That's one way to do it. Oh, yeah, I would have died But a she bear found me and thought me suitable as a candidate for her kids. It's great.
It was great So the Huntsman comes can't be tasty though. That's gotta be like bear milk. Yeah, it's gotta be like meaty or sour All the bears in the audience are just like oh really So he goes back out and he finds this kid anything So I can't leave it back out here because of you know might not die if the bear finds it again So he just he takes it for his own He puts it in his backpack and he raises the kid as a husband as a child of Mount Ida Which is the mountain right outside of Troy and he grows up nice. He's a good-looking fella the ladies love him at one point There's a bunch of wrestlers to try to steal some cattle and rob some people and he shazes off all the wrestlers and gets the cattle back And he earns the surname protector of men, right?
She's kind of great And he's good at sports good-looking. I mean he's a royal lineage So that makes sense and and he gets a girlfriend and her name is O'Noni and she's an inf so she's an immortal person And she is really good at medicine and stuff I only mention her because she makes me sad and I will come back to her in a little while her story is just a super tragic one And he gets this girl and at some point it's unclear when this happens, but he's recognized as a royal, right? I haven't actually been able to find a source that tells this story But I kind of hints are around that it happened when he went and participated in some games in town and then they go Oh that guy he looks like part of the family and they all kind of knows yeah They kind of realized that he's he's part of it and then it comes out that he you know He was if you have a king that like has had 50 kids like you've got a pretty good sample size to be able to determine There's a range there you have you can slot him right into the gradation But he he still loves to be out on the mountain and again It's unclear when that happens when he gets adopted as as a prince and really outside the city is really nice They have two springs one runs hot and one runs cool at all times And so you can jump right from the hot tub into the cold tub and you can wash your clothes in hot and rinse them in cold It's like best-case scenario for a city. It's a beautiful one of my soap one of the knobs Hot one of the knobs cold.
I'm a great man mixing together modern life is so convenient. Yeah, how many mountain? Okay, anyway, and So he one of his favorite pastimes this child and his name is Paris Is to take his prize bull and fight it against other bulls and he's wins his bull is amazing. It's not so rare all over everybody Yeah, just take the bulls and find them.
Yeah, we all this probably do we have students with miniature horses and intro donkeys and all kinds of crazy animals I don't doubt that somebody's got a bull out there that they're messing with anyway He he eventually decides I think this is after he is recognized as a prince to offer a crown as a prize for beating his bull, right? He just doesn't think it's gonna happen and Aries God of War hears about this and says I'll show him a bull turns into a bull Comes down and totally stops Paris's bull, right? I mean he's the God of War, of course He's gonna win and then he reveals himself after the fight and he thinks he expects of what most mortals would do is renege on the deal And say that wasn't fair. You're a god not an actual bull.
I'm not gonna count it I'm gonna keep my sinking crown you cheat, but Paris doesn't he takes his crown and he walks over to Aries and says congratulations Right, you're in this great job and he hands on the crown you beat a bull. You got here's take your crown Yeah, take your crown to go But he's he's cool about it and right there earns himself a great reputation for being a good judge Right a fair judge of character and to always hold true to his word. That's great, right? Okay, so we've got the Trojans And we've got the Greeks and we're gonna move back to Zeus and what again is this is the finding train?
He likes the ladies and there's another lady out there that he has his eye on and her name is guys remember Hopefully it's not Helen cuz that's his daughter. It's not Helen a nymph of Oh, no, no, no. Thedus. Oh the shining ink on the pretty.
Yeah, so the thing about Thedus is that she's weird She's got nice feet like really nice feet whenever she's mentioned in the Iliad It's the this of the shining ankles or the glistening feet I don't know what was going on with her feet But they were something special and she is a nymph But she has a legend about her and that it's that if if she ever gives birth her offspring will be more powerful than the father Okay, right and this is something any good dad wants right you want your kids to grow up more fortunate more capable stronger than you are for any father And even Greece this is what you want as a dad your kid to outdo you if you start a business You want your kid to start a better one or to make more of it than you could right? You never want your kids to be worse than you unless you're Zeus I'm sure because if you're Zeus a kid that's stronger than you means that There's war in heaven many of your family will die and you will probably die and somebody else will be in charge and the earth will get busted In the process, that's bad. You can't really let that happen It's easy fix just like set theta sub with like a walking pimple of a man and then you're fine And then the kid can be like slightly better. Yeah.
