Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality By: Bruce S.

Thornton who will be more inclined to chastity herself if her husband doesn't stray. As forthe woman's sexuality, the writer suggests a moderate passion, so that wivesneither imp ortune their husbands nor are agitated when they are gone, equallycontent whether they are at home or away. The anxiety about eros, even betweenmarried people, surfa ces in these suggestions for limiting and controlling itsexpression. We have started down the road that leads from Socratic moderationof desire to erome's condemnatio n of marital sexual pleasure as fornication.!! Andromache The first "good wife" in #ree$ literature is the Iliad's Andromache, the wife of theTro%an champion &ector. She appears in one of the epic's most affecting scenes, acon versation between her and &ector after the hero has briefly left the fighting sothat he can instruct the Tro%an women to implore Athena's help for thebeleaguered Tro%ans . The tender exchange between husband and wife reveals tous the importance marriage and the household had for the wife, as well as thequalities that define the good w ife and the place she has in her husband'saffections. Worried about &ector because of the #ree$s' temporary success, Andromachewhen she sees him pours out a simple but moving explanation of how central heis to her li fe. &er mother and father and brothers are all dead' "(ou, &ector, aremy father and my regal mother and my brother, and you are my stalwarthusband." The complete d ependence of the wife on the husband is poignantlyexpressed here by Andromache. &er life depends on his, her whole identity ispredicated on her status as wife and mo ther to his children. )or is thisdependence one*sided. As &ector, in a brief moment of prophetic insight,imagines the fall of Troy and the death of his family, he is move d not by thefuture grief and suffering of his mother and father and his brothers, but bycontemplating Andromache's fate, the miserable life she will have as a slave andc oncubine to some #ree$ hero once &ector is not alive to protect her.Andromache, however, is not as central to &ector's life as he is to hers. +art of&ector's tragedy is th e conflict between his desire for heroic honor and glory andhis role as protector of Troy and his family. When the crisis comes in the duelwith Achilles, &ector chooses to die gloriously, even though he $nows this meansthe destruction of Troy and the enslavement of Andromache, for Troy lives onlyas long as &ector does. (et that trag edy is sharpened by the love he has forAndromache, ma$ing his choice all the more painful, the price of glory all themore grievous.!, &ector's love for Andromache, then, does not create an equal partnership by anymeans. Andromache's advice to &ector on how to conduct the city's defense isanswered by &ector's reminder of what her place is' "-ut you go to the house andtend your tas$s, the loom and the distaff, and order the handmaids to busythemselves with their wor$. War is for men." Andromache is sent bac$ to hersphere of influence, inside the house, practicing the wifely s$ills that $eep the *./0* household flourishing**weaving and supervising the slaves. The world outside thehouse is the purview of men, and a woman's word is out of order in that space.!1 Several $ey qualities of the ideal wife are embodied in Andromache. She isdevoted to her husband and their relationship, she subordinates herself to him,and she is defi ned by the household and its tas$s for which she is responsible.Thus later in the epic, when the news comes of &ector's death, Andromache isfound weaving "in the rece sses of the house," and she orders a cauldron set to boilfor &ector's bath. The impact of his death is heightened here by the poet'sreminding us of how it will destroy An dromache's identity, which is predicated onher role as &ector's wife, the role she is faithfully fulfilling when the firstintimations of his death reach her. After she runs to the wall and sees Achillesdragging her husband's corpse behind his chariot, she faints, first tearing fromher head the veil and headgear Aphrodite had given her on her w edding day.When &ector dies she "dies" and throws away her role as wife, for that role is herlife. A woman has meaning only in the context of marriage.!