#Polyxena

[theodysseyofhomer]

that one scene in hecuba

[hlblng]

"Never again, never again shall I look on the light of the sun" - Euripides' Hekabe (transl. Anne Carson)

When the Greeks sail to Troy to retrieve Helen, wife of Menelaos, and lay waste to the city of Troy, the greek army is prevented from sailing on in Aulis. Artemis has been angered and demands a blood sacrifice in exchange for the winds that will carry the ships to the shores of Ilium.

So Agamemnon, chief commander of the army of Hellas, sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia at the altar of the goddess. Her death in exchange for eternal glory.

After the sacking of Troy, the remnants of the victorious greek army make ready to sail for home. But Achilles' vengeful ghost halts the winds, demanding proper sacrifice at his grave. Achilles demands blood in exchange for the winds that will carry the ships to the shores of Hellas.

So Odysseus and Agamemnon choose Polyxena, the youngest daughter of Priam and Hekabe, a princess of Troy. Her death in exchange for a homecoming worthy of the victors of Troy.

Though these two events are 10 years apart in the context of the story of the Trojan war, these two girls have always been connected with each other in my head. I imagine them at a similar age, looking similar even. I imagine Agamemnon thinking of Iphigenia as he watches Polyxena bleed out in front of him. Two sides of the same coin.

[ala-chrisgoods]

Imagine you have a lot of young siblings and Now there are thunder and lightning so they can't sleep, jump into your bed and scream 'Hector Hector'

some sketch in February, I love Trojan family.☺️❤️

[dilfaeneas]

Hecuba children height and age chart at the start of the war

How things stand at the start vs the end of the 10th year. Oof. (Ages/heights not adjusted)

[katerinaaqu]

I love it how everyone is so hyping over how sweet and romantic Achilles is or even his anger issues and rage but...can we all like talk more on how obsessed that kid was with human sacrifice?

I mean...he sacrifices 12 Trojans to the funeral pyre of Patroclus (and two of his dogs) and then demands Polyxena as his human sacrifice...

I feel no one remembers these 12 Trojans! Poor guys!

Patroclus from the afterlife be like: Dude...no!

[incorrecthomer]

Cassandra: if you put 'violently' in front of anything to describe your action, it becomes funnier Helenus: violently studies Deiphobus: violently procrastinates Polyxena: violently bakes Paris: violently kidnap queenn of Sparta Hector: violently worries about that last sentence

[littlesparklight]

Got the (foolish lol) idea to go through some of the works I know give physical descriptions of at least some Trojan war characters and collate them. They aren't in alphabetic order, sorry, but the works/authors are colour coded, at least!

Trojans in this post!

Priam The Iliad: "beautiful as a god" = theoeides Dares: a handsome face and a pleasant voice. He was large and swarthy. Malalas, Chronographia: tall for the age, big, good, ruddy-colored, light-eyed, long-nosed, eyebrows meeting, keen-eyed, gray, restrained. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: meeting eyebrows and large nose, a fiercely glaring, flame-coloured skin and an admirable face, well-equipped, with thick hair and beautiful eyes.

Hecuba Dares: beautiful, her figure large, her complexion dark. She thought like a man and was pious and just. Malalas, Chronographia: dark, good eyes, full grown, good nose, beautiful, generous, talkative, calm. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: dark skin, tall and pretty, of a mature age, ambitious, gentle though.

Hektor Dares: Hector spoke with a slight lisp. His complexion was fair, his hair curly. His eyes would blink attractively. His movements were swift. His face, with its beard, was noble. He was handsome, fierce, and high-spirited, merciful to the citizens, and deserving of love. Philostratus, Heroicus: [Hektor and Aeneas] were both of the same age and height, and although Aeneas's appearance seemed less radiant[…], He was smaller than the son of Telamon, but not at all inferior in fighting, […] Short hair. His ears were damaged, not by wrestling […] but he fought against bulls and considered engagement with such beasts warlike. […] He died probably at the age of thirty. Malalas, Chronographia: dark-skinned, tall, very stoutly built, strong, good nose, wooly-haired, good beard, squinting, speech defect, noble, fearsome warrior, deep-voiced.

Andromache Dares: bright-eyed and fair, with a tall and beautiful body. She was modest, wise, chaste, and charming. Malalas, Chronographia: above average height, thin, well turned out, good nose, good breasts, good eyes, good brows, wooly hair, blondish hair long in back, large-featured, good neck, dimples on her cheeks, charming, quick. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: spirited, of middle age, with a long face, delightful; she had dimples on her cheeks when laughed.

