Paris

when

whether whenever we think of uh hercules whenever we think of paris and what started troy that mythical uh the battle of troy you know the trojan wars right now when we look back we think apple it wasn't it was quince

are you telling me that there is a longstanding historical and cultural conspiracy, a revisionist history, to erase the quince from its important stature and replace it with the apple? Yes.

More after the break.

So Helen, sadly for Paris, at the time was already married to Menelaus of Troy.

Okay.

so paris was like yeah that sounds great you're gonna give me helen of troy it sounds delightful oh then paris gave the fruit to aphrodite aphrodite in turn helped him win helen thereby sparking the trojan war and destroying his entire house wow paris gone and his brother gone

that's what you get for treating a woman like a trophy

We need to give Helen back and that will end the war.

Paris complains and then they just say, okay, well, we're not going to do that.

So these two

councils, these two embassies, these two intellectual engagements are operating in parallel and they both in some way hinge around the exchange of a woman and very, very fascinating parallelism from Homer.

That's hillsdale.edu slash course and make a donation to support what we do here.

Now let's turn back to the Iliad Lecture 4, The Embassy to Achilles.

After Hector and Paris return to the army, the stage is set for more battle in book seven and eight.

Book seven begins with Hector returning to battle and challenging the bravest Greek to fight him.

No.

Because the Trojans, pretty much everybody except for Paris and Priam were amazing people.

Single person, I think.

But the reason was Priam and Paris were the most important people.

And so everyone listened to them.

They need to be put out of power.

they were just...

But

Más al sur encontramos Githion, un colorido pueblo neoclásico con aires de isla del Egeo.

Desde allí se accede caminando al islote de Kranae, donde París y Helena pasaron su primera noche tras huir de Esparta.

Mesenia es un paisaje mediterráneo de olivares infinitos, fortalezas venecianas y bahías turquesas, tierra de la sabrosa aceituna de Kalamata, de la que nace un aceite de gran calidad.

En esta región, el aire se impregna del olor de las almazaras, mezclados con el olor a higo maduro.

Troy is more about honor and glory and war and death, although Xenia is still very much a part of this because within the Iliad, you will see lots of examples of Xenia where guests show up And like a host must greet them and give them food and whatever, you know.

And we have to remember that the entire reason this war began is because of a breaking of Xenia because Paris steals Helen from Menelaus, right?

Right.

They were guests in his house and he absconds with his wife.

They are manipulating so much of what's happening on the battlefield.

I

read the very beginning of the Iliad, but they're the ones that take Paris away from the battlefront, right?

exactly like yeah and

Helena eligió a Menelao de Esparta.

Se casaron, eran felices hasta que apareció Paris, que la raptó y se la llevó a Troya.

Eh, Tindáreo recordó a los príncipes el juramento que habían hecho.

Bueno, y así empezó la guerra de Troya.

Palamedes, eh, era uno de los tres hijos de Nauplio.

Nauplio efectivamente tenía tres hijos y era navegante.

Cuando se produce el rapto de Helena por parte de Paris, eh, bueno, eh, a la casa de Helena y Menelao.

Menelao justo tuvo que salir.

So it's quite interesting how we get very rich detail about the events.

We just came out of the duel of Menelaus and Paris, in which Aphrodite intervened by taking Paris away.

And now there's this truce that was in place between the Trojans and the Achaeans, the Greeks, to let these two rival husbands, so to speak, fight for Helen.

And now because Paris is gone, the duel is over and the truce collapses.

Yeah, one of the themes that comes up here in the beginning of this lecture, and Dr. Smith points to it and says that this is a theme that we'll carry out throughout the book, is the idea of how do you treat and how do you view previous generations, the relationship between generations.

Which is better? What can you learn from them? Because there's a scene, I think it's in book four, where one of Diomedes' friends says that we are greater than our fathers and they are fools.

here made by this man in response to Agamemnon's taunt.

But let's be on the lookout for moments when it becomes painfully clear that bravado or fiery desire or fiery spirit is on the brink of destroying a man.