Oh, are you are you just making this up? Well, that's kind of what he does. I mean, it's not a walking pimple of a man He but he does set her up with a mortal person. It's unfortunate that a mortal and immortal sounds so similar She sets him up with a man a non-god He goes to this fellow named Pilius.
It says hey Pilius. I got a deal for you Pilius. I'm listening There's this nymph you should see her feet Yeah, I feel about feet and he says we I've got to take her off the market because if I know one thing about myself It's that I have absolutely no self-control So she has to be married off or I just won't be able to control myself and I'm gonna have a kid that's stronger than me So I need you to marry her and Pilius says great. How do we make that happen?
They set a trap they throw a net over this poor nymph and He'll use forces himself on her and gets a pregnant and this and then they are betrothed. That's kind of how it happens Theta's is not enthused. I bet she's not a fan of this and it sucks that that that's part of the story But they are gonna be married and this is where for those of you who will eventually read the Iliad It's where Achilles comes from the offspring of Pilius and Theta's is Achilles the greatest warrior of all time, right? Because Pilius himself was a fantastic warrior and Achilles Achilles himself is big begot by force and violence makes sense.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense good No, okay, so they are gonna have a wedding and everybody gets invited I mean she's a nymph she's immortal so all of the gods are invited and all the nymphs and and A bunch of mortals everybody's going except for one goddess that nobody wants to be there and it's the goddess of discord Eris nobody likes Eris. She's the worst. She always got some problems in every party. She's that and it makes sense It's kind of her thing and so she is supposed to get turned away at the door by Hermes and she goes there and she gets turned away and she's kind of hacked about it So she takes a golden apple writes a kilisty the Greek word for it's a Greek word that means for the fairest And then she just sort of chucks it into the wedding and says eat that you nerds Well, what do you do you invite the goddess of discord to your wedding?
No, cuz she's gonna ruin the party But if you don't invite her this happens, she'll probably cause a discord. It's a it's a catch-22 What do you do you guys you got to set her up like a killer. Oh, wow, if you're a god You got to do the kid do without all the time. I guess maybe like distract her Well, maybe what they did with the series would just turn them into a different thing.
That's positive Yeah, right, so maybe she could become the goddess of reconciliation or something. Okay, apparently you can just decree that kind of thing That's not what happens. That's not what happens What happens is the apple rolls in and three goddesses instantly claim ownership of the apple as it was clearly meant for them These three goddesses you guys have guesses or do you remember I remember I remember everybody's one Aphrodite Athena and Hera and Hera Aphrodite Athena and hair all of them claim the apple and they begin to bicker over it and the bickering gets unbearable And they're just ruining the wedding of Pelius and theus and I mean her feet look perfect that day So they're just making it there's making it worse. It was gonna be the best day of her life And it's gonna it's being terrible and I don't think it would be the best day of her life anyway She's gonna be forced.
Yeah, but in any case through everyone hates the wedding is getting ruined And so they they're like you guys got to resolve this go talk to Zeus and so they the three of these ladies appear in front of Seuss and say you have to pick which one the apple goes to he's like decide this for us Yeah, exactly he like a wise father looks at his wife and his two daughters and says fat chance That's not happening if I if I make that choice I will never live it down and I'll never hear the end of it because we're all immortal and you will just I'll have to live with it for the rest Of my life, no, I'm going to send you to somebody else. It won't have to suffer the same fate In fact, I'll send you to a mortal person right who eventually died and even if he earns your ire And so who do they send him to the guy with a reputation for judgment Paris Paris Paris the savior of man No Paris protector of men protector of men and so they send these three goddesses to Paris who at that particular moment was lounging on the top of Mount It's beautiful and all of a sudden he's just kind of hanging out You know watching his goats and three gorgeous goddesses go to Right in front of them and they ask him to pick which one is the prettiest and he says oh boy I have I've walked into something special here and they all display their wares right they sort of show him what they got and He thinks it's hard to pick right there all really good looking and they the goddesses don't want to take any chances with this Because it's bragging rights for literally the rest of time so they all offer him bribes Hera offers him Kingship over Europe and Asia it's a big bribe. Okay, and he doesn't want to think offers wisdom wisdom and battle prowess So he'll be a smart warrior. Yeah, but if you yeah, okay, so put it together you have the same opinions I do okay.