Paris/Alexander The Iliad: "beautiful as a god" = theoeides, (beautiful hair - not direct quote, merely taken by how his hair is talked about) Dares: fair, tall, and brave. His eyes were very beautiful, his hair soft and blond, his mouth charming, and his voice pleasant. He was swift, and eager to take command. Philostratus, Heroicus: appearance was most pleasing, and his voice and character were charming[…] He had a rather aquiline nose and white skin, his eyes were painted, and his left eyebrow rose above the eye. […] at eighteen he also sailed to Hellas, […] not yet thirty years old when he died. (calls him as good as Pandaros as an archer. He also gets compared to a peacock lol (for the beauty AND the (supposed) vanity of the bird) Malalas, Chronographia: well-grown, sturdy, white, good nose, good eyes, black pupils, black hair, incipient beard, long-faced, heavy eyebrows, big mouth, charming, eloquent, agile, an accurate archer, cowardly, hedonist. [He is in his early thirties when he goes to Sparta, due to being confined until that age, when he's brought back to Troy] Tzetzes, Antehomerica: had his beauty from the Graces. He was white, of a proper age [he is in his early thirties when he goes to Sparta, due to being confined until that age, when he's brought back to Troy], charming and well-bearded; he had his hair long and blond.

Deiphobos Dares: Deiphobus […] looked like [his] father, but [his] character(s) were not alike. Deiphobus was the man of forceful action[…] Malalas, Chronographia: above average stature, keen-eyed, somewhat snub-nosed, dark-skinned, flat-faced, brave, good beard. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: with a large face, with a small nose and dark skin, beautiful face and well-bearded.

Helenos Dares: Helenus […] looked like [his] father, but [his] character(s) were not alike. […] Helenus was the gentle, learned prophet. Malalas, Chronographia: tall, well set up, white, strong, blond, wine-colored eyes, long-nosed, incipient beard, slightly stooped, sensible, warrior. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: well-adapted, tall, with the beard just sprouting, white, blond, with a big nose and a pale face. He had a soft back, he could escape notice of many.

Troilos Dares: a large and handsome boy, was strong for his age, brave, and eager for glory. Malalas, Chronographia: big, good nose, dark, good eyes, black hair, thick beard, strong warrior and runner. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: big, of quick feet and dark skin, with a delightful face, shaggy-bearded and with long hair.

Kassandra The Iliad: like to golden Aphrodite Dares: moderate stature, round-mouthed, and auburn-haired. Her eyes flashed. She knew the future. Malalas, Chronographia: shortish, round-faced, white, mannish figure, good nose, good eyes, dark pupils, blondish, curly, good neck, bulky breasts, small feet, calm, noble, priestly, an accurate prophet foreseeing everything, practicing hard, virgin. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: a small bodily frame, like of a man, whiter than the milk with perfectly round eyes, she had huge breasts, a small face and she was gentle.

Polyxena Dares: fair, tall, and beautiful. Her neck was slender, her eyes lovely her hair blond and long, her body well-proportioned, her fingers tapering, her legs straight, and her feet the best. Surpassing all the others in beauty, she remained a completely ingenuous and kind-hearted woman. Malalas, Chronographia: tall, pure, very white, large-eyed, black-haired, with her hair worn long behind, a good nose and cheeks, blooming-lipped, small-footed, virgin, charming, very beautiful, 18 years old when they killed her. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: a beautiful aspect and a really long neck; she was tall and white; She had small feet, beautiful breasts and lips like flowers, so outstanding. She was eighteen years old, the age of the youth.

Laodike The Iliad: the most outstanding in beauty of [Hecuba's/Priam's] daughters.

Aeneas Dares: auburn-haired, stocky, eloquent, courteous, prudent, pious, and charming. His eyes were black and twinkling. Philostratus, Heroicus: [Hektor and Aeneas] were both of the same age and height, and although Aeneas's appearance seemed less radiant, he resembled Hektor more when that man had settled down, and he wore his hair long without offense. He did not adorn his hair, nor was he enslaved to it. Instead, he made virtue alone his adornment, and he looked at things so vehemently that even his glance itself was sufficient against the unruly. Malalas, Chronographia: shortish, thick, good chest, strong, ruddy, flat-faced, good nose, pale, balding, good beard. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: short but fat and had a big chest. He had white skin; he was bold with a large face.

