Chryseis and Briseis

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Chryseis and Briseis
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Attic red figure skyphosMakron490-480 bce (late
archaic)Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
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Attic red figure skyphosMakron490-480 bce (late
archaic)Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
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Attic red figure kylixMakron490-480 bce (late
archaic)Berlin, Antikenmuseen
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Attic red figure kylixMakron490-480 bce (late
archaic)Berlin, Antikenmuseen
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Odysseus Embarks ChryseisJoseph-Marie Vien1644
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Odysseus Embarks ChryseisJoseph-Marie Vien1644
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Iliad XXIV.791ff.

• Then Priam and herald, minds set on the journey
  home, / bedded down for the night within the
  porchs shelter. And deep in his sturdy
  well-built lodge Achilles slept / with Briseis in
  all her beauty sleeping by his side.

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Briseis in Ovids Heroides 3

• ...If it may be allowed to complain a little of
  my lord and husband, I have a few causes of
  complaint against you, who are both. I do not
  blame you that I was so tamely delivered up to
  the king when demanded and yet, even in that
  point, you are not altogether without blame for
  no sooner was I demanded by Eurybates and
  Talthybius, than I was delivered up to be carried
  away by those military heralds. Each regarding
  the other with a look of surprise, inquired in
  whispers, Where is their so famed love? I
  might have been detained somewhat longer delay
  of misery would have been grateful. Alas! when
  torn from you, I gave no parting kisses but my
  tears flowed without ceasing I tore my hair, and
  hapless seemed to myself, for the second time, a
  captive....

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Achilles BriseisAttic red figure belly
amphora510-500 bce (archaic)London, British
Museum
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Achilles BriseisAttic red figure belly
amphora510-500 bce (archaic)London, British
Museum
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Achilles BriseisAttic red figure belly
amphora510-500 bce (archaic)London, British
Museum
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Agamemnon leading away BriseisAttic red figure
skyphos480-470 bce (late archaic)Paris, Louvre
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Agamemnon
Talthybios
Diomedes
Briseis
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cheir epi karpôihand upon wrist
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Hector led away by PriamAttic red figure
amphora480 bce (late archaic)
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Hom. Il. 7.273-312 duel of Hector and Ajax

• Hom. Il. 7.273-312 duel of Hector and Ajax
• First they fought with heart-devouring hatred, /
  then they parted, bound by pacts of friendship
• Ajax gives Hector his war-belt Hector gives
  Ajax his sword

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War-belt
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sword
Ajax led away by Phoenix
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Briseis led away from Achilles tentAttic red
figure kylix470 bce (late archaic)London,
British Museum
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Briseis
Patroklos
Achilles
Phoenix
herald
herald
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Briseis led to Agamemnons tent(other side of
same vase)
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Briseis led to Agamemnons tent
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details
to Agamemnons tent
from Achilles tent
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Pompeian wall painting House of the Tragic
Poet1st century ce
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Pompeian wall painting House of the Tragic
Poet1st century ce
Achilles
Patroklos
Briseis
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(No Transcript)
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Briseis returned to AchillesPeter Paul
Rubensoil sketch for tapestry1630-32Detroit
Institute of Art
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Achilles
Briseis
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Briseis brought before AgamemnonGiambattista
Tiepolofresco1743Villa Valmarana, Vicenza
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Agamemnon
Briseis
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Concubines and Mistresses

• Agamemnon (archaic and classical)
• Laertes (archaic)
• Lysias (classical)
• Hellenistic marriage-contracts

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Agamemnon in the Iliad I.130 ff.

• ...the young girl Chryseis. / Indeed, I prefer
  her by far, the girl herself. / I want her mine
  in my own house! I rank her higher / than
  Clytemnestra, my wedded wife--shes nothing less
  / in build or breeding, in mind or works of hand.

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Klytemnestra in Euripides Electra

• 420-410 bce
• Still, wronged as I was, my rage had not burst
  forth for this Iphigenia, nor would I have
  slain my lord, had he not returned to me with
  that frenzied maiden and made her his mistress,
  keeping at once two brides beneath the same roof.
  Women maybe are given to folly, I do not deny it
  this granted, when a husband goes astray and sets
  aside his own true wife, she fain will follow his
  example and find another love and then in our
  case hot abuse is heard, while the men, who are
  to blame for this, escape without a word.

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Laertes (1.488 ff.)

• His devoted nurse attended him, bearing a
  glowing torch, / Eurycleia the daughter of Ops,
  Pisenors son. / Laertes had paid a price for the
  woman years ago, / still in the bloom of youth.
  He traded twenty oxen, / honored her on a par
  with his own loyal wife at home / but fearing the
  queens anger, never shared her bed.

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Lysias

• When they madam hetaerae got here, Lysias
  did not bring them to his own house, out of
  regard for his wife, the daughter of Brachyllus
  and his own niece,
• and for his own mother, who was elderly and who
  lived in the same house but he lodged the two,
  Metaneira and Nicaretê, with Philostratus of
  Colonus, who was a friend of his and was as yet
  unmarried.

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Hellenistic marriage-contract (311 bce)

• ...It shall not be lawful for Heraclides to
  bring home another wife in insult of Demetria nor
  to have children by another woman nor to do any
  evil against Demetria on any pretext...

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Hellenistic marriage-contract (92 bce)

• .. It shall not be lawful for Philiskos to
  bring in any other wife but Apollonia, nor to
  keep a concubine or lover, nor to beget children
  by another woman in Apollonias lifetime, nor to
  live in another house over which Apollonia is not
  mistress, nor to eject or insult or ill-treat
  her, nor to alienate any of their property to
  Apollonias disadvantage....

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Hellenistic marriage-contract (92 bce)

• .. It shall not be lawful for Philiskos to
  bring in any other wife but Apollonia, nor to
  keep a concubine or lover, nor to beget children
  by another woman in Apollonias lifetime, nor to
  live in another house over which Apollonia is not
  mistress, nor to eject or insult or ill-treat
  her, nor to alienate any of their property to
  Apollonias disadvantage....

i.e, male lover, boyfriend