Yeah, I mean if you're already guaranteed to have kingship over all of your you don't need battle prowess Yeah, what are you gonna get with battle prowess and wisdom a kingdom? So why not just get the kingdom take the kingdom okay, and then Aphrodite offers him the hottest woman alive and Again, I think if you if he was had his wits about him He'd think okay if I was king of Europe and Asia I could probably get the hottest woman alive by force if I wanted to or you know I've got a lot of assets you can put to work right in favor of your romantic wife He doesn't do that. He is a young red-blooded man. He says that one.
I want hot girl Yes, and so he takes the apple with glisty written on it Maybe he's not gonna be in charge of a kingdom. Maybe he doesn't sure maybe he's not fond of battles. He is Well sort of we will get there He sort of loves the idea of being cool at battle, but wusses out when and push comes to shove a lot Okay, so he gives the apple to Aphrodite and in that instant earns the everlasting hatred of Hera and Athena because if there's one thing Goddesses hate it's being told they aren't the prettiest and they want they don't just hate him They want to see all of Troy raised to the ground rough right scorched earth policy on people who tell them They're not pretty Aphrodite on the other hand instantly loves the Trojans. She loves the city She loves the people she loves Paris He's the best and everything about Troy is wonderful and it pits these goddesses against each other But we have a problem now we need to get him the prettiest girl in the world And this is when we have to take a small aside and talk about the hospitality code I don't know if we talked about it in a previous episode.
Maybe the episodes about the Odyssey, but what do you guys know about the hospitality code? Someone shows up to your house. Yep. They've come a long way.
Yeah, they're probably tired and thirsty hungry Yep, and you are by custom required to give them a place to sleep. Yep food. Yeah, you don't ask some questions till the next day Yeah, I think that's it That's pretty close because traveling was so dangerous in the old days to sort of even have an economy where people could trade safely Sam say I need to go and maybe talk to this other king I've heard about well, it's not just this you know get a ticket and or drive there It's I have to put together a crew. We have to probably sail there I'm gonna waste a lot of my wealth and wares making this journey.
I'm gonna spend a lot of wine I have to pay my crew I'll probably risk bandits and death and weather and shipwreck and all this stuff It's just dangerous and so the motivation to go on one of those trips has to be pretty high So when I show up at somebody's door even if it's not my final destination, I Need to be able to count on a few things happening and one of those things is a bed some food some rest and then and then that some Of my my expenses will be recouped And so if I am if you are a host your job is to feed them and you know entertain them and maybe let them stay for a little while And then as they leave you give them a guest gift Right, I need to give them a fancy robe or a nice golden bowl or something as I send them on their way But it is a benefit to me because next time I travel if I've hosted that guy I know that I've got a spot I can stay that's safe and it's generational right Graham If you came to my house and I hosted you and then gave you a really nice golden bowl say we both kick the bucket We both die my kid can travel to your kingdom and because I hosted you he can expect a good treatment by your son Well, we have like a guest book you check kind of yeah, he'll he'll remember he'll say whoa my dad hosted your dad Or they knew each other this even happens there's an instance of an alien when to opposing like opposing warriors Realize their fathers knew each other and they're like let's be best friends. So you come to my house I feed you I put you up I entertain you and I give you a gift Yeah, a lot of expense to you and so hosting is an important thing and guests are protected by the gods This isn't just a regional thing or a law worked into the laws of individual nation It is a foundational societal principle And if you mess with a guest if someone shows up at your door and you're mean to them or as a guest You mess with the house of someone who has hosted you you are breaking a deep social moray because without it You can't have society back then right? This is it. This is absolutely essential.
