THE STUDY OF HELEN as a real character from history has been consistently neglected. Historians and romantics alike have enthusiastically sought out the heroes of Greece and by-passed its heroines. It has been too tempting perhaps to remember Helen as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, too appealing to keep her vapid and perfect – too disappointing to discover the world’s desire1 and to find her flawed. Yet there is now a sufficient weight of scholarship to root Homer’s account of Helen, the Iliad, in an epoch known as the Late Bronze Age (1600 to 1050 BC). Tracking the life of a Late Bronze Age aristocrat from birth to death, I hope to put flesh on Helen’s beautiful bones. To put into context a name that is familiar, but strangely insubstantial.
Because Helen is not just one story, but many, told over and over across Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, I have also travelled through the landscape to bring together a promiscuous range of ‘Helens’. There is no single arterial route to the truth of Helen of Troy, but a number of paths that wind across time: Helen grazes the historical record and when written sources are absent I have allowed artefacts, art and the landscape to become articulate. This fusion of ideas and things, people and places, the past and the present, is very Greek; for the early societies around the Mediterranean, boundaries were blurred between the physical and spiritual worlds, between aesthetics and politics. My hope is that this book is an ‘historia’ in the sense used by the ancients: an account which encompasses observation and narrative, inquiry, analysis and myth;2 a physical quest in search of a woman who was renowned, above all, for the physical impact she had on those around her.
There are a number of things this book does not attempt to do. I do not seek to prove the historicity of the Trojan War or indeed of Helen but to examine the character and historical context of both. Erudite works have been written demonstrating that Helen was a vegetation goddess – this is not one of them. A definitive survey of the reception of Helen would run to many volumes; in this book I have focused on those examples that seem to me to demonstrate, particularly vividly, what she has meant to women and men for over twenty-eight centuries.
I use the phrase ‘the Greeks’ to describe those who lived on the Greek mainland and in Greek territories, and ‘Anatolians’ for the inhabitants of what is now predominantly Asiatic Turkey;3 to avoid confusion, Greece, Crete and Turkey describe geographical areas rather than political entities. Where appropriate I use the Roman name for Anatolia – Asia Minor. In the Bronze Age the Greeks appear to have been variously called the Achaioí, Danaoí, and Argeioí almost certainly explaining why Homer refers to them as the Achaeans, the Danaans and the Argives.4 This group of peoples I describe collectively as the Mycenaeans – a nomination they were first given in the 19th century AD. When I talk of a Bronze Age Helen I am describing evidence of the real queens who did indeed live in the Eastern Mediterranean and who were, I believe, a prototype for Homer’s Helen. Even if Helen was just an archetype, she was an archetype with distinct historical features. ‘The ancients’ is a loose term, here applying to those who lived between the 8th century BC and the 3rd century AD, a period known as ‘antiquity’.
I have transliterated all Greek, including the Bronze Age version of ancient Greek, ‘Linear B’; hence PA–MA–KO has become pharmakon (‘useful little things’ – the 3,500 year old root of our word pharmacy). In general I have Latinised figures and place-names from ancient literature. Words from Modern Greek have been given their rough phonetic equivalent.
I have referenced the works, both ancient and modern, on which I have relied heavily or which might be of further interest to the reader. I am indebted to many scholars and adventurers who have gone before me and in particular to those who have been kind enough to help me with this project. They include: Peter Ackroyd, Robert Arnott, Dr Bruce Barker-Benfield, Professor Jonathan Bate, Professor Mary Beard, Dr Lisa Bendall, Rebecca Bennett, Professor Julia Boffey, Dr Julian Bowsher, Professor Nicholas Boyle, Dr Jerry Brotton, Professor Trevor Bryce, Dr Lucilla Burn, Gill Cannell, Professor Paul Cartledge, Richard Catling, Dr Hector Catling, Nick Chlebnikowski, Dr Paul Cohen, Professor Robin Cormack, Mary Cranitch, Dr James Davidson, Professor Jack Davis, Professor Wolfgang-Dietrich Niemeier, Dr Aude Doody, Nicole Doueck, Professor Christos Doumas, Dr Mark Edwards, Matti and Nicholas Egon, Henry Fajemirokun, Dr Lesley Fitton, Dr Katie Fleming, Professor John France, Dr Elizabeth French, Professor Simon Goldhill, Dr Nikolaos Gonis, Dr Barbara Graziosi, Dr Myrto Hatzaki, Professor David Hawkins, Professor John Henderson, Carol Hershenson, Professor Simon Hornblower, Professor Richard Hunter, Dr Hans Jansen and the Tübingen team working at Troy, Dr Richard Jones, Hari Kakoulakis, Dr Michael Keefer, Professor John Killen, Dr Julia Kindt, Professor Dr Manfred Korfmann, Dr Silvin Kosak, Dr Olga Krzyszkowska, Professor Jennifer Larson, Dr Michael Lane, Dr Miriam Leonard, Dr Maria Liakata, Dr Alistair Logan, Professor Deborah Lyons, Dr Laurie Maguire, Professor Sturt Manning, Professor Rosamund McKitterick, Professor Christopher Mee, Dr Daniel Orrells, Professor Elisabeth Oy-Marra, Professor Thomas G. Palaima, Professor Spyros Pavlides, Paul Pollak, Professor John Prag, Dr Laura Preston, Dr Cemal Pulak, Professor Dr Gilles Quispel, Professor George ‘Rip’ Rapp, Professor Colin Renfrew, Dr Roman Roth, Dr Deborah Ruscillo, Professor Lynne Schepartz, Professor Cynthia Shelmerdine, Professor Alan Shepherd and Dr Kim Yates, Professor James Simpson, Dr Nigel Spivey, Professor Jane Taylor, Dr Theodore Spyropoulos, Dr Natalie Tchernetska, Professor Bella Vivante, Dr Sofia Voutsaki, Dr Diana Wardle, Dr Kenneth Wardle, Professor Peter Warren, Rev. Peter Watkins, Dr Michael Wedde, Dr Martin West, Dr Todd Whitelaw, Dr Gotthelf Wiedermann, Michael Wood, Dr Jenny Wormald, Dr Neil Wright, Dr Sofka Zinovieff.
The staff at the Ashmolean Museum, British Museum, Louvre Museum, Cambridge University Library, Matthew Parker Library (Corpus Christi College), Trinity Hall Library, the National Gallery of Scotland and Wilton House have been enormously helpful.
I must reiterate heartfelt and special thanks to Paul Cartledge for his exceptional support and numerous readings; to Ken and Diana Wardle, Trevor Bryce and Lisa Bendall for detailed assistance well beyond the call of duty and to Colin Renfrew, Peter Millett, Richard Bradley, Justin Pollard, Lesley Fitton, Sofia Voutsaki, Cynthia Shelmerdine, Jane Taylor, Alistair Logan, Mark Edwards, John France, Julian Bowsher, Laurie Maguire, Bruce Barker-Benfield and Stephen Haggard for reading chapters or the full manuscript in draft form and responding with invaluable suggestions. Diana Wardle produced the Linear B images on pages 96 and 113 with just a few hours’ notice. Ellah Allfrey elegantly honed the manuscript and Dr Annelise Freisenbruch, who has been my constant ally throughout the research and writing periods, has been nothing other than splendid.
Thank you too to Kristan Dowsing for coffee and above all to Jane who put this book before something far, far more important.