/ Andromache's function as exemplary wife totally dedicated to her husband andher role as wife reappears nearly three centuries later in 2uripides' Andromacheand Troja n Women. As we have already had occasion to mention, the formerplay concerns the attempts of &ermione, the daughter of 3enelaus, toassassinate Andromache** )eoptolemus's concubine, a "spear*won bride" ta$enfrom the spoils of Troy**and her son 3olossus because &ermione has not yetborne a child to her husband )eoptole mus and so is torn by %ealousy andinsecurity over her status. +art of the play's concern is to detail the suffering of anexemplary noble wife who has lost her husband and now must find some sort ofmeaning in the exploitative and demeaning role of concubine and slave. Severaltimes 2uripides evo$es for us this shift in Andromache's stat us. The yo$e imagethat commonly signifies marriage now symboli4es her status as slave5 she iscalled an "all*wretched bride," the ad%ective pointing to the sad inaccura cy of thenoun5 and in a deft nod to the Iliad's description of Andromache tearing off herbridal veil when she sees the mutilation of &ector, 2uripides' Andromache cries, "6 have thrown around my head a hateful slavery." 7osing the role of honoredwife, in which the woman's sexuality is integrated into a household over whichshe is mistr ess, entails putting on the role of slave*concubine, or pseudowife.8utside the household the woman is nothing more than sexual property.!9 (et though Andromache's status has changed drastically, she still $nows whatma$es an ideal wife. The ideology of the good wife is developed in an early scenepitting t he petty, vain daddy's girl &ermione against the older and wiserAndromache. )oting the girl's finery and beauty, Andromache advises her thatvirtue:nobility, not beauty , is what delights a husband. The marital bond isstrengthened not by the sexual attractiveness of the bride, her problematicseductive powers, but by her virtue, her abilit y to control those powers. Womenmay be more prone to erotic "disease," Andromache says, but they can controlthemselves because of honor and shame. 7ater she attri butes &ermione's angerto her exces *.9;* sive sexual appetites, philandria, her "lewdness" inherited from her mother &elenthat causes "Aphrodite's disease," %ealousy because she has to share her husband'ssexua lity with a reluctant concubine. &ermione correctly reads this as anaccusation of lac$ of "self*control:chastity," the $ey quality that we have seendefines the good wife. The good wife controls her sexuality, does not ma$e it thecentral issue in the marriage apart from the bearing of legitimate children, asopposed to the seductive &ermio ne, who li$e us moderns based her wholemarriage on her and her husband's sexual relationship. When children**thepurpose of that sexuality**are not conceived, then th e integrity of the marriage isthreatened, as &ermione rightly feels hers to be.!0 )ext Andromache articulates the wifely ideal of complete loyalty and fidelity tothe husband, a quality she herself exhibits at the play's beginning, which finds herlamen ting still the loss of &ector. The wife, she lectures &ermione, should becontent with her husband, even if he is baseborn, and should separate herselffrom her father's ho usehold. This is a hit on &ermione, who has enlisted herdaddy 3enelaus to help her get rid of Andromache and her child. 8nce married,the girl's loyalty should be first and foremost to her husband's household, not herfather's, to which she has "died." Andromache gives what to our ears is anextremely craven expression of such loyalty when she says she herself nursed&ector's bastards when "Aphrodite tripped him up," her nobility:virtue bindinghim to her all the closer. Though this ab%ect endorsemen t of the double standardoffends us, in the context of #ree$ marriage and its emphasis on legitimateprocreation as the primary end of sex, it ma$es more sense. Androma che candisplay a noble magnanimity because she is assured of her place and authority asmother of &ector's legitimate son and mistress of his household.,;