Okay, so with that as a background Paris goes on a journey and he says oh anoni girlfriend nymph. You're so beautiful I'll be back and he knows that he has a prize waiting for him So he goes and he visits Sparta and in Sparta is Helen Has every I sent him there being like hey, you know, I'm not sure I'm not sure exactly how that all goes down and there are even different versions of when she leaves So and I I'm not sure there this one might be firm I'm just not sure about the the deal I don't know if Menelaus was there at the beginning of his visit and then left I think in some sources he is or if he was never there in the first place in any case Paris is hosted in Sparta by the house of Menelaus right Menelaus brings him in feeds him well Beds him gives him gifts gives him all this stuff and then at some point Menelaus is not there and Paris takes Helen with him And so not only has he stolen another man's wife and dishonored that man But he has broken a foundational social code Which is if you are someone's guest you do not mess with their house and he has messed with the wife Right something pretty sacred and again there are different versions of this her leaving in some she is forcibly stolen She's just taken they lift her up and off she goes in the boats in most of the tales her wits are sort of stolen away by Aphrodite Aphrodite makes her love stupid for a little while because Paris is so dang good looking she climbs on the boat She doesn't think it through and then off she goes to Troy by the way doesn't last very long right either way It doesn't last very long when we hit the iliad she has different feelings about Paris as a person And we'll mock him at certain points like it's not great love or anything Yeah, we can talk about that a little when we get to the iliad right okay So off she goes and Peri Menelaus returns to find his wife gone and he freaks out now Do you remember an oath that some guys swore yeah to the sickness to the marriage, right? Yeah, they now have to go and protect the same to do the marriage Yeah, so there are a bunch of kings and princes all of who are on the hook to go back You know go protect this thing and so Menelaus starts calling the favors he talks to his brothers like hey Brother we gotta do this thing and the brother says absolutely I'm on board Let's go. He's kind of war hungry anyway, but they start calling in everybody else now Achilles was not one of these people He was probably too young to be part of the team that wanted Helen's hand in marriage But they want him anyway, and they they also get rack like he is oh, yeah He's we'll get to Achilles in a minute, but they the one of the first people they go talk to is Odysseus Odysseus remember He's the smart guy.
He came up with the first lady. Yeah, and the first he was the guy that started the whole idea But he doesn't want to go to war. He really doesn't want to go. He's just had a kid, right?
He's got a newborn child. He's got a lovely wife. He loves his town It's not great for raising crops straight for raising sons and goats That's another euphemism they use for really terrible farming land and they go and they try to get this guy and so to Right. Yeah, Ithaca to dodge the the draft he Pretends to be insane and he harnesses an ox and a mule to his cart and they have different gates And so it's sort of like a busted axle It doesn't really work very well and in some versions he is plowing the beach Which doesn't really do much in most he's just plowing his fields and sewing salt on his own fields rather than seeds and so just looks crazy He looks like a crazy person, but they're kind of on to it They figured that you know this seems awfully suspicious So they take his newborn son and they put it in front of the plow and so if he is to maintain his ruse He's got to run over his own kid with the oxen and at the last second he veers And he doesn't kill his kid and they're like ah, we knew it and he's like our buddy.
