I
want to retell a story you've heard since childhood, a romance of
brave heroes and young love crushed by cruel fate. It is the legend
of the shining city of Troy, Helen and Achilles and the wooden horse.
But this time I mean to wring as much of the myth out of the tale as
I can. My version begins with the capricious, hot, dry Etesian winds,
which for five months every summer for the last five thousand years
have roared without warning down the winding narrow straights of the
Hellespont – the Sea of Hellen - for days at a time. Faced with
such a fickle and relentless foe, crews of the square rigged ships
sailing from the Aegean Sea to the Bosporus and the Pontos Axinos
(the Dark or Black Sea) beyond, risked their lives if caught in the
straits by an Etesian wind.
A
safe harbor close to the southern entrance of the dangerous straits,
where a ship could safely wait for favorable winds, would surely
prosper, and growing wealthy, would become a temptation. For some
1,500 years there was just such a wealthy port on a broad bay at the
mouth of the Scamander river, within ten miles of gates to the
Dardinelles. And to modern ears the cities' name sounds almost
ethereal, as if whispered by the Etesian winds themselves – Wilusa.
Wilusa
began as a fishing village, atop a 100 foot high limestone outcrop
that jutted into the bay like a ship's prow. Over a thousand years
the village became a royal palace and keep, five city blocks wide,
with 25 foot high sloping walls. Eventually, as the town prospered,
two ditches were dug, eleven feet wide and six feet deep, running out
from the land side of the citadel, encircling a city of 6,000 people.
A tunnel dug through the bed rock fed Wilusa with fresh water. And
outside the walls, dotted with farms, was “The Troad”, the sea
of grasses that made Wilusa
famous for horse breeding.
The
great crises for the city that would come to be called Troy began in
the year 1275 B.C.E., when the guarantor of Wilusan
royalty, The Hittite King
Mursili III, was challenged by the resurgent Egyptians along his
Syrian border. Seeking to secure his opposite flank, Mursili III
picked the dull but
stable, younger son Piya Walmu, for the kingship of Wilusa. And the
new King payed the Hittites back by supplying horses and chariots for
the Hittite Army under Mursili's uncle, Prince Hattusili. It was the
logical decision, but it left out of power the older, ego maniacal son,
Piya Aaradu, meaning “gift of the faithful”. And his gift was a dangerous ambition.
The
Battle of Kadesh in 1274 B.C.E. began when Hattusli's chariots caught
a third of the Egyptian army by surprise, and came very close to
sweeping it off the field and killing the Pharaoh. But Ramses kept
his nerve and held his force together until reinforcements arrived.
Nearly 4,000 chariots on both sides, the high tech weapon of the
day, swept back and forth across the Syrian plain, until the
Hittites were forced to take refuge behind the walls of Kadesh. Hattusli was saved only because Ramses' army was too weakened to put
the city under siege. Both sides' propaganda claimed a bloody
victory, and both Ramses and Hattusli were labeled as heroes. But
afterward both Hittite and Egyptian empires retreated to lick their
wounds.
At
the first word of Hittite troubles, Piya Aaradu staged a coup,
murdered his bother and declared himself the new King of Wilusa. He
immediately offered to renew the cities' friendship treaty with the
Hittites But Mursili
knew he would not remain King for long if he was thought to be weak.
And he felt his uncle Hattusli, the “hero” of Kadesh, looming
over his throne. So Mursili commanded Manapa-Tarhunda, the governor
of the Seha River region , just south of Wilusa, to punish the
usurper for the Hittites. In about 1273 B.C.E., the Seha army marched
on Wilusa. But on the plains of The Troad, Piya Aaradu ambushed the
punitive force, and Manapa-Tarhunda was defeated. Now, suddenly, the
entire Hittite western border was looking vulnerable, as well.
Mursili
had no choice. In 1272 B.C.E. he dispatched a larger, fully Hittite
force under a general known to history only as Gassus. Using a
horsehide covered battering ram suspended from a rolling frame (above), the
Hittites quickly breached the city walls of Wilusa. Gassus allowed his warriors
to sack the city, but prevented them from burning the entire place to
the ground. Afterward, Wilusa was no longer trusted enough to have
its own king, but a local was named the new governor - Alaksandu.
The only mistake Gassus made, and perhaps the reason we do not know his
full name, was that he allowed Piya Aaradu to escape.
The
pouting prince sailed 300 miles down the coast of Asia Minor to the
port of Millawanda, or Miletus in language of its Archean founders,
the kings of Mycenea, 100 miles west across the Aegean Sea, in what is today Greece. Here, Piya Aaradu was sympathetically greeted by his
son-in-law Atpa, who was the governor, and was the brother to Akagamunas, the king of
Mycenae.
