The Meaning(s) of May Day.

Jeff—Saturday

Friday is the first of May, a national holiday in Greece.  It’s a day filled with traditions, some brought on by thoughts of rejoicing at the end of winter, others by memories of a day sacred to organized labor, one that most Americans know little about—but we’ll get to that later.  Anyway, I thought, “This is a perfect subject for this week’s post,” and began to write, accompanied by this nagging sense of déjà vu all over again. 

Sure enough, I plowed back through my old posts and found I’d written about May Day a dozen years ago.  I thought to reinvent the wheel—or in this case the springtime wreath—but decided it more in keeping with the national labor strikes aspect of this day to simply do nothing but tinker with the old piece. Besides, the history behind this worldwide May Day hullabaloo has not changed. 

Did you know that May 1^st celebrations go back to ancient pagan days and that virtually all northern hemisphere cultures had some sort of “spring rite” festivities?

Why of course you did.

The earliest festivals were linked to the Roman goddess of flowers (Flora), Germanic celebrations of what is now called Walpurgis Night (named after the patron saint of those suffering from rabies, it’s also known as “the witches sabbath” coming precisely six months after All Hallows Eve—interesting combination), and the Celtic Beltane (a springtime festival of optimism).

Walpurgis Night Fireworks

May 1st ends the hunker down winter mindset, and harbingers the coming joyful days of summer. 

On Mykonos locals take great pride in fashioning circular wreaths out of grape vines tied off with bunches of wildflowers (aloe, statice, geraniums, daises, lavender, and the like), angelica, olive, rosemary, wheat, bay leaf, and for some, whole cloves of garlic.  They’re quite beautiful and for those wreaths proudly hung on front doors which survive another Mykonian tradition—wreath heisting by neighborhood children—they’re burned on the day of the Summer Solstice (June 22^nd) as the adventuresome jump over the flames three times making a wish as they do…probably not to burn off their you-know-whats in the process.   

Did you also know that May Day is International Worker’s Day?  If you live virtually anywhere outside of the U.S. you probably do.  Inside, likely not.  The U.S. has stuck to the first Monday in September as its Labor Day and Americans generally associate May 1^st with a communist or socialist workers holiday, complete with grandiose military parades in such places as Russia, North Korea, and Cuba. 

May Day Demonstration London

I’d venture to say most Americans have no idea that International Worker’s Day is officially celebrated in most countries around the world not to glorify any foreign ideal or event, but to mark what occurred in Chicago, Illinois on May 4, 1888.

Permit me to lift the following description of what happened from Wikipedia’s entry, “The Haymarket Affair.”

“The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) refers to the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians, and the wounding of scores of others.

“In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy, although the prosecution conceded none of the defendants had thrown the bomb. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. The death sentences of two of the defendants were commuted by Illinois governor Richard J. Oglesby to terms of life in prison, and another committed suicide in jail rather than face the gallows. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois’ new governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial.

“The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers.  The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark on March 25, 1992, and a public sculpture was dedicated at the site in 2004. The Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument in nearby Forest Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark on February 18, 1997.”

That ends today’s history lesson. Now go outside and enjoy the sunshine!

––Jeff

A Bit of Greek Humor to Help Us Get By.

 

 

Jeff—Saturday

There really isn’t much uplifting news to report these days, aside of course from this Weekend's Sweet Sixteen NCAA Basketball games. But there remains humor to be found ... at least for Greeks. 

So, rather than droning on about what confronts us on so many fronts, permit me to share with you a bit of uniquely Greek humor. Unique I say, because it brings Greek gods into play in jokes I lifted directly from jokes4us.com.

What game did the Greek Gods play?

Hydra and go seek.

What did the Ancient Greeks wear on their feet?

Tennis Zeus.

How do Greek women get ready for a toga party?

With A Hera appointment.

Have you seen the movies about Greek Mythology?

No? Well you odyssey them.

