Hippolytus at the Isthmus

Nec vires tamen has rabies superasset equorum.

ni rota, perpetuum qua circumvertitur axem,

stipitis occursu fracta ac disiecta fuisset.

Even then, the horses’ madness would not have exhausted my strength, if a wheel had not broken, and been wrenched off, as the axle hub, round which it revolves, struck a tree. Meta. 15.

The story Hippolytus tells of his own death has to be one of the more semantically charged moments in the Metamorphoses. It would go far beyond the bounds of a blog post to develop a full reading of his character and acts in book 15 and in the poem as a whole. Suffice it to say Hippolytus speaks, as we've noted, without preparation or introduction, and immediately strikes an odd note.

He's not very sympathetic to mourning Egeria, and goes on to recount his chariot crash scene, as if it somehow trumps the nymph's tale of loss. Coming as it does after the long song of Pythagoras, the physicality of the description of his crash, the uncanny appearance of the mountainous wave and the bull, all this narrative energy inserts a strange shock between the reflections and prescriptions of the philosopher and the serene journey of serpentine Aesculapius that follows.

The disfiguring death of Hippolytus is enigmatic at all points: he's one of the greatest horsemen in the world, yet he dies neither in a war nor in an Olympic race, but in an accident involving no other "drivers." He is the son of Theseus, one of the most just, beloved, and balanced heroes of Greece, but he dies cursed by his father for an alleged crime of Venus, though he's a follower of Artemis. He is of the line of Pelops, who was the lover of Poseidon. The god is also his grandfather, yet it's Poseidon's gift that visits Theseus's curse upon Hippolytus.

To unravel this knot, we need to follow threads leading back to violent kings, acts of treachery, and an abandoned princess.

A quiz on the Fall of Troy

Note: I've added several new elements here to fill out the essentials of the Fall of Troy story.
Update 11.19.12: I've added a few more details at bottom.

Here's a nice quiz, a number of whose questions have to do with the fall of Troy. Have fun, and after choosing your answers, hit "submit answers for grading" to get your "grade."

Quiz or no quiz, you'll find here the conditions that had to be met before Troy would fall. It's a nice summary based strictly upon classical sources.

[Updates]: I've added a link on the right to Quintus Smyrnaeus's late classical epic, the Posthomerica, or The Fall of Troy, which purports to tell what happened after the Iliad ends.

Yet another condition that had to be met before Troy could fall is reason for the fame of the fisherman Damarmenus. He it was who, after the Trojan War, recovered from the sea the bone of Pelops 1. During the war it was prophesied to the Achaeans that Troy could not be taken unless, among other things, they could bring the bone of Pelops 1. From Pisa in Elis was brought the bone of Pelops 1, the ivory shoulder blade that replaced the part that Demeter had absent mindedly eaten at the time of Tantalus's grisly feast. As they were returning home from Troy, the ship carrying the bone was wrecked off Euboea in a storm. Many years later, Damarmenus, a fisherman from Eretria, drew up the bone. Amazed at its size he kept it hidden in the sand. Later the bone was given to the Eleans following an oracle from Delphi [Pau.5.13.4ff.].

The key source for knowing the conditions of vulnerability for Troy was Helenus, son of Priam and twin brother of Cassandra. He was said to be the wisest of the Trojans, and a seer. Parada:

only he knew the oracles that protected the city, which he revealed to the enemy so that the Achaeans could finally take Troy. For when Paris died, Helenus and his brother Deiphobus quarrelled for the hand of Helen; and when Deiphobus was preferred, Helenus left the city and established his residence on Mount Ida, where Odysseus captured him. And after having displayed the excellent seer in the Achaean camp, they forced this glorious prey to tell how Troy could be taken. That is why Helenus 1 prophesied whatever matter they asked, instructing them to bring the Bone of Pelops 1, to fetch Neoptolemus from Scyros, to persuade Philoctetes (in whose power were the Bow and Arrows of Heracles) to come from Lemnos, and also to steal the Palladium, a wooden statue that once had fallen from Heaven, since if it were carried off Troy could not survive.

