The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War has just been published and the reviews have been good, as far as I have been able to read. Is anyone on this list familiar with Caroline Alexander? Is she a trustworthy writer on this subject? Any opinions would be appreciated.

She wrote The Bounty : The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. It was well researched with lots of references to primary sources. The blurb says that she received a doctorate in classics from Columbia University and apparently lectured at University of Malawi starting their classics department. So apparently she has some chops. If she has any background in ancient warfare is another issue.

I’m presently reading The Bounty and enjoying it very much!
It’s very well reached and based on reliable sources, which should be taken to account on further works by the author.

You can find a review here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/books/...

After this tread, I put the The War That Killed Achilles on my wishlist!

She also wrote The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, which I've been meaning to read. I can't wait to see what she does with the Trojan War.

I await the review on Bryn Mawr, which is usually quite dependable

Is there any original source for the study of this war besides Homer?

In a way. There is archaeological evidence, and there are things in the Hittite archives that could be related.

well for a start its a MYTH, something barry strauss seemed to have forgotten. so i cant really see how you can approach it the way you might the story of the bounty, which was in historical times and had eye witness accounts.

What it seems strange to me, besides making a whole history book out of very few original sources, is naming it "The War That Killed Achillis", as if the existence of Achillis is certain.

To Barking Matt:

". . .things in the Hittite archives that could be related" (*7)

Hittite has been for a long time on, so to speak, my "TBR" of language learning.

I remember speculating in a paper (of about 1975? about the one mention of writing in Homer. I said we donʻt know in what language or script the writing was, but it may have been Hittite hieroglyphics. It was a sealed message carried to Anatolia --probably to the area of the Hittite Empire or Federation from Greece-- of which the meaning was: Kill the bearer.

It is described as containing "semata lugra/ thumophthora, polla, mal! (grievous signs, and many of them, that could destroy an individual!)
Or as Murray of the Loeb Cl. Libr. translates it: "Signs, full many and deadly.)

So your noting of the Hittite Archives is useful.

>8:

"According to the archaeological and historical findings of the past decade especially, it is now more likely than not that there were several armed conflicts in and around Troy at the end of the Late Bronze Age. At present we do not know whether all or some of these conflicts were distilled in later memory into the "Trojan War" or whether among them there was an especially memorable, single "Trojan War." However, everything currently suggests that Homer should be taken seriously . . . ."
-- Manfred Korfman, chief archaelogist at the Troy site, who has worked there for 16 years.

More here: http://www.archaeology.org/0405/etc/troy...

Zpráva editována jejím autorem, lis 6, 2009, 12:40am.

To Barkingmatt and Tatarana:

Good answer, Barkingmatt -- assuming that "original" in the question means "Older than, or as old as Homer". My short answer would have been "no", but with the proviso that things written centuries later -- Quintus of Smyrna, for example-- take up the story. (The death of Achilles and the fall of Troy donʻt take place in the Iliad.)

I donʻt object to "The War that Killed Achilles" as a title, provided itʻs understood that the killing of Achilles doesnʻt actually happen in the Iliad. It ends with the funeral of Hector. The last line is "Hos hoi gʻamphiepon taphon Hektoros hippodamoio" (This was how they conducted the funeral of horse-taming Hector.) One manuscript gives the last 2 lines as: "Hos hooi gʻamphiepon taphon Hektoros; elthe d"Amazon/ Areos thugater megaletoros androphonoio." (This was how they conducted the funeral of Hector, and an Amazon arrived, a daughter of great-hearted, man-killing Ares.)

You have done well, Barkingmatt, to note the possible importance of the Hittite Archives. Hittite has been a sort of "TBR" of language learning with me for some years now.

I remember speculating back in the 70s in an article, which wasnʻt primarily on Homer, that
Hittite hieroglyphics may have been the script in which was written the only writing that is mentioned anywhere in Homer. Though itʻs not sure that Homer was even concerned with what was the script, or even the language, of the message he mentions (I think in Book VI). He seems to assume that all the Greek World and its environs spoke Greek.)

The writing, sealed, is carried by Bellerophon from European Greece to Anatolia -- likely to the area of the Hittite Empire or Federation. It is described as "semata lugra/...thumophthora, polla mal!" (grievous signs, and many of them, that might destroy an individual)/ Or, as Murray of the Loeb Cl. Libr. translates it "signs, full many and deadly." The gist of the message, the words of which are not quoted, was presumably: Please kill the bearer. Itʻs implied that a lot of "scratchings" (aka "writings") were needed to give a very short message.