                                                                                                                 

What do you call a musician petrified by Medusa?

A rockstar.

Why doesn't Aphrodite date tennis players?

Because love means nothing to them.

What did Poseidon say to the sea monster?

What's Kraken?

Why does Ares only have a Sony Playstation?

Because he is the "God Of War."

Who did Artemis invite to her birthday party?

Her nearest and deer-est friends.

What breed of horse was the Trojan horse?

A nightmare.

What do you call the Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie about the Greek Bailouts?

The Last Action Gyro.

And punny you should ask, but yes, now you know why I have such an affinity for Greece. :)

—Jeff

What Is Greece's Play in the The World We're Living In?

Xenia Kounalaki

Saturday–Jeff

For those of you interested in how Greece–a country of 10 million souls that faces persistent aggressive claims to its land and resources by its neighbor of 88 million (Turkey)–is responding to what's captivating international headlines, this past week's article in Greece's paper of record, Kathimerini, by long time columnist Xenia Kounalaki, may help you find an answer for yourself. 

It's titled, "The Greek 'cheerleaders' of Trumpism."

The Greek government has many opinions on the issue of Venezuela. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis believes that the US operation to arrest Nicolas Maduro was carried out because President Donald Trump is intolerant of authoritarian regimes and wants to restore democratic order.

Along the same lines, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis commented, “Let’s let the people of Venezuela enjoy their first moments of freedom after so many years of a leftist junta and wish them a great, bright democratic future!” He even compared the situation in Venezuela to the 1967-1974 dictatorship in Greece.

Following closely, Immigration Minister Thanos Plevris believes that the American president’s goal is not “to seize territory or change a legally elected government,” but “to arrest a criminal because of the drug trafficking he is carrying out in America.”

“A communist dictator, who had transformed his country’s economy into a drug trafficking center, is no longer in power,” is the assessment of New Democracy lawmaker Makis Voridis, who combines the two aforementioned positions: that the US is fighting a two-pronged battle, against drugs and authoritarianism. The refrain, however, is common: “There is no question of international law” or, as the prime minister put it, “this is not the time.”

And yet it is probably precisely the time to raise the issue of international legitimacy, because after Venezuela, Greenland is next. The major European countries rushed to stand by its side, but they did not ask Greece, because, on the one hand, it is a small country, and on the other, it does not seem to be troubled by America’s aggressive foreign policy. No European country has so far demonstrated particular bravery or willingness to question Trump. But there is great distance between their stance and half the Greek cabinet being more Catholic than the pope.

 “It’s one thing to be restrained and play the game we should – and you see that all Europeans are in a difficult position – and another to applaud,” admitted New Democrat MP Dimitris Kairidis. Indeed, because “karma is a bitch.” Trump, as we all know, has good relations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. If Turkey offers Trump interesting quid pro quos, he could sacrifice his “cheerleaders” in Athens overnight. And what will they invoke then? International legitimacy?

 –Jeff

 Jeff’s Events (still in formation)

2026

All Live Events

 

Saturday, February 7, 3:00 p.m. CT
Murder By The Book
Author Speaking and Signing
Houston, TX

 

Wednesday, February 11, 6:00 p.m. ET
Mysterious Bookshop
Author Speaking and Signing
New York, NY

  

Thursday, March 26, 7:00 p.m. MT
The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
Author Speaking and Signing
Scottsdale, AZ

 

Friday, April 10, 6:30 p.m.
Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Author Speaking and Signing
Pittsburgh, PA

Nafplio Off-Season: a Time of Pondering and Wandering

 Sujata Massey

Last night, I dreamed I was in Nafplio.

In the dream, I was visiting the city in the middle of winter, yet it was warm enough for short sleeves. People were swimming in tranquil waters. Shop windows beckoned with jewelry, and I paused,not sure where to go. I was also aware that I was something of a shadow: a foreigner traveling alone. Nobody knew me; nobody would miss me if I vanished.

