For Honor. For Victory. Seriously, For Some Actual History.
Troy is a fictionalized account of an event, which is not yet verified as historical, so it’s weird that it is making an appearance in a history blog, right? A little, yes. However, it really does have value in the study of history. While Homer’s Iliad (and peripheral works) tried to tell us an epic tale of heroes, kings, lovers, and model horse building, it also accidentally told us a lot about the culture that produced those works.
The 2004 film version of the story, then, is what happens when one tries to transcribe these 2700-year-old stories into a format which is relevant and appealing to its contemporary audiences. Considering this, it’s possible to view Troy in a few different lights: 1) a really bad version of the Iliad, or 2) a pretty faithful continuation of the Homeric tradition.
To frame the question of what history can be gotten from the movie, Troy, it’s worth looking at what history can be gotten from the Iliad and the Odyssey, and peripheral stories of the Trojan war. …and there is some!
The Iliad, as we have received it, is Homer (whatever he actually was) telling the story as he understood it, which sometimes made it clear that he didn’t actually understand what was happening. Here are examples!
- The use of chariots — Homer’s iron age world remembered that there were chariots, but didn’t remember how they were used in bronze age battle. We know, from the gentle art of archeology, that chariots were used to break up infantry lines, whose formations were more important in the ancient world. In the Iliad, however, they are not used like that. They are used basically just as transportation. Similarly, the myths of the gods associates each god with an animal, and that god has a chariot pulled by these animals. Honestly, though, I have yet to hear a myth in which the gods actually use their chariots (aside from Helios, but his is a work chariot).
- The lifestyle of kings and queens — the bronze age kings and queens of this world were much like our image of kings and queens, which is largely informed by our understanding of medieval Europe. These kings and queens had lots of money and lots of people to do things for them. The classical Greeks actually did understand this part–that Agamemnon was “rich in gold,” as Homer put it (11.28 of the Iliad). This is undeniably true. Excavation of Mycenaean citadels has revealed both shaft and honeycomb tombs with extravagant funerary ware, such as the Mask Of Agamemnon, which, yes, is a lot of gold. Homer definitely knew that Agamemnon was rich, but tried to reconcile that with the royal lifestyles that he knew. In that world, kings and queens did things for their selves, because they weren’t that rich. Kings worked fields, and raided other Kings’ cities. Queens cooked, and made textiles. Odysseus’ queen, Penelope, famously weaves tapestries, in the Odyssey. Homer tried to reconcile this by calling Agamemnon something like a king over kings, which doesn’t really appear anywhere else in Greek lore–most poleis have a king, before becoming aristocracies, but those kings don’t answer to anyone. Sparta is an interesting exception, but only because their kings eventually gave in to the Persian King of Kings’ kind offer to become part of the Persian empire, after the Peloponnesian War, and that has nothing to do with Mycenaean governance.
In short, Homer tells a story in the way that made sense to that culture. Here, in our modern film, Troy, we really have the same thing, where the filmmakers are telling the same story, but in a way that makes sense to us. Here are examples!
- Agamemnon’s character — In Homer’s Iliad, Agamemnon, the Mycenaean king of kings, is beautiful and kingly, and the finest warrior on the battlefield, at least when Achilles is sulking in his tent, instead of fighting. In Troy, Agamemnon, as played by Brian Cox, is none of those things. No slight to Brian Cox intended — he is a fine actor, and I loved him in Super Troopers — but he is not tall and not Hollywood-handsome. His casting is meant to portray Agamemnon as an ambitious, greedy, and peevish man. …and while Agamemnon is those things, the classical age Greeks did not find them to be exclusive with beautiful and kingly kings — kings were beautiful and kingly simply because they were kings, and really, anything good about any person just was, in proportion to the nobility of their blood. So, the most kingly of kings just naturally would have been the most beautiful, the most talented, the most of lots of things. If the filmmakers wanted a true classical-age Agamemnon, he should have been played by another Brad Pitt.
- Ajax as a soldier and a king — disregarding the fact that the Iliad features 2 guys named “Ajax”, both kings of Greek poleis, Troy’s Ajax is played by big and buff Tyler Mane, and that part would be fine because one of the Ajaxes is described as “huge”, but in the film, he fights with a huge hammer and no shirt, which are not very kingly. Being portrayed like a barbarian plays to our modern images of big bruiser warriors being savage, but the Greeks wouldn’t have styled even the buffest of kings as a barbarian. He should be wearing nice armor, and fighting with a spear, which is the noble weapon for Greeks. …fun fact — there is a deleted scene, in which the kings convene for a council, and in that scene, Ajax is there, and indeed, wearing a fine jewel-encrusted shirt. Good job, deleted scene, but bad job, director Wolfgang Petersen, for cutting that scene.
- The role of the gods — there is an obvious one, here, in that the gods are in the Iliad, while they are not in the movie Troy, and their absence in the film ignores the fact that the whole war happened because of the Trojan prince Paris having received a bribe, as a judge a beauty contest between Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera. It ignores quite a bit else, though, in what the gods actually do in the Iliad. In Homer’s version, much of the success of anyone depends on the favor given to them by the gods. Sometimes Patroclus is the most fearsome warrior on the field. Sometimes Hector is the most fearsome warrior on the field, and sometimes he’s so scared of fighting that he can only run away, as Achilles chases him in circles around the city walls. It just depends on who Zeus feels like blessing, at the moment. Sometimes a warrior isn’t even needed — at one point in the war, Zeus comes down to the field, and waves an aegis around, making people scared wherever he points it. …and in 2004, that doesn’t make for very effective filmmaking, because….well, why? Zeus isn’t even in the war, and jumping into battle and making people scared for no reason doesn’t do anything. More to the point, however, isn’t really just that moving. Modern audiences want to see warriors prevail through skill and determination, not because a god allows them to, so that’s what Troy does: Achilles prevails because he’s the G.O.A.T., but only when he finds the necessary spirit. …and then dies because of several arrows to the torso, instead of just the one to the heel, completely ignoring the biggest contribution of the gods to this story.
While it feels strange to say, Troy is actually very faithful to Homer. …but not because of the details. It’s faithful to the same tradition as Homer, with both storytellers simply trying to tell the story in a way that makes sense to its contemporary audience. The Iliad wanted to show off the power and majesty and insane soap opera of the gods, and Troy wants people to succeed on their own merits, and die from ankle wounds of their own shortcomings, not because of any influence from the gods. Both really accomplish their own goals very well, with the Iliad describing the glory of the gods, and Troy show the glory of Brad Pitt’s butt.
Also, this movie should never have been made, because as soon as you put an actual face on Helen of Sparta/Troy, she’s no longer the most beautiful woman in the world, even if she is Diane Kruger.
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