There's a bit more to the story of Philoctetes and Heracles' arrows - here taken from notes found on the Perseus site:

When Hercules, through the imprudence of his wife Deianira, was seized with that cruel disease from which he had no release to hope for but death, he was carried to mount Oeta, and having ascended the funeral pile he obtained a promise from Philoctetes, the son of Poeas, that he would set fire to the pile, on condition of receiving his divine arrows as a reward for this last office. When the Greeks were on their voyage to Troy, it was foretold to them that they would never be able to overthrow llium, unless they discovered the altar of Chryse, erected on an island of the same name, and offered sacrifice thereon. While Philoctetes was showing where the altar was, he was wounded in the foot by a serpent which guarded it, and from that cause left at Lemnos. In the tenth year of the war Helenus, the Trojan prophet, being captured by Ulysses, predicted that Troy could never be taken but by the arrows of Hercules; upon this, messengers were sent to Lemnos in order to bring back Philoctetes with his arrows to Troy.

Helenus will appear in Metamorphoses 15 to provide Aeneas with crucial information for accomplishing the task of founding Rome. He also appears in Aeneid 3:

In Buthrotum, Aeneas met Andromache, the widow of Hector. She still laments for the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas saw and met Helenus, one of Priam's sons, who had the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learned the destiny laid out for him: he was divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or Hesperia), where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bade him go to the Sibyl in Cumae.

Another condition:

. . . when Achilles was nine years old, the seer Calchas, whom Agamemnon has called "prophet of evil," declared that Troy could not be taken without him. This is one of the reasons why Achilles came to Troy; for he, who had not been among the SUITORS OF HELEN, was not bound by the Oath of Tyndareus.

[Added 11.19.12] It turns out there were six famous conditions for the fall of Troy - Plautus cites three of them in a humorous scene of his Bacchides:

“I have heard there were three destinies attending Troy, which were fatal to it; if the statue should be lost from the citadel -- [it was carried off by Odysseus and Diomedes] -  whereas the second was the death of Troilus; the third was when the upper lintel of the Phrygian (aka Scaean gate) gate should be demolished.”

According to the commentary in Perseus by Charles Simmons: 

This last involved the disturbance of the tomb of Laomedon, and was brought about when the [Scaean] gate was widened to bring in the horse. A fourth condition was the presence of an Aeacid. This was satisfied by bringing to the war the young son of Achilles, Pyrrhus (cf. 155 n.), who thence got the name Neoptolemus. For fatis = ‘destruction,’ see 180 n.

A note on p. 196-197 of this edition of Plautus mentions three more conditions: 

If the horses of Rhesus should be captured before they had tasted of the pastures of Troy and the waters of Xanthus; if the bow and arrow of Hercules should be employed in the siege; and if one of the posterity of Achilles should be present (the Aeacid, Neoptolemos). 

The Horses of Rhesus

Three Key Ancestors

According to Carlos Parada's Greek Mythology Link, the key ancestors of the major Greek families were three: Deucalion (& Pyrrha), Atlas (through his daughters the Pleiades), and Io.

Atlas 

The Pelopides 

Pelops 1 was son of Tantalus 1, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Dione 3, daughter of Atlas. Pelops 1's wife Hippodamia 3 was daughter of the Pleiad Sterope 3. The PLEIADES are daughters of Atlas. The Pelopides ruled Mycenae until the return of the HERACLIDES (descendants of Heracles 1, a descendant of Io). Pelops 1 came from Phrygia to Hellas, whereas Dardanus 1 emigrated from Hellas to Phrygia.

The Trojans 

The Trojans were also descendants of Atlas. Dardanus 1, son of Electra 3, daughter of Atlas, is at the beginning of the house of Troy, for Dardanus 1 is father of Erichthonius 1, father of Tros 1 (after whom the Trojans are called), father of Ilus 2 (founder of Ilium, that is, Troy), father of Laomedon 1, father of Priam 1, who was king when the city was destroyed. 

Some Thebans 

Among the Thebans, the usurpers Nycteus 2 and Lycus 5 were said to have come from Euboea, but they too might be descendants of Atlas, and so could beAmphion 1, grandson of Nycteus 2. Amphion 1 married Pelops 1's sister, the mother of the NIOBIDS.

Deucalion

The descendants of Deucalion 1 (and Aeolus 1) founded and ruled Thessalian cities such as Pherae, Phthia and Iolcus, but were periodically influential inThebes, Argos, Athens, and Messenia. 