Yeah, okay You got me Achilles also does not want to go to war and he hides in a town that isn't his I think it's cygroce and he Dresses up as a woman in the court of this other king and I don't know why he thought that was the plan because if Achilles has reputation for being One of the most manly wrecking warriors ever to walk the fields of Troy He's just this huge dude, and you think the broad shoulders would give it away after the deep voice to crossfit Yeah, I don't know maybe he's really lean who knows he'll call him a swift runner So anyway, they show up and Odysseus is the one that comes up with this plan Remember he's really good at plans and he the way that they catch him is they pose his merchants And they set out a bunch of wares some wagons full stuff, and there is there's clothing There's bolts of cloth a bunch of pearls and nice jewelry and interspersed in there is some shields and some swords and some weapons And you know most of the ladies are looking at the cloth and there's one lady who's picking up the sword and is like oh, yeah Oh, that's nice and his Deafness with the blade like he picks it up and you know some some other women look at it But it's not you know, they're just like oh cool Back and he's you know he's spinning around he's like oh, yeah, it's really nice Well balanced and he knows all the stuff and then they blow the war horn for an attacking army like everyone assembled because we're being attacked They run off and he sort of instantly gets into battle stance and turns towards the where the army would be coming from They're like ah Hi, Achilles, you want that woman on your teeth on your teeth. Yeah, and there's some great woman warriors So yeah, even if it's not a kiddies like you Okay, so they get a kiddies to it after that. Yeah, he's got to go there There are some prophecies about a kiddies that we'll get to in a minute So you think they gather everybody good 20 minutes left That's about right. Okay, so they gather everybody at this this island all the boats It's the legend is a thousand ships right Helen is the face that launched a thousand ships They're all together and they're ready to go invade Troy and there's no wind right wind just won't come in wait Book two of the area like lists all them ships Yeah, and they wait and they wait and they wait and they wait and nothing happens and eventually they they consult one of their seers Calcus and they say what's the deal man?
Why why can't we go to war does the god of wind hate us or something and he says no? Artemis does what the problem is that eggamemnon one of the head guys member eggamemnon brother of mental ass these Menelius and eggamemnon are the head kings and eggamemnon is the strongest He's got the most men they say eggamemnon went into Artemis a sacred grove killed one of her sacred deer and then claimed He was a better hunter than Artemis and she heard and that's bad. No win for you buddy. Yeah, and so he's like a fine Yeah, I remember something like that What do I have to what do I got to do about it?
He doesn't really like Calcus You know Calcus the seer keeps on telling him all the stuff he's doing wrong and because he kind of sucks at life That's all the time and he says well The thing we got to do is you have to sacrifice your own one of your own children to Artemis and then she'll forgive you the deed Geez, and he says okay, I don't know how to get away from you know get one of my kids away from my wife So Odysseus, I'm gonna send you you got to go do the job Don't tell me the name of the daughter. I'm trying to keep so Odysseus travels goes to Clite and Nestra Eggamnon's wife and says Clite and Nestra great news. We're gonna marry your daughter to Achilles greatest warrior of Greeks And she's overjoyed so he says get her in her wedding clothes give me the dowry off we go and she said and she elated sends her daughter off with Odysseus What's the name figured out? I mean resties is the brother Electra is the other sister.
Yeah, it's there's an opera about it. Yeah. Oh, it's her name I can't remember if again. Yeah, so if again, you shows up and They sacrifice her in some in some sources.
They just straight up killer Yeah, and most sources Artemis feels really guilty about this thing that she's asked He's like oh, he actually did it. I didn't think you would do it Oh, this is really awkward And so the last second she sort of shrouds the whole area with mist swaps in a deer and then If again, you know way to be one of her virgin huntresses like her team of virgins and you know, it's okay That seems all right. That's a pretty good end for all that stuff I mean you probably want to get out of like if your dad's gonna yeah, you know really like that It's honestly it was better for the house of a trace is a mess for her to get out of dodges Maybe the best thing for her, but I feel like after sacrificing my daughter if I look down and there's a free deer I'd be like when this is awfully strange. Okay, whatever anyway the wind comes and off they go to Troy and They fight there for nine years.