This isn’t hyperbole. I actually did have the dream. A few hours before I went to bed, I’d been sitting with Tony at our good friends’ Rani and Peter’s dining table. We’d talked about how I’d driven from Athens Airport to Nafplio, an old seaside town in the Peloponnese that has been called one of the most beautiful places in Greece. I very casually said I’d made the drive. I was downplaying what my dream later reminded me: that I had felt very alone.

I could have confessed that I’d been highly nervous about making the 170-kilometer drive by myself in a country where I’d only recently learned to decode the letters of the alphabet. Chiefly, I was worried about a breakdown, accident, or getting lost by myself. Would the Euro coins I had left over from Thessaloniki hold out for all the tolls I expected to pay on the 2-hour route?

It was my good fortune that the Greek highways were smooth as silk, although with my nerves I wound up taking 2 1/2 hours to get there. Apple maps were genius, even with unnamed roads. The worst part was at Athens Airport, when I sat down inside the tiny Kia automatic car I'd been allotted. I simply couldn't figure out how to start the engine. I sucked in my pride and 42 years of licensed driving experience and asked the Avis rental car employee to teach me the precise order of turning the car key and stepping on the accelerator--and no, it's not like in America. The other mystery he explained was the absence of P among the car's gears. Apparently, the way to put the car into a stationery mode was to put it in neutral and pull up the hand brake. Thank God I asked for assistance and didn't try to figure it out myself! 

I reached Nafplio without any adversity; although it took me half an hour to find parking in the busy free lot at the port and drag my wheeled suitcase to my bed and breakfast, which was located in an old Venetian townhouse on a narrow no-parking street in the Old Town. One of the reasons I wanted to be in Nafplio was because of the extensive preserved old town, a mix of medieval and 19^th century buildings that combine Ottoman and Venetian architecture.  But that grandeur sometimes has parking restrictions.

Nafplio (also known as Nafplion) has ancient roots going back to the days of Poseidon, who's said to have fathered a son, Nauplios, who is the town's namesake. The port became a city of interest during medieval times, and was variously occupied by Greeks, Ottomans, Byzantines and Venetians. 

The city has compact, yet impressive, neoclassical architecture and majestic forts and castles. All this and its good location for water trade led to its selection as the first free capital of modern Greece in 1828 (the capital’s location was changed to Athens in 1834). While a lot of Greece has suffered having old buildings lost to fires, earthquakes or modern development, historic preservation has been quite successful in Nafplio. Houses dating from the medieval period through the 1920s operate as charming small inns, restaurants, shops and museums. According to my millennial tour guide (who moved away briefly in his youth for the big lights), Nafplio has never had exciting nightlife, which means it appeals greatly to families and older tourists. The tourism is specifically driven by Greeks, many of whom drive  from Athens on the weekend for a sightseeing and dining escape. 

I’m a city dweller who unabashedly believes in the communal nature of urban places, and I am grateful to have an old house in an old neighborhood that includes a post office, library and a small supermarket. Still, the romantic in me has seen too many movies about small towns in Italy and France and England—and I have my own fantasies of the peaceful writing life in such a place, interspersed with jaunts to the market and conversations with longtime shop owners nearby. This you could have in Nafplio without question. Adding to the conviviality was that this city was not overrun with chain hotels. In the old town, most lodging appeared to be genuine pensiones—the historic Italian/French term given to hotels in Europe that tend toward being more boarding house or bed-and-breakfast. The kind of places with steep staircases, small rooms, and old furniture. And if you’re lucky—French doors that open onto a postage stamp balcony that show the historic neighborhood in its glory.

Hotel Adiani is operated by a local family who also run another pension-style hotel, Amymone, plus an elegant restaurant, Wild Duck, just across the way in a similar historic townhouse. The restaurant was full scale luxury: local produce and meat and cheese transformed into fusion dishes. My stay included breakfast that was prepared in the restaurant and also included specialty coffees made to order by a young man so versed in world news that upon hearing the name of my home city, he enquired about our tragedy, the 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. 