Deucalion 1, the first mortal of this line and son of the Titan Prometheus 1, is father of Hellen 1, eponym of the Hellenes. From Hellen 1 sprang Dorus 1 (eponym of the Dorians), Xuthus 1, and Aeolus 1. Xuthus 1 is father of Achaeus 1 (eponym of the Achaeans), and of Ion 1 (eponym of the Ionians). The Thessalian king Aeolus 1 (different from the keeper of the winds) had many important descendants.

Io 

Ancestors and founders of important cities auch as Mycenae, Thebes, and Argos were descendants of Io. These also controlled Crete, Laconia, and perhaps Arcadia. The HERACLIDES were descendants of Io. Their house evolved first in north-east Africa, and in the mideast (Phoenicia). 

Io is the first mortal of this line. She is usually regarded as daughter of the river god Inachus, her other genealogies being more uncertain. After Io comes Epaphus 1, king of Egypt and father of Libya. Her descendants are Agenor 1, Belus 1, and Lelex 2. From Agenor 1 descended Europa and Cadmus, which is to say the houses of Crete and Thebes respectively. From Belus 1 descended Aegyptus 1 and Danaus 1, that is, the houses of Argos, and Mycenae. 

Perseus 1 (descendant of Danaus 1 and Aegyptus 1), and his own descendants reigned in Mycenae. But during Eurystheus' time or after him Mycenae came under the rule of the Pelopides, who are descendants of Atlas. The Pelopides were expelled by the HERACLIDES after the Trojan War.

Interestingly, tradition says the Athenians were a distinct group:

The Athenians do not belong originally to any of the mentioned primary families. They were the children of Gaia, or else "sons of the soil." Later Aegeus 1 married the daughter of a Pelopid, and Theseus married a descendant of Io. Even later the throne was seized by Melanthus 1, a descendant of Deucalion 1. 

The Colchians (for example Medea) are descendants of Helius, and so are the first Corinthians [see Corinth]. The Troezenians had their own origin, but afterwards Troezen was ruled by the descendants of Atlas.

Parada's page of ancestors has detailed lists of members from each family.

A deadly feast for the eyes: Pelops, Tereus and lethal inscriptions

The ivory prosthesis Pelops reveals as he mourns for his sister sets him apart from all men as the son of Tantalos, returned after horrible dismemberment. Here's the brief passage in Book 6 in which Pelops mourns for Niobe, his sister:

even then one man, her brother Pelops, is said to have wept for her and, after taking off his tunic, to have shown the ivory, of his left shoulder (umero). This was of flesh, and the same colour as his right shoulder, at the time of his birth. Later, when he had been cut in pieces, by his father, it is said that the gods fitted his limbs together again. They found the pieces, but one was lost, between the upper arm and the neck. Ivory was used in place of the missing part, and by means of that Pelops was made whole (integer).

The positioning of this Pelops vignette is worth thinking about. It immediately precedes Ovid's tale of Philomela that ends with a father, Tereus, dining on his own son, who has been killed, dismembered and prepared for a "sacred feast" by Procne, the child's mother and Tereus' wife.

The glimpse of Pelops' ivory shoulder "fits" the themes of Book 6 in so far as his restoration is a collective work of art of the gods, bringing back the beloved boy, as Ovid says, integer -- thanks to the prosthetic addition, necessary thanks to Demeter's distraction.

This integrity of the reconstituted Pelops (presented more as a work of restoration than a resurrection) stands in clear contrast to the disintegration that immediately follows -- the Grand-Guignol tale of the Thracian king who violates the trusts of office and family, mutilating and imprisoning Philomela in order to suppress her power to tell the world of his vile rape.

Yet she doesn't remain silent, despite the loss of her tongue. Thanks to ingenium and sollertia -- her inwit and cunning -- the girl creates an artificial thing, an image, that fills the void of her tongue. Supplementary and not dependent on presence, the image is external to her; it can be transported without being seen, yet speaks ventriloquially to the one it is intended for. It's a metamorphic prosthesis of her voice that makes her "whole."

Look at what happens when the image of Philomela's voice reaches the eyes of her sister:

miserabile legitet (mirum potuisse) silet. Dolor ora repressitverbaque quaerenti satis indignantia linguaedefuerunt; nec flere vacat, sed fasque nefasqueconfusura ruit, poenaeque in imagine tota est.

