TroilusAlso spelled Troilos or Troylus. ( or ; ; ) is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War. The first surviving reference to him is in Homer's Iliad, composed in the late 8th century BC.
In Greek mythology, Troilus is a young Trojan prince, one of the sons of King Priam (or Apollo) and Hecuba. Prophecies link Troilus' fate to that of Troy and so he is ambushed and murdered by Achilles. Sophocles was one of the writers to tell this tale. It was also a popular theme among artists of the time. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents. He was also regarded as a paragon of youthful male beauty.
In Western European medieval and Renaissance versions of the legend, Troilus is the youngest of Priam's five legitimate sons by Hecuba. Despite his youth he is one of the main Trojan war leaders. He dies in battle at Achilles' hands. In a popular addition to the story, originating in the 12th century, Troilus falls in love with Cressida, whose father Calchas has defected to the Greeks. Cressida pledges her love to Troilus but she soon switches her affections to the Greek hero Diomedes when sent to her father in a hostage exchange. Chaucer and Shakespeare are among the authors who wrote works telling the story of Troilus and Cressida. Within the medieval tradition, Troilus was regarded as a paragon of the faithful courtly lover and also of the virtuous pagan knight. Once the custom of courtly love had faded, his fate was regarded less sympathetically.
Little attention was paid to the character during the 18th and 19th centuries. However, Troilus has reappeared in 20th and 21st century retellings of the Trojan War by authors who have chosen elements from both the classical and medieval versions of his story.
The story in the ancient world
For the ancient Greeks, the tale of the Trojan War and the surrounding events appeared in its most definitive form in the Epic Cycle of eight narrative poemsFor simplicity's sake, the Iliad and the Odyssey are here treated as part of the Epic Cycle, though the term is often used to describe solely the non-Homeric works. from the archaic period in Greece (750 BC – 480 BC). The story of Troilus is one of a number of incidents that helped provide structure to a narrative that extended over several decades and 77 books from the beginning of the Cypria to the end of the Telegony. The character's death early in the war and the prophecies surrounding him demonstrated that all Trojan efforts to defend their home would be in vain. His symbolic significance is evidenced by linguistic analysis of his Greek name "Troilos". It can be interpreted as an elision of the names of Tros and Ilos, the legendary founders of Troy, as a diminutive or pet name "little Tros" or as an elision of Troíē (Troy) and lúein (to destroy). These multiple possibilities emphasise the link between the fates of Troilus and of the city where he lived.Boitani, (1989: pp.4–5). On another level, Troilus' fate can also be seen as foreshadowing the subsequent deaths of his murderer Achilles, and of his nephew Astyanax and sister Polyxena, who, like Troilus, die at the altar in at least some versions of their stories.Burgess (2001: pp.144–5).
However, the Cypria—the part of the Epic Cycle that covers the period of the Trojan War of Troilus' death—does not survive. Indeed, no complete narrative of his story remains from archaic times or the subsequent classical period (479–323 BC). Most of the literary sources from before the Hellenistic age (323–30 BC) that refer to the character are lost or survive only in fragments or summary. The surviving ancient and medieval sources, whether literary or scholarly, contradict each other, and many do not tally with the form of the myth that scholars now believe to have existed in the archaic and classical periods.
Partially compensating for the missing texts are the physical artifacts that remain from the archaic and classical periods. The story of the circumstances around Troilus' death was a popular theme among pottery painters. (The Beazley Archive website lists 108 items of Attic pottery alone from the 6th to 4th centuries BC containing images of the character.Beazley Archive databases accessible from . Link accessed 12-25-2007. Note: The databases are intended only for research and academic use.) Troilus also features on other works of art and decorated objects from those times. It is a common practice for those writing about the story of Troilus as it existed in ancient times to use both literary sources and artifacts to build up an understanding of what seems to have been the most standard form of the myth and its variants.Examples of this practice are the section "Troilos and Lykaon" by Gantz (1993: pp.597–603) and the chapter "Antiquity and Beyond: The Death of Troilus" by Boitani (1989: pp.1–19). The brutality of this standard form of the myth is highlighted by commentators such as Alan Sommerstein, an expert on ancient Greek drama, who describes it as "horrific" and "[p]erhaps the most vicious of all the actions traditionally attributed to Achilles."Sommerstein (2007: pp. 197,196).
The standard myth: the beautiful Troilus murdered
Troilus is an adolescent boy or young man, the son of Hecuba, queen of Troy. As he is so beautiful, Troilus is taken to be the son of the god Apollo.Apollo's parentage first appears in a 2nd century AD text. Apollod.+3.12.5 However, Hecuba's husband, King Priam, treats him as his own much-loved child.
A prophecy says that Troy will not fall if Troilus lives to the age of twenty. So the goddess Athena encourages the Greek warrior Achilles to seek him out early in the Trojan War. Troilus is known to take great delight in his horses. Achilles ambushes him and his sister Polyxena when he has ridden with her for water from a well in the Thymbra – an area outside Troy where there is a temple of Apollo.
The Greek is struck by the beauty of both Trojans and is filled with lust. It is the fleeing Troilus whom swift-footedThis Homeric epithet is picked out as applying to Achilles in this context both in March (1998: p.389) and Sommerstein (2007: p.197). Achilles catches, dragging him by the hair from his horse. The young prince refuses to yield to Achilles' sexual advances and somehow escapes, taking refuge in the nearby temple. But the warrior follows him in, and beheads him at the altar before help can arrive. The mourning of the Trojans at Troilus' death afterward is great.