During the trip, it was humbling for me to witness  how many people closely read the news of other countries. It also seemed that California was the state that people in the UK, France and Greece loved to imagine—and I'll take it as a compliment that people sometimes would incorrectly guess this was my home. Still, despite the allure of California, I only encountered one person—a server in an Edinburgh gastropub—who was hoping to travel to the U.S.. The uncertainty about the validity of tourist visas at US airports makes the reluctance quite understandable. 

Some countries in Europe are working assertively to attract non-working foreigners with solid pensions and bank accounts to emigrate. Greece is one of the places offering Golden Visas—long term residencies—in exchange for buying and rehabilitating properties for their own use or commercial development. I saw plenty of for sale signs in Thessaloniki, and during my spring visit to Syros; however, very few of the former residences and offices in the historic area of Nafplio appeared to be vacant. Instead, I saw  boutiques selling clothing, eyewear and jewelry; one gelato shop after another; and dozens of tavernas and cafes. Apparently, starting at Easter and through early October, the little town overflows with both Greek and foreign visitors. I had arrived during the last bustling weekend, when car parking was tight at the port; but once Monday came, I found I was often the only person roaming a particular block. A photographer's dream!

When you are alone, you can make your days as complicated or simple as you like. I set up a pleasant routine of having a superb breakfast downstairs, followed by a walk to get another coffee at a shop to take up to my room. Hotel Adiani had renovated its old rooms handsomely including with modern art painting on headboards and walls, and interesting textiles here and there. It was a glorious surprise to have a wooden writing desk with a good chair, as well as a small sofa. With such comfortable digs, I wrote more than I expected. I went out for lunch every day and often found the appetizer of meze or a salad was quite large and so filling that I couldn’t manage a regular entrée as well. I walked the food off in the afternoons by exploring the town’s famous landmarks like the hilltop Palamidi castle, approximately 900 steps above the town; the genteel Syntagma Square, and Arvinitia Beach, a sweet, semi-circular protected swimming place that was in use by a handful of visitors in early November. I had looked at the calendar and not believed it would be possible to swim in November. Therefore, I had no bathing suit, so I can’t say what the temperatures were, but my guess is the water wasn’t as warm as the sunshine. 

When nighttime fell, I was often in my room, looking out from the balcony at the sunset and the street life below. Usually I was too full from my lunch to want much, but I once ate by candelight at an outdoor table overlooking the port at Wild Duck. Another time I wandered into a bakery and picked out a small box of cookies to have with a hot cup of herb tea (it seemed like bakery browsing was very popular in the evening throughout Greece). I have to make a recommendation about Nafplio's oranges and tangerines. They had varying levels of sweetness and were delicious in salads, juice, or eaten as themselves. 

Dinnertime is when I most often missed being with Tony, who was 5000 miles away conducting a midday Zoom with his colleagues. It wasn't that I couldn't eat alone. All restaurants I visited welcomed me as a solo diner, some with quite kind and attentive service. To the Greeks, a solitary traveler is unusual; two of my walking tour guides in Thessaloniki and Nafplio confessed that they hadn’t ever traveled alone and weren’t sure that they would like it. 

I’ve traveled alone for many years; first as a journalist, and then as a young woman in Japan whose husband was oceans away on a navy ship.After we were reunited, I kept traveling alone for the sake of research for my novels. Therefore, this new step—spending half my fall trip in Europe alone, going exactly where I wanted, and eating only when I was hungry—didn’t seem on the outset to be that difficult. It with the widespread English spoken by younger Greeks, being understood was mostly possible. It was only when I reached France—the final week of the five-week journey—that my solo journey became a little more challenging. 

More on that later!