The qualities of the good wife are also detailed by Andromache in the Tro%anWomen, set among the Tro%an women waiting to sail to #reece as concubines inthe immed iate aftermath of the sac$ of Troy. Andromache, contemplating thedisgrace of her imminent sexual sub%ugation to )eoptolemus, describes the wifelyexcellences that ma $e such a sub%ugation so painful' She was chaste, staying athome to avoid even the faintest hint of infidelity5 she held her tongue5 and she$new the limits of her sphere o f influence and authority in the household. The$ey qualities of sexual self*control and subordination to the household lie at theheart of Andromache's wifely excellence. Sexual fidelity is particularly important*she scorns bitterly the woman who can forget one man and love another. ")oteven the mare, unyo$ed from her stall*mate, easil y drags the yo$e." This is theessence of Andromache's misery' &er sexual integrity, the basis of her wifelyexcellence, will be destroyed when she is forced into the bed of her master)eoptolemus.,. -ac$ in the Andromache, the complete absorption of the woman's identity in herrole as wife is made explicit by 3enelaus, completely oblivious to Andromache'sfeelin gs when he says that a woman who loses her husband loses her life.3enelaus says this to %ustify his meddling in )eoptolemus's household, butAndromache $nows first hand the bitter truth of his statement. As she herselfsays, *.9.* when she offers her life in exchange for her son's, she died when Hector died. Allshe has left is her child by Neoptolemus and her role as mother for whic h nowshe will give her life. Motherhood validates the procreative and nurturingfunction of woman central to the wifely ideal, so even if the role of wife is lost,the role of mother can still testify to Andromache's status as a good woman. ButAndromache is spared her own and her child's death. he sea! goddess hetis,great! grandmother of Andromache's child Molossus, intervenes at play's end andgives this exemplary wife her "ust reward# $he will marr y Hector's brother,Helenus, and found the %ingdom of the Molossians!!whose most famousdescendent, by the way, will be Alexander the &reat. hough her household andhusband are lost forever, Andromache nonetheless achieves the closest thing tothem!!a new household with her husband's brother. ' ifely virtue has itsrewards.,< Sappho identifies in the first stan4a. To the suffering human trapped in time, thepain seems unendurable. -ut a smiling Aphrodite, li$e =eats's urn "all breathinghuman passion far above," instructs Sappho that the pain will end, as it hasmany times in the past. >or erotic pain is not a continuous experience but arepetitious cycle of gratifi cation and lac$**three times Aphrodite repeats theadverb "again," reminding Sappho that she has suffered erotically for other girlsand still survived. 6ndeed, rather than reciprocity, the goddess seems to promisesome revenge for the aristocratic Sappho, some recompense for the "in%ustice" shehas suffered. Soon the girl will "pursue," co urt with gifts, and Sappho will "flee"'The two women will change roles in the alternating rhythm of desire, Sapphorepelled by satiety, the girl now pursuing in her pain of lac$.!? Aphrodite offers Sappho the consolation of $nowing that the suffering will end,even if it will be followed by a different $ind of pain, the pain of getting what youwant a nd not wanting it anymore. Aphrodite has given Sappho a conceptualcontrol over sexuality by explaining to her the larger context the spea$ermaddened with desire can not comprehend. The destructive passion thatAphrodite embodies and Sappho recogni4es is now rendered meaningful andendurable. 6t is not a cataclysm fixed at one p oint in time**it is the curve of acycle defined and valori4ed by its very transience. The power Sappho exercisesover Aphrodite is philosophical power, the power of $no wledge. 6n some of Sappho's other fragments the imagery of cult locates human sexualityin the realm of a beautiful nature nonetheless organi4ed by the structure of ritualthat pr ovides a controlling context for sex. >ragment < describes an invitation toAphrodite to appear at a temple, where there are a "charming apple grove andaltars smo$ing fr agrantly with fran$incense." 