The Decision of Paris

• recount the events which lead to the Trojan war, from the marriage of Thetis and Peleus to Paris's misguided abduction of Helena.
• discuss the (cultural) values implicit in Paris's decision to give the apple to Aphrodite.

The Historicity of Troy

After studying this section of the chapter you should be able to identify the possible historical roots of myths concerning the Trojan war.

The Implications of the Story

• discuss how the "complex network of overlapping and contradictory tales" makes it difficult to identify the true beginning of the saga of Troy.
• explain why "the beginning and end of the story of the decision of Paris are obscured in the mysteries of the creation and destruction of the universe itself."
• discuss Achilles' role in the Trojan war as an example of myth's refusal to obey the rules of human chronology and logic.

Conflict in Society and the Cosmos

• discuss the tension between nationalism and familial loyalty in Homer's Illiad.
• discuss disharmony in the human world as a reflection of disharmony in the cosmos.
• discuss the conjunction of the human and divine in the myth of the decision of Paris.
• explain how the story of the decision of Paris presents "a world of human freedom and moral responsibility."

The Trojan Cycle Continues: Events Preceding the Illiad

• explain why Odysseus and Achilles are reluctant to participate in the war against Troy.
• provide evidence to support the text's assertion that "the war on Troy, intended to save a family, begins by destroying one, and the effort is tainted from the start."
• describe the Greeks' strategic and psychological disadvantage at the outbreak of the Trojan war.

The Homeric Epics (363-365)

• identify the questions surrounding the authorship of the Illiad and the Odyssey.
• discuss Homer's epics as interpretations, rather than simple retellings, of extant myths.
• describe the cultural status of the epic in Homer's time.
• discuss how epics transform their mythic sources in order to produce a more coherent narrative.
• explain how Homer's epic similes "ground his works in the soil of real human experience."
• identify some of the literary devices employed by Homer in his epic works.
• discuss the important omissions which allow Homer to "center the Illiad squarely in the human world."
• identify the tension between the hero's nature and his social needs as a human being.
• discuss the "tragic paradox" which all heroes face in selecting their fate.
• explain why the hero's drive for (public) confirmation of his heroic status often leads him to make costly decisions.
• describe how Achilles and Hector are blinded by their own egocentricity.
• explain how Diomedes "possesses the kind of balance that the Greeks later came to admire."
• explain why certain of Odysseus's qualities and motivations make him a "somewhat ambiguous hero."
• describe the disorder among the Olympians re the Trojan war.
• explain why the gods' intervention in human affairs is ultimately superficial.
• draw on examples from the Illiad in order to illustrate the gods' limitations.
• discuss the essential freedom of individuals as evinced in the Illiad's three recurring motifs: the dual destinies, the image of the scales, and the two urns.
• identify the ambiguity in Homer's portrayal of the heroic code.
• describe the ideal model of heroic combat and describe how, in the Illiad, this ideal ultimately devolves into something more "nightmarish" than noble.
• use the example of Andromache and Hercules to explain why women are "the real victims in the masculine world of the epics."
• discuss Homer's decision to end the Illiad with Hector's funeral.
• discuss the psychological equivalent to the journey to the Underworld in the myth of Achilles.

The Trojan Cycle Completed

After studying this section of the chapter you should be able to recount the myths which continue the Trojan saga to the end of the war and beyond; namely, the death of Achilles; the Trojan horse; and the return of the Achaeans.