The Theme Of Burial In Trojan War Narratives
The theme of burial is an important one in both the Homeric epics and later Trojan War narratives, such as Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ The Trojan Women. It can be utilised in different contexts and different ways to present political and problematic ideas. Sophocles and Euripides are especially interesting to study as their portrayal of burials and lamentation reflect the cultural context in which they were written and performed. The supplication of Priam in Book 24 of the Iliad is more difficult to analyse through a political aspect but nonetheless it highlights problematic aspects of the heroic code instilled in the novels. All of these texts use scenes of lamentation or burial to promote emotions of pity and pathos. However, this is not always just the normal emotional response expected from a funeral. In The Trojan Women Euripides wants the audience to engage and identify with a cast of females, barbarians and captives. In Ajax, the agons that debate whether or not Ajax will be buried draw upon Athenian values and ideals. Contrasting the Athenians to the Spartans, and perhaps provides a reflection on the previous ideas of heroic code that have been replaced with a new democratic ideology. The above concepts are all drawn out through the deaths, lamentations and burials of characters in the texts, that encourage analysis of the problems they create and the political resonance within them.
Foley discusses how Greek tragedy used Panhellenic myth to create dialogue between a democratic audience and its cultural traditions. She states that these tragedies unquestionably responded to changing social and political realities that they were experiencing in the Attic polis. These ideas highlight an important aspect of the analysis of Sophocles and Euripides. The playwrights create a link between the Attic polis and the Trojan War, a story that would have been a fundamental part of Greek history, culture and tradition. The audience were extremely familiar with this narrative and the content of the plays would resonate with them. Foley comments that the artists made the choice to respond to specific or sometimes general long-term public issues and controversies. This is the case both in Ajax and The Trojan Women, and the ways in which burial is used to respond to their contemporary issues can be explored.
Euripides’ The Trojan Women is dominant in this area as the entire play can be considered a lament. Suter notes that from a technical and overall structural point of view the play is a lament, however only one lament takes place over a body and the rest are laments for the dead outside of a funeral context. Dué contributes to this categorisation of the play by looking at Hecuba’s lament. She notes that Hecuba presents the theme of her lament as a combined loss of her country, children and husband. Although the only death and burial that takes place in the play is of Astyanax, this lament acknowledges that in fact their city and families are also being mourned. Dyson and Lee contemplate this further, as Astyanax’s is the only real burial, it essentially acts as a substitute for all the burials that ought to have been carried out but were not, and can be seen as representing the very funeral of Troy itself. The ideas that Andromache discusses seem to suggest that for her the murder of her innocent child epitomizes the entire destruction of Troy, investing in the child a symbolic value. This highlights one of the ways in which Astyanax’s death and burial is problematised. The already harrowing image of a child’s burial is burdened with providing a lament for the loss of their city, its people and their previous life.
The context in which Euripides wrote this play must also be considered. Goff discusses the siege of Melos in 416BC where the Melians were forced into surrender, the adult males executed, and the women and children sold as slaves. Dué notes that in the same year as the play, the decision was made to launch the Sicilian expedition, an invasion of an island that had done little or nothing to provoke such an assault. With this context in mind we can explore ideas of how Euripides politicised the lamentation of the Trojan women and the burial of Astyanax. The Trojan Women depicts the aftermath of war, focusing on the treatment of the innocent women and children. Dué determines that Melos was not an isolated event but one component of the imperialist reign of the Athenians in the fifth century. She considers that Euripides may have dramatized the effects of war on women to challenge the ideology of imperialism so the Athenian audience confront on some level their recent political decisions through witnessing the fall of Troy and the suffering of the Trojan women. The suffering and lamentation in the play, climaxed by the burial of Astyanax at the end, would have undoubtedly evoked pity and pathos from the audience.
A way in which Euripides would have engaged the audience is through his presentation of Talthybius. Suter notes that the Greeks, army, men and victors are usually presented by Talthybius. As this is the case, he would have been the character in the play with which most Athenians related to as for the most part he is the representation of the Greeks on stage. When the time comes to prepare Astyanax for the funeral, Talthybius washes the body. Euripides seems to indicate Talthybius’ sympathy for the women and ends his role with him voluntarily joining in with the funeral rites and directing the soldiers under his command to help. Talthybius represents the Greeks in the play however he is presented as sympathetic to the Trojan women. This raises questions of whether Euripides uses this character in order to compel the audience into questioning their treatment of women and children after war. The Greek representative in the play sympathises with the enemy captives and Euripides may have expected this to resonate with the audience.