8ther details depict a lovelynatural setting reinforcing the erotic suggestiveness of apples and perfume' a coolbroo$, roses, a meadow in w hich horses, emblems of sexuality, gra4e and flowersbloom and bree4es blow. -ut this is no untouched nature**there are the temple,the altar, the chalices of the women' s ritual, all accoutrements of cult technologythat create a controlling framewor$ for Aphrodite's epiphany and for thesexuality she represents. This is very different from the sudden anger of Aphroditetoward &elen in the 6liad or the revelation of her divinity to Anchises thatfrightens the mortal so much. &ere, in contrast, Aphrodite's pow er is bound bythe reciprocal obligation the gifts of ritual sacrifice impose upon her, so thatSappho can invite the goddess to serve the women by pouring the wine for the ircelebration.!! Another fragment seems to suggest that sex between the women is part ofSappho's poetic ritual. 6 say seems, for the papyrus on which fragment 0! wasdiscovered is ba dly mutilated, a fact readers of modern translators of Sapphoshould remember, for some translations shamelessly fill in the gaps withoutclearly alerting the reader that t he translators are essentially writing Sappho'spoem for her. The poem records a parting between Sappho and a tearful girlgrieving the loss of her friends and lovers. Sap pho tells her to remember the goodtimes, the "wreaths of violets and roses," the "woven garlands made fromflowers," the perfume, the *.,9* Aphrodite and Helen 6n -oo$ ? of the Iliad 3enelaus, husband of &elen, and +aris, her Tro%anparamour, fight a duel to decide who gets possession of the most beautifulwoman in the world. 3enelaus gets the best of +aris in the fight and is dragginghim by the helmet bac$ to the #ree$ lines when Aphrodite intervenes**she brea$sthe helmet's chin strap and whis$s +aris in a cloud of mist bac$ to Troy,depositing him in his bedchamber. Then the goddess disguises herself as an oldserving woman of &elen's and announces to her that +aris is bac$ from thebattle, "shining with beauty and raiment" and presumably in the mood forlove.<? Why at that particular moment does Aphrodite want &elen and +aris to ma$elove@ -ecause sex is the activity that recogni4es and celebrates her power, thepower she ha s %ust used to save +aris's life. +aris understands the reciprocalnature of his relationship to the goddess. When his brother &ector berates him forshrin$ing from the fight with 3enelaus, moc$ing his lyre and beauty and curlsand other "gifts of Aphrodite," +aris responds, "Ao not scorn me for the lovelygifts of golden Aphrodite, not at all should be despised the glorious gifts of thegods." Those gifts are the manifestations of a power that operates to his benefit.-ut he must reciprocate, and that means ma$i ng love with &elen, for this is thetrue worship of her deity.<! -ut &elen bal$s at Aphrodite's suggestion, and the goddess's subsequent angerreveals the dar$ side of that power, its ever*present though latent destructivenessthat li$e the sea can sweep away the frail mortal who tries to resist it. &elenquic$ly recogni4es Aphrodite behind the disguise as an old woman, for she seesher "most beautiful n ec$ and desirable breast and flashing eyes," the sexualbeauty lin$ed to &elen's own erotic power that even the withered old men ofTroy, their voices as thin as those of cicadas, can remar$ is "strangely li$e agoddess to loo$ at" when she mounts the wall before the duel. (et &elen forgetsher dependence on the goddess and angrily as$s her why she wants to deceive herwith "guileful mind" and indignantly reminds the goddess of the shame she hasalready inflicted because of &elen's sexual infatuation with +aris. &elen can seethe destructive reality behind the sexual beauty of the goddess, the deceiving andbeguiling power that has already led her to abandon her husba nd and child andinstigate the suffering and bloodshed soon to begin again before the walls ofTroy.<, Bonfronted with this re%ection of her power, the angry goddess reminds &elenthat she survives only because of her sexual beauty, the "gift" of Aphrodite that ifremoved would lead to her destruction' "Ao not provo$e me, wretched girl, lest 6grow angry and desert you, and hate you as much as now 6 terribly love you, anddevise grievous hatred for you in #ree$s and Tro%ans ali$e, and you be destroyedby an evil fate."<1 "7ove" means "reciprocate"' 6 have benefited you, Aphroditereminds &elen, and yo u must now reciprocate by using your sexual beauty in theact of sex. >or &elen to do otherwise is to re%ect the power of the goddess and *,/* dishonor her, the act of an enemy that would bring down revenge upon her.&elen is terrified and follows Aphrodite in silence to the bedroom. There &elen ta$es out her anger on +aris, berating his cowardice and belittlinghis fighting ability, trying to shame him. -ut +aris doesn't care. &e is filled withthe power of Aphrodite' ")ever before has 2ros so covered over my mind," hetells &elen' ")ow 6 want you and sweet desire has sei4ed me."</ Shame anddishonor mean nothing