There's nine years of battle before the Iliad it even begins During that nine years they can't breach the city walls And so they raid a lot of nearby towns and cause problems for the nearby people and allies of Troy It's all under the Trojan country and so they just you know, there's free stuff there Why not go raid a city while we're just nearby because we can't so I do and nine years in the Iliad begins so all of this information is stuff that Homer assumed you knew before you begin the Iliad and the Iliad starts with a Dispute among the Greeks because they are all dying of plague and they want to know why they want to know what the problem is turns out Eggamemnon offended a priest of Apollo's and Apollo's demanding this that he honored the priest of Apollo and give his daughter back because he'd stolen her and all this stuff And so anyway, what happens? I'm gonna kind of gloss over it because I want you to still enjoy reading the Iliad itself But Eggamemnon and Achilles get into a big spat and Achilles says fine. You want to sass me? I quit like I'm taking my sword and I'm going home I'm a sit at my tents because I'm not gonna let you disrespect me in front of the troops So he goes and he sits his tent for a long time Things start going poorly for the Greeks and they need him back But by that time he said time to sit and think anything So you know what I'm probably just gonna go home because I didn't want to be here in the first place I dressed up as a lady to eat out of it, and I don't kind of want to leave his best friend However wants to fight goes out gets himself killed and then Achilles feels as though He has to get revenge on the guy who did it who happens to be the brother of Paris greatest prince of the Trojans His name is Hector and so Achilles kills Hector and then they bury him and that is sort of the end of the Iliad It's the story of the Genesis and conclusion of Achilles's rage Right, so he gets mad at Agamemnon and eventually takes revenge on Hector and then sort of his rage subsides That is the story of the Iliad.
It doesn't even tell about the fall of Troy The the in between stuff is what I want to cover for the last 15 minutes or so. All right, you guys we're tired We're talking so far. Okay, okay. Okay, so at the end of the Iliad Achilles is still alive Hector is dead But most of the Greeks are still alive very few very few of the big players actually die in the in the novel itself But a kid but Achilles does die shortly after from an arrow from Paris so Paris I forgot to mention that there are some times when Helen makes fun of him in the book and she's like you are the most Spinal human being alive.
I wish you had more fighting spirit He says auger that hurts but let's smooch and so they do and he's just kind of a worm and you kind of learn to hate him He is good at battle, but he just doesn't have the the core the moral core that prince should have he's just kind of morally bankrupt and So after after the Iliad ends he does kill Achilles in battle, but in every single version of the tale He is robbed of the glory somebody else guides the arrow He kind of gets lucky he hits the spot where Achilles is vulnerable No one ever gives him credit plus the bow is sort of a kick Howard's weapon because you can fight from far away And so in every version everyone's like yeah, Paris did it but he didn't really do it So Achilles dies and then Paris continues to kill Greeks He kills a lot of people and they need to get rid of this guy so they go and they I mentioned this partially It's not super central to the story. It's just one of my favorite parts They ask how can we get rid of Paris? He's just killing so many of us. It's a problem and he says well There's one guy that can do it.
He's got a special bow, but we left him on our way to Greece There was his name was Philopides and on the way to Greece he had when they stopped to you know resupply and get water and stuff even bit by a snake and the bite got Gangrenous and so it smelled so bad that Odysseus tricked everybody into leaving him on an island So we wouldn't have to smell that sneaky snake bite anymore So they had to go back and get this guy I don't think they sent Odysseus because flopides was not a fan anymore And he comes and snake by guy does kill Paris and then a bunch more people die But by this time Hector's dead Paris is dead Achilles is dead and most of the big players are dead But but Troy still won't fall there are a few things they got to do they catch one of the sears of of the town It's actually one of the sons of prime that wanted Helen after Paris died right after Paris got killed by Philopides She was sort of on the market again, and he tried to go for it His name was Hellenus, but the Helen Hellenus combo that's not combo you want And so he gets rejected and just sort of stops out town and wanders around the mountain and freaks find him and force him to tell him the things And he says here's the stuff you got to do and there's a few different things And so the Greeks do all that and it still doesn't work Troy still won't fall And so Odysseus comes up with the plan And this is probably the the part of the story that you may have an inkling of or I've heard of as an audience member And it's the Trojan horse and it's recounted in the beginning bits of the Aeneid which is written far later But the Greeks didn't actually write this into their tail, right? So he comes up with the plan and they build this giant wooden horse You've probably seen pictures where their wheels on the bottom. There were no wheels on the bottom That's not a thing they built in they built it out of ship timbers pulled apart ships And they left a guy on the beach to lie about what it was for So all the Greek the Greek fleet sails off behind one of the other islands to kind of hide and they leave this guy on the island His name is sign on the Greek. He's famous.
