Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post Reply
Aetos
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1041
Joined: Sat May 19, 2018 6:04 pm

Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by Aetos »

This may be old news to some of you, but this article just popped up in USA Today:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ten ... cid=HPCDHP

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by mwh »

“Tenea is believed to have been a city settled by Trojan prisoners permitted to build their own city after the Trojan War.”

Some people will believe anything.

User avatar
jeidsath
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 5332
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:42 pm
Location: Γαλεήπολις, Οὐισκόνσιν

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by jeidsath »

If we're going to start looking skeptically at Hellenic legends, what happens to Illium? Homeric Thymbra wasn't historic Thymbra. And Homeric Dardania wasn't Aeolic Dardanus.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by mwh »

You miss the point. Try “It is believed that Athenians are an autochthonous people.”

Aetos
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1041
Joined: Sat May 19, 2018 6:04 pm

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by Aetos »

Michael, are you referring here to the concept of the Dorian Invasion that is used to explain the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization and the beginning of the Ionian and that the Athenians claimed they were pure Ionian with no trace of Doric stock? Even as Ionians they were "immigrants" from Anatolia, so how could they claim to be autochthonous? I really am out of my depth here, but the statement intrigues me.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by mwh »

Sorry to be so opaque. I was too laconic. What I was getting at was just the bad reporting. Is Tenea really believed to have been built by Trojan prisoners after the Trojan War? Teneans may have claimed that (there’s a reference in Strabo that suggests as much), but does anyone believe it? And anyway, what difference does it make to the discovery of the remains of the imperial-age city—whose existence (unlike Ilium’s) I don’t think was ever doubted?

Ancient Athenians peddled the patriotic myth that they were autochthonous. They weren’t immigrants, oh no, they’d been there since the beginning. But to say “Athenians are believed to have been autochthonous” would be very poor journalism.

So no I wasn’t referring to the so-called Dorian invasion, a near-mythical creature that is continually changing its spots. But it’s a fact that the Athenians were Ionian and not Dorian.

Aetos
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1041
Joined: Sat May 19, 2018 6:04 pm

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by Aetos »

I don't know where the reporter got that little tidbit (Trojan prisoners!), but there's nothing in the ministry press release concerning it. The reporter throws in this conjecture just in front of the actual quote from the press release, making it appear as though the statements are connected but as I said, there's nothing concerning Trojans in the press release. So far the oldest artifact they've found is a Corinthian obol from the 2nd half of the 6th century B.C. I couldn't find an English version of the press release, but I'm sure there'll be one forthcoming.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by mwh »


Aetos
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1041
Joined: Sat May 19, 2018 6:04 pm

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by Aetos »

Here's the New York Times' version of the story:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ric ... cid=HPCDHP
Somewhat more accurate.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by mwh »

Yes, note that she (unlike you in topic heading :wink:) adds “according to the myth.” It makes a difference.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by mwh »

P.S. I must correct my own misreporting on alleged Trojan origins. It’s not Strabo but Pausanias, 2.5.4:
“When you have turned from the Acrocorinthus into the mountain road you see the Teneatic gate and a sanctuary of Eilethyia. The town called Tenea is just about sixty stades distant. The inhabitants say that they are Trojans who were taken prisoners in Tenedos by the Greeks, and were permitted by Agamemnon to dwell in their present home. For this reason they honor Apollo more than any other god.”
J.G. Frazer—he of the Golden Bough—in his renowned commentary on Pausanias, credits an H.G. Lolling with the discovery of the site of Tenea and gives his own first-hand account of the remains of the city (or what he takes to be such, rightly I suspect).
As to Tenedos, Latinists will think of Vergil’s Est in conspectu Tenedos etc., the gripping tale of Laocoon and the sea-serpents and the Wooden Horse, but more relevant will be an incidental mention in the Iliad of Achilles’ sacking of the island (Il.11.624—I had to look it up), presumably on one of his marauding expeditions around the coast. How the captives were supposed to have gotten to Greece is anybody'’s guess. But who needs history when you have myth?

Aetos
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1041
Joined: Sat May 19, 2018 6:04 pm

Re: Tenea-City built by Trojan prisoners

Post by Aetos »

Strabo does mention Tenea (Geography, 8.6.22) but restricts his remarks to a possible kinship between the people of Tenea and Tenedos, through King Tennes of Tenedos as well as from the similar worship of Apollo:

δοκεῖ δὲ καὶ συγγένειά τις εἶναι Τενεδίοις πρὸς τούτους ἀπὸ Τέννου τοῦ Κύκνου, καθάπερ εἴρηκεν Ἀριστοτέλης: καὶ ἡ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος δὲ τιμὴ παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέροις ὁμοία οὖσα δίδωσιν οὐ μικρὰ σημεῖα.

P.S. I tried to put a question mark in my topic title, but was unsuccessful, so I guess I'll have to remain guilty of yellow journalism!

Post Reply