Troilus - The Story in The Ancient World

The Story in The Ancient World

For the ancient Greeks, the tale of the Trojan War and the surrounding events appeared in its most definitive form in the Epic Cycle of eight narrative poems from the archaic period in Greece (750 BC – 480 BC). The story of Troilus is one of a number of incidents that helped provide structure to a narrative which extended over several decades and 77 books from the beginning of the Cypria to the end of the Telegony. The character's death early in the war and the prophecies surrounding him demonstrated that all Trojan efforts to defend their home would be in vain. His symbolic significance is evidenced by linguistic analysis of his Greek name "Troilos". It can be interpreted as an elision of the names of Tros and Ilos, the legendary founders of Troy, as a diminutive or pet name "little Tros" or as an elision of Troië (Troy) and lyo (to destroy). These multiple possibilities emphasise the link between the fates of Troilus and of the city in which he lived. On another level, Troilus' fate can also be seen as foreshadowing the subsequent deaths of his murderer Achilles, and of his nephew Astyanax and sister Polyxena, who, like Troilus, die at the altar in at least some versions of their stories.

Given this, it is unfortunate that the Cypria – the part of the Epic Cycle which covers the period of the Trojan War in which Troilus' death fell – does not survive. Indeed no complete narrative of his story remains from archaic times or the subsequent classical period (479–323 BC). Most of the literary sources from before the Hellenistic age (323–31 BC) that even referred to the character are lost or survive only in fragments or summary. The surviving ancient and medieval sources, whether literary or scholarly, contradict each other and many do not tally with the form of the myth that scholars now believe to have existed in the archaic and classical periods.

Partially compensating for the missing texts are the physical artifacts that remain from the archaic and classical periods. The story of the circumstances around Troilus' death was a popular theme among pottery painters. (The Beazley Archive website lists 108 items of Attic pottery alone from the 6th to 4th centuries BC containing images of the character.) Troilus also features on other works of art and decorated objects from those times. It is a common practice for those writing about the story of Troilus as it existed in ancient times to use both literary sources and artifacts to build up an understanding of what seems to have been the most standard form of the myth and its variants. The brutality of this standard form of the myth is highlighted by commentators such as Alan Sommerstein, an expert on ancient Greek drama, who describes it as "horrific" and "erhaps the most vicious of all the actions traditionally attributed to Achilles."