The Sack of Troy

CC 303 Intro to Classical Mythology - Fall 2009
Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, Prof. Lawrence Kim

Laocoön, Cassandra, Polyxena, Astyanax, Aeneas, Hecuba, Sinon, Lesser Ajax

1. Philoctetes kills Paris with his bow
2. The Trojan Horse
   1. Greeks hide inside and send other troops away
   2. Laocoön and Cassandra warn against it
      • Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts!
   3. The Story of Sinon, Greek left behind
      
   4. Snakes from the sea eat Laocoön and sons
   5. Trojans accept the horse into the city
   • Sinon opens the horse
     
   6. Troy falls
3. The Destruction of Troy and Wartime Atrocities
   1. Neoptolemus kills Priam at the altar of Zeus
   2. Lesser Ajax rapes Cassandra at altar of Athena
   3. Astyanax, Hector's son, thrown from the walls by Odysseus
   4. Polyxena, Priam's daughter, throat cut over the tomb of Achilles
   5. Aeneas of the Trojans escapes; will found Rome
   1. Carries father Anchises on his back
   2. Wife Creusa is left behind
      
   6. Cassandra, Andromache taken prisoner
   7. Hecuba and the Thracians
   • Polydorus' Murder, Transformation into a dog
     
4. The Returns
   1. Nestor, Diomedes make it home
   2. Agamemnon killed by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra
   3. Lesser Ajax killed at sea
   4. Menelaus and Helen stuck in Egypt

1. Greek warriors entering the Trojan Horse outside the walls of Troy. Early 16th c. French painting on enamel, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland OH.
   
2. Trojan Horse. Detail from neck of Cycladic relief vase, c. 675-650 BCE. Mykonos Archeological Museum, Mykonos.
3. Laocoön. Marble statue, c. 140 BCE, by Hagesandros, Polydoros, and Athanadoros of Rhodes. Imperial Roman copy of Greek bronze original. Vatican Museums, Rome.
4. *Laocoön. El Greco, c. 1610. National Gallery, Washington DC.
5. Neoptolemus slaying Priam, who holds the corpse of Astyanax, on an altar of Zeus. Attic Red-figure hydria by the Kleophrades Painter, c. 480-475 BCE. Museo Nazionale, Naples.
6. Neoptolemus batters Priam with the body of Astyanax. Attic black figure amphora, c. 550 BCE. British Museum, London.
7. Lesser Ajax seizes Cassandra at the Palladion (statue of Athena). Attic Red-figure hydria by the Kleophrades Painter, c. 480-475 BCE. Museo Nazionale, Naples.
8. Odysseus hurls Astyanax over the walls of Troy as Andromache looks on.
9. Sacrifice of Polyxena. Detail from Athenian black-figure clay vase, c. 575-525 BCE. British Museum, London.