There are also elements of the play that develop. The Greek male army that is victorious contrasts entirely to the Trojan civilian women that have been defeated. Despite emotional tension throughout the play’s progression, the two opposites join in a common task and tensions are resolved in the burial of Astyanax. Euripides uses the burial of Astyanax to unite the Greeks and Trojans with a common cause. This idea would have been problematic for the Athenian audience, who through this burial, are being obligated to pity and sympathise with the Trojans. Dué discusses this further by proposing that the distinction between Greek and Trojan is blurred through the use of traditional Greek laments and imagery. Visvardi expands on this, noting that tragedy provides a forum for the conflation of Greek and foreign through the captive women’s lament, which in turn contributes to the process of exploring Athenian civic identity. This is effective on a personal and collective level and the lamenting voice challenges wartime ideology by primarily dramatizing the emotional. Instead of explicitly dramatizing political aspects in the play, Euripides instead focuses on the emotional aspect. He uses laments, and ultimately the burial of Astyanax, to create a highly emotive environment that demands a sympathetic and pitiful reaction from its audience.
Suter analyses Euripides’ use of the chorus and female characters, discerning that all though they are usually without power in the public sphere, by using a lamenting group he attempts to make an ordinarily marginal, powerless group of victims heard. Euripides is using an Other, that is both barbarian and female, to make a statement about politics. Visvardi believes that the chorus of Trojan women raises awareness of issues of accountability, responsibility, and morality in the decision making process and practice of war, through the use of pity.
The other central character of the play that encourages pity is Astyanax. Davidson links Andromache’s lament over the body of Hector, in which she is doubtful their son will reach manhood, to The Trojan Women. He describes the play as a realisation of the future outlined in the Iliad, the sack of troy, the killing of the males and enslavement of the females that is foreshadowed now occurs. In Astyanax’s case he is buried in his father’s shield that protected the living body of Hector, as well as being the last meaningful act the women can perform in Troy, the funeral acts as a symbol for the end of the city and therefore leads the play to a satisfactory conclusion. Ideas of how to treat enemies of war, women and children were present in the male consciousness at the time. With this in mind, the burial scene would have had an immense impact. The burial is carried out by the Trojan women, who, as previously discussed, are the antithesis of everything the audience would have been. They are women, slaves, barbarians, and despite this opposition, the scene is designed to be moving. The burial would have been problematic for the audience. Through the disturbing image of a small child buried in his father’s shield, Euripides stimulates the audience to sympathise and pity their enemies.
The problematisation and politicisation of burial is also a central part of Sophocles’ Ajax. A debate on whether or not Ajax will be buried takes place between Teucer, Menelaus, Agamemnon and Odysseus from lines 1047 onwards. Barker comments that the dual agon that takes place is about the judgement of the audience and that the performance reflects on the new social conditions of democracy. Sophocles does this by drawing on anti-Spartan prejudice and Iliadic precedent. Barker highlights the importance of the audience as they judge the debate taking place and shows that Sophocles does this through using relevant political ideas the audience would recognise. One of these is the characterisation of Menelaus, who immediately asserts command by forbidding Ajax’s burial and claiming it is his decision. He continues by stating that laws cannot be kept in a city that lacks fear and reverence. March characterises Menelaus as believing absolute obedience of the state is of great importance and Barker notes that for Menelaus, his decision, and the decision of the army, are one and the same as all are subordinate to his power.
Sophocles’ characterisation of Menelaus is the stereotypical view the Athenians had of the Spartans. The idea of an oligarchic, tyrannical ruler, who imposed fear and had complete control of his people, is depicted here through Menelaus. This depiction is highly anti-democratic and would have meant the audience perceived Menelaus’ part of the agon unfavourably. In response, Teucer resists Menelaus, suggesting immediately that his authority can be contested. He takes on an Athenian democratic resistance to the hierarchical authority associated with the Spartan government. Spartan philosophy directly contradicted the Athenian political situation at the time. Sophocles uses the discussion on Ajax’s burial as an opportunity to emphasise the opposition against Spartan and Athenian ideologies. The Spartan expectation of complete obedience and tyrannical authority presented in Menelaus is countered by Teucer’s questioning of this authority as he advocates for Athenian freedom and democracy.