now, only the imperative of the flesh, the worship ofAphrodite that drives the two to the bed, where they ma$e love while &elen'shusband 3enelaus rages up and down the line, searching in vain for the quarrythat has slipped his grasp. 7i$e the later seduction of Ceus it parallels, this scene reveals to us clearly theambiguous nature of Aphrodite' seductive beauty and the sweet pleasures of sexmas$ing a threatening destructive power that cannot be resisted, that deceivesand beguiles and subverts the mind and its consciousness of shame and right. 6na sense, &elen's conv ersation with Aphrodite images her awareness of her ownsexual beauty, her erotic power that at times seems alien to her, a force attac$ingfrom without, driving her to t he shame and pleasure of +aris's bed. The Seduction of Zeus 6t is one of the direst moments of all the war for the #ree$s. With their championAchilles still sul$ing in his tent, the Tro%ans have breached the #ree$ defensivewall, dr iving them bac$ upon their ships. &era, on the side of the #ree$s eversince the Tro%an +aris pic$ed Aphrodite as the fairest goddess, thin$s of a plan toprovide the #ree $s with some breathing space**she will seduce her husband Ceus,ta$e his mind off of the war and the Tro%ans he is supporting to further therevenge of Achilles against Agamemnon and the other #ree$s who dishonoredhim. So &era visits Aphrodite and as$s for "desire and lovema$ing, with whichyou subdue all the immortals and mor tal men." Aphrodite complies and loans&era her breastband "intricately embroidered, on it fashioned all manner ofcharms**lovema$ing, desire, and alluring dalliance th at steals the shrewd mindof even the wise." Armed with this erotic magic, &era seduces her husband on3t. 6da, their lengthy lovema$ing hidden by a golden cloud, thus allowing the#ree$s some time to rally their beleaguered forces.<9 The charm of this interlude is dar$ly set off not %ust by the mortals $illing anddying while the gods dally in their 3axfield +arrish cloud, but also by the powerof Aphro dite to attac$ the mind, to beguile it so that the victim**in this case Ceus,$ing of the gods, upholder of cosmic order**can no longer see or thin$ straight,overwhelmed as he is with sexual passion. ")ever before," Ceus pants to hisalluring wife, "has eros so subdued:conquered:bro$en:tamed DedamassenE mymind"**and then he tactlessly e numerates his various mortal and immortalparamours. &omer, again using the word that typically describes the effect on thesoul of 2ros's and Aphrodite's power, emph asi4es the impact of lovema$ing onCeus's mind when he describes him as "conquered:subdued:bro$en by sleep andlove *,9* Apart from her subordination to the civic ritual of marriage, Aphrodite in #ree$literature is put in her place in other ways, the scope of her power limited even asit is rec ogni4ed. As we've already seen, in the 6liad Aphrodite's cold chastisementof &elen reveals the sudden, frightening force of the goddess when &elen tries toresist her co mmand to %oin +aris in their bed. And her role in &era's seduction ofCeus also asserts her power**although in the context of marriage, as we sawearlier, and at the behest of the tutelary goddess of marriage, &era. -ut the 6liadgives us another episode in which Aphrodite is humiliated at the hands of amortal man, humiliation and shame in &omer's world a way of establishingsuperiority and power over another. After the #ree$ champion Aiomedes haswounded Aeneas, Aphrodite's son, crushing his hip so c$et with a stone, Aphroditecomes to her son's rescue, sweeping him up in her arms and rushing from thefray. -ut Aiomedes, on instructions from Athena**he wouldn't dare attac$ a god,even the nonmartial Aphrodite, otherwise**pursues Aphrodite and wounds herslightly on the wrist, taunting her with the charge to stay out of the war a nd besatisfied with beguiling cowardly women. The goddess shrie$s and drops her son,leaving Apollo to finish his rescue, and then dashes off to 8lympus in the chariot of Ares. There her mother Aione comforts her, but the other gods all laugh andmoc$ her, Ceus repeating Aiomedes' advice to stay out of war and to stic$ to the"desirabl e wor$s of marriage."