The Story of Chanukkah, (Mostly) Unexpurgated Version

Jeff—Saturday

With December upon us, I was thinking of my traditional Christmas post when it hit me that tomorrow is the first night of Chanukkah, and I’ve not written anything about that week-long holiday in over a half-dozen years.  Shame on me.  So I fell back upon some long time ago research and settled upon the version told on the website Judaism 101.  I’ve tinkered a bit with it, but it’s virtually lifted straight off that website. So thank you, whoever wrote this piece.  By the way, for those of you who wonder why one who writes about Greece is writing about Chanukkah… read on.

Chanukkah, the Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the festival of lights, is an eight-day festival beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev (roughly equivalent to December).

Chanukkah is probably one of the best-known Jewish holidays, not because of any great religious significance, but because of its proximity to Christmas. Many non-Jews (and even many assimilated Jews) think of this holiday as the Jewish Christmas, adopting many of the Christmas customs, such as gift-giving and decoration. It is ironic that this holiday, which has its roots in a revolution against assimilation and the suppression of Jewish religion, has become the most assimilated, secular holiday on the Jewish calendar.

Alexander the Great

The story of Chanukkah begins in the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religions and retain a certain degree of autonomy. Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture, adopting the language, the customs and the dress of the Greeks, in much the same way that Jews in America today blend into the secular American society.

Antiochus IV

More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress the Jews severely, placing a Hellenistic priest in the Temple, massacring Jews, prohibiting the practice of the Jewish religion, and desecrating the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar. Two groups opposed Antiochus: a basically nationalistic group led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as the Chasidim (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Chasidism). They joined forces in a revolt against both the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Seleucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.

Judah Maccabee

According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud (the written version of original oral law and commentary comprising Jewish civil and ceremonial law), at the time of the rededication there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. Significantly, an eight-day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle, not the military victory.

Chanukkah is not a very important religious holiday. The holiday's religious significance is far less than that of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, and Shavu'ot. It is roughly equivalent to Purim in significance, and you won't find many non-Jews who have even heard of Purim! Chanukkah is not mentioned in Jewish scripture; the story is related in the book of Maccabees, which Jews do not accept as scripture.

The only religious observance related to the holiday is the lighting of candles. The candles are arranged in a candelabrum called a menorah (or sometimes called a chanukkiah) that holds nine candles: one for each night, plus a shammus (servant) at a different height. On the first night, one candle is placed at the far right. The shammus candle is lit and three blessings are recited. On subsequent nights only two blessings are said.

After reciting the blessings, the first candle is then lit using the shammus candle, and the shammus candle is placed in its holder. Candles can be lit any time after dark but before midnight. The candles are normally allowed to burn out on their own after a half-hour minimum, but if necessary they can be blown out at any time after that haif-hour.  Special candle lighting rules apply on the Sabbath (Shabbat), by reason of the Sabbath rule against igniting or extinguishing a flame.

Each night, another candle is added from right to left (like the Hebrew language). Candles are lit from left to right (because you pay honor to the newer thing first). On the eighth night, all candles are lit.

It is traditional to eat fried foods on Chanukkah because of the significance of oil to the holiday. Among Ashkenazic Jews (essentially those from Central and Eastern Europe), this usually includes latkes (pronounced "lot-kuhs" or "lot-keys" depending on where your grandmother comes from—aka "potato pancakes").

Gift-giving is not a traditional part of the holiday, but has been added in places where Jews have a lot of contact with Christians, so their children don’t feel left out of receiving gifts. It is extremely unusual for Jews to give Chanukkah gifts to anyone other than their own young children. The only traditional gift of the holiday is "gelt," small amounts of money--because coins are a symbol of independence!

Another tradition of the holiday is playing dreidel, a gambling game played with a square top. Most people play for matchsticks, pennies, M&Ms or chocolate coins. The traditional explanation of this game is that during the time of Antiochus' oppression, those who wanted to study Torah (an illegal activity) would conceal their activity by playing gambling games with a top (a common and legal activity) whenever an official or inspector was within sight.

