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Scattered to the Winds // Ian Blair

Man, what an opening story, and I don't mean that lightly. Aeneas' recollection of the night the city of Troy was practically deleted from existence and burned off the map is pretty keen considering the adrenaline that must have been coursing through his veins. I want to bring your attention to a particular example of symbolism that I couldn't help noticing: The way that Priam's life ends is eerily similar to the way his City falls. Whenever King Priam is confronting Pyrrhus about killing his son Polites, Priam is enraged and angry at the killer, but is too weak to actually fight back or do anything against his aggressor. It becomes evident pretty quickly that this is the case: 
"With this, To the altar step itself he dragged him trembling, Slipping in the pooled blood of his son, And took him by the hair with his left hand. The sword flashed in his right; up to the hilt He thrust it in his body." (Virgil, 52). 
Priam's death would have been swept into the currents of history without much rumor as to what became of him if Aeneas did not witness the event and remember it so vividly. I feel like the Achaeans also wished for the death of Troy, the legend as well as the city, to die off the same way. No legacy, no lasting memory or proof of ever having been built in the first place. The tactic of the Argives' combined forces was to humiliate their enemies one final time; to make the last story of Troy one of great genius by the Achaeans as a way to boast that they were superior in every way. Killing Priam in front of his family insults his ability to defend himself and the trojan people, which stains the legacy of Priam's reign as time moves forward; it's simply how history works.

p.s. I commented on Jamie's and Micah's posts.

Comments

  1. Logan TurnerNovember 12, 2020 at 8:29 AM

    You make a good point. I never really made the connection between Priam's death and the death of the city. As they say, history is written by the victor, and I feel like the Greeks wanted the world to know of Troy's humiliating defeat, that is why we know so much of the destruction of the city.

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