?! The wounding of Aphrodite is one of those comic interludes in the 6liad when thesuffering and death of mortals are rendered all the more heartbrea$ing by being%uxtapo sed with the trivial misadventures of the silly serene gods, who neithersuffer nor die. -ut the scene wor$s also to set a limit on the influence ofAphrodite, relegating her to a female sphere of marriage and maternity**after all,she enters the battle to save her son, although we should remember that the gods'interest in their children's fate us ually reflects their concern with the ris$ ofdishonor because they couldn't protect their own. 6n addition, the laughter andmoc$ery Aphrodite endures serve to circumscri be her power, for those who sufferthe moc$ery of others do so because they are powerless to stop it. Aphrodite, ofcourse, will have her revenge' She gets bac$ at Aiome des by ma$ing his wife ta$elovers and plot against him. -ut for the moment, the power she displayed earlierin her confrontation with &elen is here given its absolute li mit, the world of malemartial violence. &ector, right before he is $illed in a duel with Achilles,%uxtaposes poignantly Aphrodite's realm of courtship and lovema$ing wit h thegrim brutality of war, li$ewise asserting their incompatibility. Waiting for Achillesoutside the walls of Troy, &ector momentarily considers stripping himself of his armor and offering &elen and treasure to Achilles to ma$e the peace. -ut &ectorquic$ly reali4es that Achilles would simply $ill him "li$e a woman," unarmed ornot, an d he says bitterly to himself, "6 cannot dally with him as a youth and amaiden, a youth and a maiden dally with one another." 6n the world of heroic$illing, the wiles of Aphrodite and her companion goddess +eitho, +ersuasion, areuseless.?, *.,!* putedly en%oyed their girlfriends this way before marriage, as well as beingsaturated in a martial culture of pederasty. At any rate, &elen's precocious sexualbeauty touc hes off a war, %ust as it does later when she is mature. &er famousbrothers, Bastor and +olydeuces, invaded Attica and sac$ed Athens and thenearby village of Aphidnae , $idnapping Theseus's mother. 2ven in girlhood,&elen's sexuality is the instigator of violence and destruction.!1 Theseus ma$es four "husbands," so who's number five@ Achilles, best of theAchaeans, was too young to woo &elen, otherwise she would have chosen him.After he gro ws up and comes to Troy, though, Aphrodite and Achilles' motherThetis get the two together, according to the Cypria. +erhaps this is why Achillesstays on at Troy afte r he withdraws from the fighting to avenge himself onAgamemnon's insult**7ycophron tells us that &elen made Achilles pine away,"whirled in his dreams by her perfe ct body." Though they could meet only once inlife, &elen and Achilles spend eternity together, according to +ausanias, livingtogether on the White 6sland at the mouth of the Aanube, the epitome of martialpower wed for eternity to the epitome of sexual.!/ -y this point we begin to notice a strong resemblance between Aphrodite and&elen**in their mixed origins, their "golden" beauty, their adultery. &eleneventually beco mes a tutelary deity for sailors, li$e Aphrodite. 2ven &elen'safterlife marriage to the warrior Achilles parallels Aphrodite's affair with the war*god Ares. Blearly part of &elen's meaning resides in her embodiment, on thehuman level, of the sexual power Aphrodite represents on the cosmic. -ut &elenis also, li$e +andora, representative woman, as Semonides recogni4es when hema$es her the origin of female depravity. &ence she shares many of the negativecharacteristics we have seen attributed to the female "tribe," particularly thoseassociated with woman's sub%ection to eros. 7i$e all women, she obviously cannotcontrol her sexual appetite, which overcomes her con sciousness of shame, as wesaw in her confrontation with Aphrodite in the Iliad. Sappho too, though moresympathetic to the power of erotic beauty, uses &elen as the be st example of howsexual attraction confers on the loved one an obsessive value to the detriment ofall other obligations, including household and