He shows up in the inferno actually in the circle of deceivers So the Greek ships are gone the Trojans come out of their town like what happened they say well They're tired of fighting and sign on says I got to fight with Odysseus He blamed me for some stuff. They left me here to be killed by you guys and So I'm here and I said what's the deal with the horse? He said well they wanted a safe trip home and so they left an offering for Athena for a safe ride Right? This is an offering for her and they built it so big because they knew that if you could haul this offering to Athena inside your city Your city would stand for two thousand like thousands of years, right?
No one could ever rake into your city with that kind of protection from Athena and they said huh that is compelling sure I bet we couldn't move that inside and he's like yeah Well the Greeks don't really want you to and as they're having this conversation a guy named Leakewon shows up And he says oh I fear the Greeks especially when they come bearing gifts Right and that is one of the most famous lines in this whole story and he takes a spear and he chucks it at the horse and you can even hear that's hollow and it hits It's just a big clunk and kind of reverberates and all the inside the horse are a bunch of Greek soldiers and so they just try to keep it quiet and Poseidon sends up a sea serpent and eats the guy and his two sons that were with him and the Trojans are like whoo That must clearly be a sign that you should never mess with an offering from Athena And so they put on some logs and they start rolling it inside the city and at this point the gods are all set against the city This is the city has to fall. It's been decreed. It's the fate It's gonna happen. Everybody knows it's gonna happen and they sort of steal away the wits of the people who are rolling it in It even hits bumps a few times and you can hear armor clanking around inside of it And at one point Helen even walks out and she's kind of suspicious So she starts doing impressions of all the wives of the guys inside the horse.
She's like hey, you know Ajax what's going on? It's Theresa whatever and then Ajax what Theresa and he almost yells out and the only way that they They aren't giving away is that Odysseus clamps his hands over there's his mouths and he's like dude That's not your wife you idiot. Oh, yeah, it's not my wife. I knew that she's home and so they drag inside this is a real thing they drag it inside the city and Have a celebration the Greeks are gone We've got this cool new horse that they the Greeks built and didn't think we could haul it inside the city But we sure did sure showed them hauled it right inside and they get super drunk And they all pass out and then all of the Greeks that were hiding inside the horse jump out and open the main city gates Right the skiing gates the gates they couldn't breach are now open and as the Trojans and partying the ships had all sailed back And the army floods in right and the Greeks do not Comport themselves well.
They they desecrate some temples at one point one of the Greek warriors rapes a a Priest of a I think it's Apollo a priest of Apollo at the feet of Athena statue where she had run to cling for mercy mercy Mercy, right? It's like it's like murdering someone in a church If you just don't really do it and the Greek raped her at the feet of the statue and legend has that the statue wouldn't even look it used to look down and it turned its head away and stays that way and The Greeks should have when they found out about this killed the guy But the guy ran back to the feet of Athena and because he was they were too scared to do what he wasn't scared to do Right, they wouldn't kill him at the feet of Athena and so he survived and Athena is furious that this happened And so they sort of earned themselves a lot of trouble from that on the way home from the war The Greeks ships are blasted with a huge storm that kills a whole ton of them scatters a bunch of them to the wind But many of them have a lot of trouble getting home and the guy that did the raping survives a sort of a shipwreck And then he climbs up on the land He's like you guys will never kill me and then Zeus is like well Yes, we'll send a thunderbolt and go to the hole or sorry I think it's that the sea cracks the rock he's standing on and he falls into the sea and his engulfing dies I'm like, yeah, you sass the gods see what happens and and this is kind of where the last two epics come from Well, these things go well for Agamemnon, right? That if you want to find out what happens to Agamemnon go back and listen to the House of Patriots episode He has a pretty bad time weirdly enough Menelaus so the guy who went back to get his wife. He's planning on killing her She has crossed him.