The wife of the savage king unrolls the cloth, and reads her sister’s terrible fate, and by a miracle keeps silent. Grief restrains her lips, her tongue seeking to form words adequate to her indignation, fails. She has no time for tears, but rushes off, in a confusion of right and wrong, her mind filled with thoughts of vengeance.

The "voice" of Philomela is so potent it takes away Procne's power of speech -- it partakes of the unspeakable. Kline's translation says Procne's mind is filled with "thoughts of vengeance," but Ovid chooses to continue the sense of the visual, and says poenaeque in imagine tota -- Procne's mind is consumed and confused by the deranging power of this image, much as is Tereus's mind the first time he beheld Philomela:

Quid quod idem Philomela cupit patriosque lacertis            VI.475 blanda tenens umeros, ut eat visura sororem, perque suam contraque suam petit ipsa salutem. Spectat eam Tereus praecontrectatque videndo osculaque et collo circumdata bracchia cernens omnia pro stimulis facibusque ciboque furoris accipit;

Moreover Philomela wishes his request granted, and resting her forearms on her father’s shoulders, coaxing him to let her go to visit her sister, she urges it, in her own interest, and against it. Tereus gazes at her, and imagining her as already his, watching her kisses, and her arms encircling her father’s neck, it all spurs him on, food and fuel to his frenzy. (Kline)

With a poet as careful as Ovid, could it be by chance that "shoulders," "neck," and "food" are interwoven here? Inscribed in Tereus' vision of the girl pleading with her dad are key words linked to the sacrilege of Tantalos, the horrific violation of divine proprieties, the curse Tereus is to reenact with his son, Itys. Both Tereus and Procne are driven to frenzy by what they see. Amor -- the fire that sets Tereus ablaze for Philomela -- simultaneously images his doom.

In this, the only tale of Book 6 in which the key players are human, there's no saving grace, no restoration. As each character in turn undergoes a loss of balance, of moral center, in which every human bond vanishes, the void is filled with theatricality (Tereus's pleas, Procne's bacchantes, the feast).

Why does Ovid place this tale of human degeneration next to story of divine regeneration? No divinity is pulling the strings, no Juno or Hermes is causing Tereus, Procne and Philomela to do what they do.

In this tale, humans cannot cast blame upon some supernatural being for their actions, any more than Lykaon could for his heinous crime of inviting Jupiter to dine on a human in Book I. This time, no one can say, "the devil made me do it."

The sceptre of Agamemnon

The descendents of Tantalos via Pelops lead directly to Homeric epic and Greek tragedy.

Here's how Homer traces the line of Pelops through the sceptre of Agamemnon, (Iliad 2. 100 ff trans. Lattimore):

Powerful Agamemnon stood up holding the sceptre Hephaistos had wrought him carefully. Hephaistos gave it to Zeus the king, the son of Kronos, and Zeus in turn gave it to the courier Argeiphontes, and lord Hermes gave it to Pelops, driver of horses, and Pelops again gave it to Atreus, the shepherd of the people. Atreus dying left it to Thyetes of the rich flocks, and Thyestes left it in turn to Agamemnon to carry and to be lord of many islands and over all Argos.

According to Theoi, the sceptre was the ancient Greek equivalent of the crown, symbol of kingship. Atreus and Thyestes are here understood to be the sons of Pelops, as in later accounts.

According to Pausanias, the sceptre was the only work of Hephaistos considered authentic in the ancient world:

Poets have sung, and the tradition of men has followed them, that Hephaistos made many works of art, but none is authentic except only the scepter of Agamemnon. Description of Greece 9. 41. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C 2nd A.D.)

Agamemnon holding his sceptre, 400 B.C.

Houses of Pelops and Atreus

The area in red is the Lydian area of Tantalos's Manisa, where Mt. Sipylus, where Niobe weeps, is found.

Here's a site that offers some help with the genealogies of the various Greek houses. Below are two trees that go back ultimately to Tantalos: one of the brood of Pelops, the other going into more detail on the house of Atreus. (The images are much easier to read if enlarged by clicking on them.)

Children of Pelops

House of Atreus

It's worth noting that the sons of Pelops married daughters of Perseus, merging the two great houses of the day.

House of Perseus