The agon the continues between Teucer and Agamemnon, who insults Teucer’s lower status to establish that he cannot be involved in deciding if Ajax is buried. Barker comments that Agamemnon identifies Teucer and Ajax as people who cannot abide by the rules of context and accept that majority’s decision. Through this description he voices a fundamental fear of democracy. Nielsen comments that when Odysseus appeals to Agamemnon’s moral integrity to permit Ajax’s burial, Agamemnon the tyrant is not easily persuaded, the burial is only granted as a favour to Odysseus. Holt characterises Menelaus and Agamemnon as representing different principles or points of view of either civil and military authority. This can be expanded through Barkers view that although the debate should be ostensibly about the burial of the dead hero, it instead turns on to a more general issue of authority. March notes that to Odysseus the issue of power is immaterial, despite the previous two debates largely dealing with this concept. In this agon the Iliadic model of oligarchy is brought into a democratic Athens. Sophocles problematises Ajax’s burial in order to explore political concepts. He uses Agamemnon and Menelaus to contrast Teucer and Odysseus, creating comparison between aristocratic rights and democracy as well as the individual and the community. The use of Odysseus as a flexible character, who values being just more than personal revenge, could be identified as a way in which Sophocles displays a new democratic form of heroism. Through this debate, Sophocles compares and contrasts different forms of leadership, he does not provide us with a conclusive answer to the best type but instead leaves the audience to judge the debate and decide for themselves.
Both Sophocles and Euripides are examples of later Trojan War narratives, but the study of Iliad Book 24 also reveals some problems surrounding burial. It is important to first note, as Vernant describes, the importance of receiving a proper burial. He comments that only through funerary rites taking place can one go to Hades, emphasising the importance of proper burial. This is present in Iliad 24 when Achilles attempts to deprive his enemy access to his glorious death and kleos. Achilles’ wish to refuse Hector funeral rites so that he does not achieve a heroic death and kleos would have been problematic for the listeners, who understand the importance of burial to attain kleos. In Iliad 24 not only do we see the supplication of Priam to Achilles, but also the lament and burial of Hector’s body. Hector’s funeral at the end of the Iliad anticipates the death of Achilles and the fall of the city. The allusion to Astyanax also looks forward to his fate. Book 24 seems to foreshadow several events, and these are depicted in later Trojan War narratives, especially Euripides’ The Trojan Women, which can be seen as a direct continuation of the narrative from where the Homeric epic ends.
On the potential of attributing political aspects to Homer, Grethlein notes that because of the uncertainty of the date of composition, historical interpretation is a challenge. And Edmunds believes that the fundamental situation for the Iliad is not political. This means it differs to Euripides and Sophocles because underlying political themes are not a key component, instead we can focus on the ways in which the burial of Hector is problematic and not what we expect at the end of the Iliad. Koziak describes the poem as ending with the communal mourning and cremation of Hector and Hammer notes that the final scene does not end with heroic action of an individual but instead a communal remembrance of the dead. These ideas are interesting as they problematise the rest of the Homeric epics focus on action, heroes, their code, and attaining kleos. Instead of finishing with a continuation of these themes, Homer instead focuses on the communal mourning and burial of Hector. Previously we see Achilles overcome with emotion and pity towards his enemy, Priam, resulting in him returning Hector’s body. These ideas of pity and pathos are continued to the end of the play. The scene evokes pity not only for the death of Hector but also foreshadows the destruction of the city and the death of Astyanax.
Despite these three texts encompassing different aspects of the Trojan narrative, they each successfully present a burial through political context or to stimulate a problematic response with its audience. The context and problems these burial scenes create are all exceptionally different however a similarity can be noted between the three. The scenes which have been described all occur at the end of the text. This in itself can be analysed as a purposeful statement from the authors. As we have seen, the debate over whether Ajax will be buried culminates with his burial, the final scene in The Trojan Women is the burial of Astyanax and the Iliad closes with a communal lamentation and burial of Hector. The burials are an effective resolution to the texts that encourages pity and sympathy from the audience with their endings.
Through the analysis of these texts we determine that burial is an effective tool to stimulate thought, both in confronting problematic areas and political context. Euripides problematizes and politicises the burial of Astyanax, through engaging with the ideas at the time of the reality of war, and the treatment of the vulnerable and innocent victims afterwards. The recent siege of Milos would mean this subject resonated with the audience, and Euripides evokes sympathy for the female Trojans through their laments and the burial of Astyanax. Sophocles similarly engages with stereotypical Athenian views on Spartan oligarchy and uses the debate on Ajax’s burial as a way to compare the old models of aristocratic and oligarchical reign with the Athenian democracy. Finally, the Iliad also problematises Hector’s burial. The end of the epic again evokes pity and instead of an ode to the Greeks and glory, Homer focuses on lamentation and burial. Burial is used for different reasons and with different contexts in each of these texts, but it regularly raises issues concerning Athenian ideology. It creates political questions to consider and problematic scenes that consistently evoke pity and pathos from their audience.