Antenor Dares: tall, graceful, swift, crafty, and cautious. Malalas, Chronographia: tall, thin, white, blond, small-eyed, hook-nosed, crafty, cowardly, secure, a story-teller, eloquent. Tzetzes, Posthomerica: tall, slim and had the skin like the milk, white, with a curved nose and blond hair.

Euphorbos The Iliad: His hair gets compared to the Graces' hair. Philostratus, Heroicus: His hair […] he dyed golden-yellow […] He says that his beauty charmed even the Achaeans, for he resembled a statue whenever Apollo appears his own most lovely self with unshorn hair and grace. Protesilaos thinks that Euphorbus was his own age [adolescent]

Briseis/Hippodamia The Iliad: like to golden Aphrodite, a woman like the immortal goddesses Dares: beautiful. She was small and blond, with soft yellow hair. Her eyebrows were joined above her lovely eyes. Her body was well-proportioned. She was charming, friendly, modest, ingenuous, and pious. Malalas, Chronographia: tall, fair, beautiful-breasted, well-dressed, with close-knit eyebrows, a good nose, big eyes, eyelashes with kohl, curly hair worn long in back, with a ready smile, age 21. Tzetzes, Antehomerica: tall and white, her hair was black and curly; she had beautiful breasts and cheeks and nose; she was, also, well-behaved; her smile was bright, her eyebrows big; […] she was twenty-one years old.

Diomede of Lesbos Malalas, Chronographia: fair-skinned, round-faced, blue-eyed, fully grown, not quite blonde, a little snub-nosed, 22 years old, a virgin.

Chryseis/Astynome Malalas, Chronographia: rather short, slender fair, blonde, with a nice nose, small breasts, 19 years old. Tzetzes, Antehomerica: very young and thin, with milky skin. She had blond hair and small breasts; she was nineteen years old; she was still a virgin.

[lotussgrl]

Pio Fedi (1885-1865)

[smokey07]

Some Iliad character designs of the old Greek Myth children comic book series published a long time ago in my home country, which had low key inspired my art years later.

I used to own the whole series, now I don’t even know where some of the volumes are.

P.S the whole series is a combination of many famous myths and is arranged in a somewhat chronological order, so from the formation of the world towards the rise of the 12 Olympians and in the end the Age of Heroes and Aeneid.

Hector with his magnificent mustache

Aeneas

Andromache, she is so pretty

Paris and Polyxena

Big Ajax ( ft Achilles and Odysseus chilling in the background)

Helen my girl

Clytemnestra. She’s magnificent.

Menelaus(left) and Agamemnon(right). Looking back, the little crown on Agamemnon’s head is killing me fr. This is also why long hair Menelaus is supreme.

Diomedes, he has very generic design compared to the others, which ironically fits his fate of being underrated.

Odysseus. I swear the artist is a Ody fanboy, he was given the silkiest and floatiest hair, though the red color made him look like Achilles’ cooler cousin, even more than Ajax.

The inspo for this long post, Achilles himself. It seems they followed the “Pyrrha” route, so he is a redhead here. Funny that he was drawn to be quite huge and bulky, in some scene even more than Ajax.

Neoptolemus. He had red-brown hair instead and had very minor appearance in the whole series, so they just drawn him like a smaller and younger Achilles

[sarafangirlart]

“Agamemnon didn’t want to kill Polyxena!” He still enslaved and separated her family, sacked her city and raped her sister.

[silmarillaure]

I both love and hate Polyxena’s story.

I hate it because she deserved way better than what she got but I love it because she’s one of the only Trojan siblings who accomplishes any of their major goals.

I love that she played a part in the death of Achilles.

The guy had some audacity to think she’d want him after he savagely desecrated her brother Hector’s corpse, after he possibly raped but definitely savagely killed very young brother Troilus, and after he killed countless other brothers and relatives of hers.

I’m glad this teenage girl lured her pedophile tormentor to his death & even though she paid the price of her revenge with her own life, she died so bravely.

[theodysseyofhomer]

it's interesting how often odysseus' role is to get his hands dirty by shepherding along the next plot point. i'm thinking about iphigenia and polyxena, because i'm obsessed with polyxena right now, but it's like agamemnon and achilles are in opposite positions re: the parallel sacrifices and odysseus is just. getting the girls from point a to point b by whatever means necessary. what's most expedient to keep the plot moving? that's what he'll do

[girlfromenglishclass]

"Iphigeneia and Antigone are sensationally significant victims: Iphigeneia's sacrifice is the lynchpin of all that happens to Agamemnon afterwards; Antigone's death is the transcendent culmination of Sophokles' play. The deaths change the stories in which they are set, transform the lives around them and force moral reasoning to an extreme confrontation with itself.