Since the Hittites used cuneiform script "a lot of scratchings" would be a very apt description. Unfortunately I'm utterly dependent on translations for Hittite too, but I seem to remember (it's been a long time) there were some Hittite sources referring to conflicts between one of their vasal states (identified as Troy) and people from further west (identified as Aegaeans).

However, in how far these identifications are coloured by scholars expecting / wanting to find the Trojan war I can't say.

"....Hittites....cuneiform script.
....people identified as Aegaeans." -- #13

Where I said "Hittite hieroglyphics", that was possibly a mistake, and should have been "Hittite cuneiform".

In college Greek History given by archaeologist Sterling Dow, we heard of sources that used the word "Akhaiwasha" which was assumed to mean "Achaeans". (The ethnic name "Greek" (Hellenes) b t w, was never used by Homer.) "Akhaiwasha, however, may have been f rom Archaic Greek, not from Hittite. But Iʻm not sure. They are considered a "People of the Sea" one of the peoples who included some from as far away as Sardinia, and who invaded the area of Troy, about the 12th century.

The decipherment of Linear B, now believed by almost everyone to be early Greek, was going on at the time of this course. A student -- not me-- asked "Isn ʻt Linear B going to turn out to be an early form of Greek?" I could tell from Dowʻs reply that he had heard of this "theory" (it was only a theory, then), and that he doubted it. Yet it is now the almost universal belief about
Linear B.
Linear A, which may well have been a Semitic language, has not had an accepted decipherment, unless you accept the decipherment of the controversial Cyrus H. Gordon. I own Gordonʻs Evidence for the Minoan Language (Ventnor Publishers, 1966).

Yeah, as far as I know Linear A is still a problem. It would seem Cyrus Gordon went a bit overboard there - though I've heard he was sometimes brilliant in his interpretations of Ugaritic.

As for Hittites using cuneiform - that was for their archives, but so did the ancient Egyptians (at least during the Amarna period) for some of their archives. It seems to have been the international diplomatic script of the era, so it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't also have a script of their own.

The Hittites did use a form of hieroglyphics on their monuments and whatnot though, didn't they? I'm nowhere near a Hittite scholar, but I thought I read that somewhere, how the cyclopaean masonry at Hattusas had bizarre characters etched in. I could always be mistaken however ;-)

Speaking of the Trojan War though, I am translating the Aeneid and I just got to the part where Vergil is having Aeneas talk about what the siege of the citadel looked like... I had forgotten how full of Jerry Bruckheimer-esque anachronistic goodness it was! I'm sure most of you have read it, but essentially he gives a vivid description of a (for him) modern Roman assault on a fortified position, complete with men in the characteristically Roman testudo formation :-D So I guess Hollywood wasn't the first to chew up history and spit it back out again...hehe

Far from a Hittitetologist (is that a word?) myself, but I think you're right. I wouldn't call them hieroglyphics though, because that would suggest they used Egyptian style script and they seem to have had their very own.

Like I said, cuneiform just seems to have been standard for diplomatic script at the time - the Amarna letters are in cuneiform too.

Oh absolutely; but I've heard of Linear A/B and Mayan writing referred to as "hieroglyphics" as well, so I've always just taken the term to mean any sort of pictorial writing system. But yeah you're totally right about cuneiform; you gotta figure it was like the "Blackberry" of its day, you know? Once someone figured out a way to keep records without drawing pictures of every single word (saving time and space....hmm... in a non-sci fi sense, that is haha) it seems to have spread like wildfire, and in the end you have many different languages which had wildly different origins (as far as we know) all using it to write their words. Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite...they all had nothign to do with each other linguistically speaking, but they all used the same form of writing (with varying degrees of accuracy) to record things.

Zpráva editována jejím autorem, lis 7, 2009, 11:21am.

Oh the joys of this list. I ask a simple question about a book and before I know it, I am observing, since it seems that I have very little to add except how great my ignorance is, a discussion about the views of Linear A/B and its possible effect of the growth on the new field of Hittitelogy. Maybe there is a new professorship in the wind.

Oh, I'm way out of my area of expertise here too. But I do love the bronze age.