Besides being told in innumerable Greek versions, the tale of Troy has frequently been repeated in Latin, and it enjoyed immense popularity all throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.  It was, however, most beloved in France, where Benoit de St. Maur’s interminable “Roman de Troie,” as well as his “Roman d’Alexandre,” greatly delighted the lords and ladies of his time.

Besides the works based on the story of Troy or on the adventures of Alexander, we have in Greek the Theogony of Hesiod in some 1022 lines, a miniature Greek mythology, giving the story of the origin and the doings of the Greek gods, as well as the Greek theory in regard to the creation of the world.

Among later Greek works we must also note the Shield of Heracles and the Eoiae or Catalogue of the Boetian heroines who gave birth to demi-gods or heroes.

In 194 B.C.  Apollonius Rhodius at Alexandria wrote the Argonautica, in four books, wherein he relates the adventures of Jason in quest of the golden fleece.  This epic was received so coldly that the poet, in disgust, withdrew to Rhodes, where, having remodelled his work, he obtained immense applause.

The principal burlesque epic in Greek, the Bactrachomyomachia, or Battle of Frogs and Mice, is attributed to Homer, but only some 300 lines of this work remain, showing what it may have been.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  A detailed account of Oedipus, Heracles, the Argonauts, and the “War of Troy” is given in the author’s “Myths of Greece and Rome.”]

THE ILIAD

Introduction. Jupiter, king of the gods, refrained from an alliance with Thetis, a sea divinity, because he was told her son would be greater than his father.  To console her, however, he decreed that all the gods should attend her nuptials with Peleus, King of Thessaly.  At this wedding banquet the Goddess of Discord produced a golden apple, inscribed “To the fairest,” which Juno, Minerva, and Venus claimed.

Because the gods refused to act as umpires in this quarrel, Paris, son of the King of Troy, was chosen.  As an oracle had predicted before his birth that he would cause the ruin of his city, Paris was abandoned on a mountain to perish, but was rescued by kindly shepherds.

On hearing Juno offer him worldly power, Minerva boundless wisdom, and Venus the most beautiful wife in the world, Paris bestowed the prize of beauty upon Venus.  She, therefore, bade him return to Troy, where his family was ready to welcome him, and sail thence to Greece to kidnap Helen, daughter of Jupiter and Leda and wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta.  So potent were this lady’s charms that her step-father had made all her suitors swear never to carry her away from her husband, and to aid in her recovery should she ever be kidnapped.