Polyxena's death is different. It is not placed at the beginning or the end of the play but muffled in the middle; does not constitute either cause or culmination of the action; it does not change the plot or other people in any substantial way, and it forces us to no moral conclusion at all except that such a sacrifice is irrelevant to the world in which it is staged.

Polyxena is a shooting star that wipes itself across the play and disappears. And Euripides wants us to notice this -- this irrelevance of Polyxena.

- Anne Carson, in the preface to "Hekabe," from Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides

[mt-isnothere12]

i didnt add the more normalized names like helen, penelope, kassandra, or hektor

i didnt add most children of priam bc well…yk why

achean ver

[adriles]

tragically, i'm afraid i'll be passing away due to the whims of Fate within a month. in lieu of returning my remains to my native pythia, kindly just put me in the fucking dirt and offer my spirit a violent sacrifice.

[katerinaaqu]

Ugh! I hate it when sources contradict each other and somehow ALL are awesome when I try to build my stories!

Take Troilus and Polyxena for example!

Ancient sources like we believe Cypria and all mention how Troilus was killed early on in the war when he was literally a child. The Iliad also implies that Troilus was already dead at that point given the speech given by Priam. However other sources indicate that Troilus was killed at the tenth year of the war which could imply that he was getting dangerously close to the age of 21 and sources like Aeneiad seem to also speak on the great talent of Troilus in battle.

On one hand it is the most ancient sources like Homer the ones that speak of Troilus being killed early and we assume he was literally a child! Which makes his death really tragic and sad (or even more disturbing given the OTHER interpretations that seem to be hinted by the vases aka the rape and beheading of Troilus in the altar) as well as the power imbalance and the potential foreshadowing of the brutality of taking of Troy or the madness of Achilles (in one way if we bind these sources with Statius Achilleid we COULD get a connection here but still seems like an overkill for Achilles that early on unless of course he was already charged up with the whole Aulis business)

On the other hand seems rather overkill that Athena sends the strongest of all Greeks to slaughter a child (not to mention what was a literal child doing alone with his horses out in the middle of a bloody war?) The brutality of the crime could be more explained if Achilles was swaying between reason and madness after the death of Patroclus (also Apollo being the father of Troilus could explain his hatred for the offspring of the God that helped to slay his companion) Troilus would still be young but also show a bit off his strength and the explanation as to why he absolutely HAD to be slaughtered so that he wouldn't be Hector #2 and lead the counter attack to the Greeks and it could explain why Athena sent Achilles of all people to slay Troilus (parallels and all) or the urgency for it.

So yeah! I am in a dead end 😫 hahahahaha all sources work so well and have life of their own and create their own individual stories! I might as well create different versions in the end (given that from those who didn't realize it yet I WAS planning to add Troilus one way or another to my Achillochus one-shot anthology)

And we also have Polyxena business and the death of Achilles! We do have the classical version of the story in which after Achilles loses Antilochus in battle he challenges Memnon in a duel and wins and then enraged he charges the attack against the Trojans and leads them close to the walls once more but eventually he is killed by Paris at the gates of Troy. But did you know that one version of the story indicates that Polyxena charmed Achilles so much that Achilles considered fucking treason? He goes to Priam and suggests that he will fight for him as long as he gets Polyxena as his wife. Priam is ecstatic and agrees but it seems that the whole thing is a ploy (most likely organized by his children rather than Priam himself). When Achilles is lured in the temple Paris is hidden in there and shoots Achilles and he dies.

Alright this is a bit easier for me to choose from because apart from the moment of the Iliad where Achilles wishes death to the Greeks to protect his honor, treason goes a bit too far even for him. I doubt he would just randomly switch sides because he wants to marry. If anything he would focus even more to burn Troy to the ground till he gets what he wants. And sure that could explain A BIT his ghost demanding Polyxena as he holds a grudge against her or something but still I'd say nah here. Maybe he was smitten for her but I doubt that he would betray everything he stands for in order to get her.

However I have to say even if I might as well go with the version that Achilles dies by the walls of Troy I find really interesting that there is a version in which the Trojans needed to perform a literal trick themselves because they wouldn’t think they could take Achilles down otherwise or Polyxena also taking some active role as a bait or potentially organizer and it is really tempting the idea of Paris coming out of a vase or something with his bow like "surprise motherfucker!"

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