This sacrilege leads to Achilles’ own death, when Apollo avenges himself by helping Paris strike Achilles with the arrow that pierces his heel.
Ancient literary sources supporting the standard myth
Homer and the missing texts of the archaic and classical periods The earliest surviving literary reference to Troilus is in Homer's Iliad, which formed one part of the Epic Cycle. It is believed that Troilus' name was not invented by Homer and that a version of his story was already in existence.Burgess (2001: p.64). Late in the poem, Priam berates his surviving sons, and compares them unfavourably to their dead brothers including Trôïlon hippiocharmên.Homer Iliad (XXIV, 257) The text for the whole passage in Greek, with hotlinks to parallel English translations, is available at . (Verified 1 August 2007.) The interpretation of hippiocharmên is controversial but the root hipp- implies a connection with horses. For the purpose of the version of the myth given above, the word has been taken as meaning "delighting in horses".Carpenter (1991: p.17), March (1998: p.389), Gantz (1993: p.597) and Lattimore's translation at (and maybe Woodford (1993: p.55)) interpret hippiocharmên as horse-loving; Boitani (1989: p.1), who quotes Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad and the Liddell and Scott lexicon and translations available at the Perseus Project (checked 1 August 2007) interpret the word as meaning chariot warrior. Sommerstein (2007) wavers between the two meanings giving each in different places in the same book (p.44, p.197). The confusion over the meaning dates back to ancient times. The Scholia D (available in Greek at link checked 14 August 2007) says that the word can mean either a horse warrior or someone who takes delight in horses (p.579). Other scholia argue that Homer cannot have considered Troilus a boy, either because he is considered one of the best or because he is described as a horse-warrior. (Scholia S-I24257a and S-I24257b respectively, available in Greek at . Link checked 14 August 2007.) Sommerstein believes that Homer wishes to imply in this reference that Troilus was killed in battle, but argues that Priam's later description of Achilles as andros paidophonoio ("boy-slaying man")Homer Iliad 24.506. indicates that Homer was aware of the story of Troilus as a murdered child; Sommerstein believes that Homer is playing here on the ambiguity of the root paido- meaning boy in both the sense of a young male and of a son.Sommerstein (2007: pp. 44, 197–8). Ancient written sources for Troilus Author Work Date Full length descriptions in mythological literature Stasinus of Cyprus? Cypria late 7th century BC (lost) Phrynichus Troilos 6th–5th century BC (lost) Sophocles Troilos 5th century BC (lost) Strattis Troilos 5th–4th century BC (lost) Dares Phrygius de excidio Trojae historia parts written 1st–6th century? Briefer references in mythological literature Homer Iliad 8th–7th century BC Stesichorus possibly in Iliupersis 7th–6th century BC (lost) Ibycus unknown text of which only a few words survive late 6th century BC Sophocles Polyxene 5th century BC (lost) Lycophron Alexandra 3rd century BC? Virgil Aeneid 29–19 BC Seneca the Younger Agamemnon 1st century Dictys Cretensis Ephemeridos belli Trojani 1st–3rd century Ausonius Epitaphs 4th century Quintus of Smyrna Posthomerica Late 4th century? Literary allusions to Troilus Ibycus Polycrates poem late 6th century BC Callimachus Epigrams 3rd century BC Plautus Bacchides 3rd–2nd century BC Cicero Tusculanae Quaestiones c.45 BC Horace Odes Book 2 23 BC Statius Silvae Late 1st century Dio Chrysostom Discourses 1st–2nd centuries "Clement" Clementine Homilies 2nd century? Ancient and medieval academic commentaries on and summaries of ancient literature. Various anonymous authors Scholia to the Iliad 5th century BC to 9th century? Hyginus Fabulae 1st century BC – 1st century AD The "Pseudo-Apollodorus" Library 1st–2nd century Eutychius Proclus? Chrestomathy 2nd century? Servius Scholia to the Aeneid Late 4th century First Vatican Mythographer Mythography 9th–11th century? Eustathius of Thessalonica Scholia to the Iliad 12th century John Tzetzes Scholia to the Alexandra 12th century
Troilus' death was also described in the Cypria, one of the parts of the Epic Cycle that is no longer extant. The poem covered the events preceding the Trojan War and the first part of the war itself up to the events of the Iliad. Although the Cypria does not survive, most of an ancient summary of the contents, thought to be by Eutychius Proclus, remains. Fragment 1 mentions that Achilles killed Troilus, but provides no more detail.The text is available at . (Verified 1 August 2007.) However, Sommerstein takes the verb used to describe the killing (phoneuei) as meaning that Achilles murders Troilus.Sommerstein (2007: p.198).
In Athens, the early tragedians Phrynicus and Sophocles both wrote plays called Troilos and the comic playwright Strattis wrote a parody of the same name. Of the esteemed Nine lyric poets of the archaic and classical periods, Stesichorus may have referred to Troilus' story in his Iliupersis and Ibycus may have written in detail about the character. With the exception of these authors, no other pre-Hellenistic written source is known to have considered Troilus at any length.All these literary sources are discussed in Boitani (1989: p.16), Sommerstein (2007) and/or Gantz (1993: p597, p.601).