She's left him. She's dishonored him and when he finds her as they're invading the city She sort of shows what she's she's working with and he is so overcome by her beauty He goes gosh dang it puts his sword down and then hauls her back to the ships and they go home and their marriage is okay We see them later in the Odyssey and they're doing all right and she's like man I was such an idiot when I was at Troy Yeah, that's that's we that's a weird time and then she kind of goes on and he's like oh honey You're right that was weird and they're they're marriage is pretty good after that so he does get Helen back Agamemnon not so much His life is not so good No, but the Odyssey is the story of Odysseus's return trip home if any of the guys have a hard trip home Odysseus was worse It takes him over 10 years and so by the time he is at home He's been gone for 20 so he doesn't really know what he's coming home to and what he's coming home to partially as a bunch of guys and are trying to sue for his the hand of his wife and So the Odyssey is actually I think far easier to read than the Iliad if you know this story You're welcome to start there right you can start with the return home trip You don't have to read the Iliad first this story is the basis for both and the Odyssey is honestly an easier read So you can start there There's some modern translations that are really nice and fun And then if you want to do the Iliad you can do that next and do it second So that's the story of the Iliad and the Odyssey the Iliad is Achilles getting sassy and then eventually getting his revenge The Odyssey is the return trip home from Troy for Odysseus the clever guy who comes up with all the plans and then the Anid Which is written far later by Virgil totally different author is the story of one of the survivors of Troy named Nius And he escapes this burning of his town with his son and his father and he leaves Travels for half the book and then and then fights for a new homeland in the second half Latium and from this guy Anis and his travels in his small war will come Rome So Rome and all the Roman citizenry kind of claimed that they were descended from Anis the guy who escaped from Troy And Anis himself was a son of Aphrodite and so that's one thing about Roman citizens actual citizens people that were of Roman descent They claimed that they had goddess blood way back in them And so they actually believe they were a little bit divine just a hint of divinity in them And this was sort of their cultural here's where we come from boys We come from the Trojans and as you read the Iliad in the Odyssey what you see is that the Trojans aside from Paris They're really good people they're honest They're straightforward and the Greeks tend to bigger with each other and fight and be petty and the Trojans are good folk And that's why the Romans want to come from them rather than from the Greeks because the Greeks are a mess the Trojans are great And that's where they claim so Iliad is Achilles Odyssey is Odysseus's return home And then the Aeneid is the escape and eventual founding of Rome and that story follows Anis on his trips So that's that's the whole story And if people want to pick up one of those three right after this you'd say the Odyssey I'd say start with the Odyssey and then go to the Iliad the Aeneid is kind of a It's almost like a Roman version of the two instead of the the warfare of the Iliad and the trip of the Odyssey He does kind of both of those things just in reverse order So we have the travels first and then the warfare in the second half It's almost like he's trying to do a Roman version of both books It's not my favorite partially because Anis is a far more boring character than Odysseus who's like an atreid kid So I was getting himself into trouble and then talking his way out of it and Achilles who's just angry all the time And is very human Anis's defining trait is Pyatos. He is pious He does what he's supposed to do and follows the gods and as good as that is man It makes for some dry reading sir. Yeah, yeah Poor Anis and he is kind of boring It's kind of a and it's a Roman puff piece and you can read it a lot half of it is about how awesome Rome will eventually be and all There's stuff and then at the very last second he acts Rationally and unmercifully and some some critics see that as a censoring of the Nation building an empire building policies of Rome, but maybe not maybe it was just cool And so who knows it's it's like it feels like a Roman puff piece I recommend the only on the Odyssey.
I think they're for more fun. Well, it's good Well, this has been a classical stuff You should know with Graham AJ and Thomas Thank you for listening if you have questions you can email us at the guys at classical stuff.net if you want to have throw your weight around and Have your suggestions become podcast episodes. You become a patreon on our patreon page You can tweet at us at classical stuff on the Twitter's CLSACAL and you can find us on classical stuff that net all of our back up back episodes Although some of them are slowly disappearing because we are redoing some of the earlier ones just to flush them out and get them a little Just bring the quality up to what we're doing and we're happy to be back on your devices in your ears