I never knew that last bit.  Perhaps I should have studied more and eaten less latkes.

Happy Chanukkah.

–Jeff

The Trojan War Myth Exposed!

J

 Jeff–Saturday

How many of you have heard of the Trojan War?  I bet there’s not one of you who hasn’t. It’s the world’s best known epic tale of romance, action, and intrigue, and thanks to Homer’s telling in the Illiad and the Odyssey, a source for countless storylines down through the ages…including the Coen Brothers’ 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou.

But how many of you know the actual story of the War? Other than of course the bit about the (possibly) kidnapped Helen’s face launching a thousand ships and The Horse.  Aha, the ranks are thinning quickly.

Well, here’s my adapted telling of the tale based upon a version I came across while reading The Everything Classical Mythology Book, by Lesley Bolton.

The most well-known character in the myth is, of course, Helen of Troy, though she really wasn’t from Troy.  That’s just where she ended up spending ten years waiting to be “rescued.”  Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world and the daughter of the union of Zeus and Leda (not Leto, whose children with couldn’t-keep-it-in-his-pants-Zeus were the twins Apollo and Artemis).

Helen by Evelyn De Morgan

However the aggravation of raising such a beautiful daughter (something I know first hand) didn’t fall to her natural mother and father (assuming there’s anything natural about a Greek god turning himself into a swan to seduce a mortal), but to her foster father, King Tyndareus of Sparta.  

King Ty, as I like to call him, worked out a way of keeping all the suitors for his daughter’s hand (and a lot more) at bay by making all swear that in order to participate in the competition, they had to agree to abide by Helen’s choice of husband and defend her against anyone who might try to kidnap her.  The winner was Menelaus of Sparta and they were wed.

Menelaus by Giacomo Brogi

Then along came Paris of Troy, who stopped in to say “Hi” to the groom and, when the opportunity presented itself in the form of a quick trip out of town for Menelaus, to repay his host’s hospitality by stealing away his bride. 

Paris and Helen by Jacques Louis-David

But the kidnapping wasn’t a spontaneous whim.  Paris felt he had a right to claim Helen.  You see, Paris had been the judge in a beauty contest among the gods Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera to settle a dispute as to which of the three was the fairest.  In keeping with the sort of judging still seen in many parts of the world today, Paris made a side deal with Aphrodite that he’d choose her in return for her promising him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. But before he could claim her, she’d married. 

No matter, to Paris a deal was a deal and he’d come to Sparta to collect his prize. He spirited Helen away and, after spending their first night together on Kranae, a tiny island just off the port city of Gytheio on Greece’s Southern Peloponnese, it was off to Troy.  

Abduction of Helen, Francesco Primaticcio

Church on Kranae

[As a side note, that one-night diversion has created a thriving cottage industry on modern day Kranae, for today couples exchange marriage vows at a church on that spot, no doubt hoping for better luck than came to Paris and Helen.]

Not surprisingly, Menelaus didn’t take kindly to Paris’ thank you, and when Menelaus’ trip to Troy with Odysseus (aka Ulysses) to demand of King Priam of Troy her immediate return proved futile, Menelaus returned home to Sparta, massed Helen’s former suitors who’d pledged to defend her against kidnappers, and with his brother Agamemnon in command, dispatched an army of a thousand ships to reclaim her. 

But the Olympian biggie gods were involved in this mess up to their tiarasses.  Some had aligned with Greece (e.g., Poseidon because he was pissed at the Trojans for not having paid his bill for construction work, and Athena and Hera because of Paris’ involvement in fixing their beauty contest).  Others sided with Troy (e.g., Aphrodite who’d created the mess in the first place, and Apollo joined in it with his twin sister, Artemis.)

Anytime the gods got involved in something there were problems.  And in this instance, just to get things started, Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter to the god Artemis (a backer of Troy) for the winds to blow and launch his thousand ships. 

