Black Ships Before Troy

In Black Ships Before Troy, mortal women are often little more than objects to be stolen, traded, and enslaved. Few significant women characters play a role in the plot—even those that do are simply higher value prizes. Helen—ostensibly the woman who occasions the war—has no choice in her marriage to Menelaus, is forced by divine intervention to fall in love with Paris, is prevented from leaving Paris to return to her original husband, and finally must rely on Odysseus to save her from Menelaus’s wrath. Other prominent female characters, like Chryseis and Briseis, are pawns in the rivalry between Achilles and Agamemnon rather than people with minds, desires, and personalities of their own. The nameless women of Troy become slaves when the city falls.

However, immortal women and goddesses occupy an entirely different realm. Instead of being subject to the whims of the men around them, goddesses control the entire chessboard of the war. Eris triggers the events the cause the Trojan War, Aphrodite ensures the continued survival and happiness of her favorite Paris, Thetis is the only one capable of controlling and reining in Achilles, and Athene emerges as the most important deity of the whole war. Worshipped by both the Trojans and the Greeks, Athene engineers the cunning mechanism by which the Greeks break the stalemate: Her champion Odysseus devises the Trojan Horse.

In mortals, violence and war correlate with the masculine. Hector says to his beloved Andromache, “Dear, cease the weeping. Go back to your women and set them to women’s work. War is the work for men” (39). The story portrays innumerable mortal male heroes and warriors, and gods like Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes directly interfere with the events of the war; imbue heroes with life, strength, courage; control the trajectory of arrows; and even bring people back to life.

The main subversion of these rules comes through the Amazonians, whose strength pushes against the boundaries of the gender roles presented in the novel. Penthesilea’s death marks her as a true warrior: Achilles weeps for her, as “Her helmet had fallen off, and the Greeks who gathered round marveled to see her so young and so fair to look upon, with her bright hair spilled about her” (113). It is remarkable how much her description echoes the way Achilles is often described—young, beautiful, with shining hair. He sees in her a mirror of himself and his destiny.