With this familiar support, Piya Aaradu led a mercenary raid
against Hittite merchants on the island of Lesbos. The joint Achean and Wilusian raid captured 700 skilled artisans, who
were then sold into slavery. It seems likely Piya Aaradu split
the profits with his son-in-law, and that Akagamunas also “got a
taste”, to borrow a Mafia term from the 20th
century A.D. The “had been” and “would be” King of Wilusa,
Piya Aaradu was now a pirate, with money to finance future raids
Unfortunately
for Piya Aaradu, his military alliance with the Hellenistic King
Akagamunas of Mycenae, was the final straw for the Hittites. About
1269 B.C.E. Mursili III was sent into exile by, his uncle, Hatusili. The new king gathered an army and about 1267 B.C., marched on
Miletus.
Piya Aaradu tried talking his way out of the mess. He
offered to swear allegiance to Hatusili if he was returned to power
in Wilusa. Hattusli
responded by sending an envoy to Miletus with instructions to bring
Piya Aaradu back as his prisoner. Instead the envoy returned with yet
another message, this one demanding that Piya Aaradu be reinstated as
King of Wilusa, and no
promise of loyalty. Hatusili's
answer was to march his army right up to the border with Miletus.
Teetering on the brink of all out war between Mycenea and the
Hittites, Hattusili demanded Akagamunas
hand over Piya Aaradu for punishment.
Akagamunas
was not eager to start a war. Pulling Hittite beards was fun, and
Piya Aaradu's raids had even shown a small profit. But big wars have
a tendency to wipe out small profits very quickly. So, as a show of respect, the Governor of Melitus, Atpa, invited Hatusili to visit Melitus , assuring him he would over Piya Aaradu to him. But,
once Hatusili was inside the city walls, Atpa informed the Hittite
King that Piya Aaradu could not be found anywhere in Melitus. He had
skipped town.
Hattusili
was not happy. The switch with Piya Aaradu was an obvious insult. But he did not want a war,
either. So after stomping around Mellitus for a few days, he headed
home. And given the time and distance to think during his journey,
and perhaps listen to his advisers, Hattusila decided to try a new
approach. The following year he offered to give Piya Aaradu
everything he wanted, including the crown of Wiliusa. Swear fidelity
to Hattusili and all would be forgiven.
Now,
no one in their right mind would have believed such an offer was
genuine. But was Piya Aaradu in his right mind? And more importantly,
could Akagamunas trust the pirate prince would stay in his right
mind? It was one thing to finance Piya Aaradu when the Achaens had
plausible denial It would another if Piya Aaradu could trumpet proof
of Mycenaean duplicity from the topless towers of Ilium. No matter
how unlikely the offer from Hattusili was, it was a death sentence
for Piya Aaradu.
Akagamunas
could never give him the chance to tell the truth. It made no
difference if the ego maniac was strangled in his bed, or stabbed by
a trusted friend while leading another raid. His dead body may have
even been handed over to Hattusili as a sign of good will. But it had
to happen.
In
fact Hattusili followed a similar strategy when his nephew Mursili
escaped his exile and arrived in Egypt. First the Hittite King
demanded his return. And then offered to welcome him back into the
family. Both Mursili and Piya Aaradu simply, suddenly disappeared
from history. And they were far from the only ones who disappeared.
.
Beginning
abound 1206 B.C.E., according to historian Robert Drews, “Within a
period of forty to fifty years...almost every significant city in the
eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be
occupied again” One of the first to be burned for the last time
around 1200 B.C.E., seems to have been Wilusa. Almost the last to go was
the Hittite capital of Hattusa, which was burned to the ground one night in
1180 B.C.E. By then, every major city, from Greece to the Egyptian
frontier, was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied for
generations.
Maybe
the villeins were invaders, or diseases, or volcanoes or climate change or
perhaps even the replacement with bronze by iron tools and weapons.
But whoever or whatever the cause, to a child growing up in Greece a
thousand years before the current era, the past was a time
of greatness and plenty, unlike their hungry today. And leaders like Piya Aaradu (aka Priam),
Akagamunas (or Agamemnon), Alaksandu (Alexander, aka Paris) were so famous for so long, they became myths. And
Helen herself, the most beautiful woman in history, the face that
launched a thousand ships and toppled the topless towers of Ilium
(Troy) was Greece herself, and the new Hellenistic culture she would
export to the entire world.
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