family' ">or she who f aroutstripped all humans in beauty, &elen, leaving behind the best of all husbandssailed off to Troy, not at all mindful of her child and her dear parents." Sheherself, bot h during the war in Troy and bac$ in Sparta and reconciled to3enelaus, calls her behavior a case of at, that "blind sin" born of excess andfrequently lin$ed to eros.!9 Since her mind is controlled by her sexual appetite, &elen displays all thetric$iness and duplicity of the female, the "lies and wily words" &ermes gives to+andora. &om er brings out this aspect of her character in the Odyssey, when8dysseus's son Telemachus visits &elen and 3enelaus in his search forinformation about his father. The c ouple seem happily reconciled as theyentertain the youth. After some tearful reminiscences and a glass of winedoctored by &elen with a mood*altering drug, she tells a story about 8dysseus,about how he disguised himself as a beggar and came to Troy to spy. &elen saysshe alone recog *91* gives a serious import to their erotic imagery derived from violence, war, andultimately death. They $new that 2ros, rather than being the cute ty$e wedisregard, was a " commander and a general," one "unconquered in battle."<1 Ta$e the #ree$s'most famous war, the expedition against Troy. The casus belli, ofcourse, was the seduction of &elen by +aris. -ut the sexual roots of the violenceat Tro y run deeper than that. +aris won &elen because of Aphrodite, who bribedthe Tro%an prince with the most sexually beautiful woman in the world so thatshe could win th e golden apple inscribed "To the fairest." 2ris, the goddess ofdiscord, revealed the apple at a wedding feast to which, understandably, she hadnot been invited**the wedd

ing of +eleus and Thetis, whose famous issue would bethe great warrior Achilles. -ut +eleus was marrying Thetis simply because Ceuswas hot to possess the nymph bu t was frightened off by the prophecy that shewould bear a son greater than his father. The bloodshed of Troy has its source insexual intrigue and betrayal. The disasters of the Iliad, moreover, also have a sexual dimension in their origins.The quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon starts over two girls. 8ne is thedaught er of Bhryses, priest of Apollo, whom Agamemnon has won as a pri4e ofhonor and is forced to return to her father after Apollo visits a plague on the#ree$s for not givi ng her bac$ the first time his priest as$ed. Agamemnon thenta$es Achilles' pri4e of honor, the girl -riseis, precipitating Achilles' withdrawalfrom the battle and the near annihilation of the #ree$s at the hands of &ector.)ow, both Agamemnon and Achilles are concerned with heroic honor, thebesmirchment of their public reputations tha t follows when a pri4e signifyingtheir status is ta$en from them. -ut the girls are important too. Agamemnonsays that he prefers the daughter of Bhryses to his wife =ly taimestra, "for she DthegirlE is not inferior to her in beauty, figure, mind, and domestic wor$s." AndAchilles calls -riseis his "wife" and had planned to marry her when he returnedhome, at least according to his best friend +atro$los.</ Whatever other ingredients go into a quarrel, sex is often the leaven. =lytaimestradesires to murder her husband Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter6phigeneia, b ut her revenge is also fueled by her own illicit affair withAgamemnon's cousin Aegisthus. The Bhorus of Sophocles' Electra certainly seesit that way' "2ros was the $ill er" of Agamemnon, it says, and his daughter2lectra agrees, not allowing her mother any motive other than her uncontrolledsexual appetite. -ut Agamemnon's passion f or his concubine =assandra, publiclyparaded by the $ing with the same tactless disregard for his wife he displayed atTroy, also contributes to the avenging rage of =lyt aimestra, and after she $ills thegirl she boasts, with a chilling culinary metaphor, that the murder "will giverelish" to her sex with Aegisthus, a statement that reveals per haps more than anyother the #ree$ understanding of how violence becomes sexuali4ed and henceworsened.<9 This insight into the intermingling of our sundry irrational forces is not confinedto poets. &erodotus reports the +ersian historians' explanation for the origins ofthe #ree $ wars with +ersia of the early fifth century' 6t was %ust one more inci *<!*