The Greek plan was simple, conquer the numerous towns surrounding Troy and thereby squeeze it into submission.  A simple plan turned into nine years of war with still no end in sight. Hmm, sound familiar? 

In the tenth year everything went to hell in a hand-basket for the Greeks.

First, the Greeks’ greatest warrior, Achilles (slayer of the Trojans’ greatest, Hector) died when pierced in the heel (surely you knew that) by an arrow cast into the air by Paris from behind his fortress walls and guided to its mark by Apollo.  

Then a fight broke out between Odysseus and Ajax of Salamis (non-kosher style for sure) over who’d get to wear Achilles armor (starting to sound more and more like that Brad Pitt 2004 version of the tale called Troy, does it not?), an honor ultimately bestowed on Odysseus that led Ajax into madness and ultimately taking his own life.  And then the Amazons weighed in to fight on the side of the Trojans.

But the Greeks did not give up.  Led by Odysseus they captured the King of Troy’s son, and through him learned what they needed to do if there were to be any hope of Troy falling.  The Greeks did as the prince had said, culminating in snatching away the sacred statue of Athena—the Palladium—which stood within Troy to protect the city from destruction.

But still Troy did not fall.  Then Odysseus came up with a plan, perhaps the most famous hustle in history: one requiring a gigantic wooden horse and some mighty gullible Trojans.

It was the blueprint for a classic scam that’s since played out countless times in print and film:  Present the mark with a fascinating unexpected gift.  Get a shill to tell a believable story compete with a hook that gets the mark to thinking it’s come up with a way to outsmart the hustler, and toss in a last minute twist that threatens to destroy the plan but fails because of an even greater surprise twist.

In this case, the Trojan Horse (more aptly the Greek or Spartan Horse, since they built it) appeared one morning outside the walls of Troy with the Greek army nowhere to be seen, leaving the Trojans confused over what to do with it: destroy the horse, or bring it within their city’s walls.   Then appeared a man in rags—the disguised Greek soldier Sinon—who claimed he’d escaped being sacrificed to Athena by the Greeks as an offering to appease her ire at their having stolen the Palladium from Troy. 

Then seemingly by chance he revealed a secret of the Greeks: that the great wooden horse before them was also meant to appease Athena by serving to replace the Palladium, but the sneaky Greeks had intentionally built it far too large to pass inside the walls of Troy out of fear that if brought inside it would bring victory to the besieged city.

Just as the Greeks’ plan seemed to be working, one Trojan stepped forward to challenge Sinon’s story (standard screenwriting fare these days), and hurled his spear at the wooden horse, no doubt hoping to elicit a cry from whomever it struck within. But just as he did, a giant sea monster reared up and devoured the cynic, distracting the crowd from the point of both his logic and spear.

The Trojans took the monster as a sign of Athena’s anger at the spear being tossed at an offering to her—rather than of an effort on her part (remember, she was on the side of the Greeks) to silence one threatening to expose the Greeks’ plan.

Surprise, surprise the Trojans figured out a way to bring the horse within their walls, and while rejoicing in their good fortune missed Sinon freeing the soldiers inside it and opening Troy’s gates for the rest of the Greek army to enter the city.

We all know what happened next. Or at least we think we do.  Helen was returned to her husband.  But not until after the Greeks had engaged in a bloodlust rage of battle so unsettling and sacrilegious to gods that had once backed the Greeks that they turned on them, bringing Odysseus ten more years of trials and tribulations before reaching home (after all, it was a two-book deal for Homer) and far worse fates for far more.

Homer 850 BCE

Yes, that’s a plot line we’ve seen before and will see again. And though there were no real winners in the Trojan War, there sure have been a lot of modern day literary and box office triumphs.

Many thanks again to Lesley Bolton for the inspiration I found for this post in her The Everything Classical Mythology Book.

–Jeff