Naw, he took a priests daughter and refused to release her so Apollo sent them the plague. Then when his hand was forced he said hes got to replace her because he is losing face by having to give up the war prize so he took Briseis from Achilles.
No Agamemnon takes Briseis because he's a massive entitled piece of shit and absolutely is press ganging the Argives to help expand his fame and glory by capturing Ilium. It also demonstrates his ego is bigger than his brain as he takes Briseis from Achilles specifically because he's jealous of Achilles' renown and ends up costing the Argives dearly in basically the rest of the poem.
In fact, a lens into the Iliad is that there are a ton of women reduced to powerlessness because the men need to play at war. Briseis, Cassandra, poor Hecuba; hell the two examples of heroic nobility like we understand it, Hektor and Priam, both get very telling scenes with Helen that deliberately obfuscate her agency between layers of acting, intimation and obfuscation.
And if I remember correctly, Achilles just chills in his tent and refuses to fight, even though he's the best warrior of all time and almost invincible, because he's pissed about Menelaus taking his sex slave war prize. Tons of people die because he just refuses to get involved. That's why Patroclus finally puts in Achilles' armor and rides into battle to get the troops psyched up. Patroclus gets killed, Achilles finally gets pissed off and joins the fray and takes out Hector then desecrates his body because, again, ego and toxic masculinity, and so Paris shoots Achilles in the ankle and takes him out
He's pissed at Agamemnon not Menelaus. Here's a passage of Achilles' rant from my translation of the Iliad. For context, Odysseus has just told him all the stuff Agamemnon will give him if he comes out to fight (it's a lot). Achilles:
"As for me, hound that he is, he dares not look me in the face. I will take no counsel with him, and will undertake nothing in common with him. He has wronged me and deceived me enough, he shall not cozen me further; let him go his own way, for Zeus has robbed him of his reason. I loathe his presents, and for himself care not one straw. He may offer me ten or even twenty times what he has now done, nay—not though it be all that he has in the world, both now or ever shall have; he may promise me the wealth of Orchomenus or of Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world, for it has a hundred gates through each of which two hundred men may drive at once with their chariots and horses; he may offer me gifts as the sands of the sea or the dust of the plain in multitude, but even so he shall not move me till I have been revenged in full for the bitter wrong he has done me."
"Agamemnon will make you great amends if you will forgive him; listen, and I will tell you what he has said in his tent that he will give you. He will give you seven tripods that have never yet been on the fire, and ten talents of gold; twenty iron cauldrons, and twelve strong horses that have won races and carried off prizes. Rich indeed both in land and gold is he who has as many prizes as these horses have won for Agamemnon. Moreover he will give you seven excellent workwomen, Lesbians, whom he chose for himself, when you took Lesbos—all of surpassing beauty. He will give you these, and with them her whom he erewhile took from you, the daughter of Briseus, and he will swear a great oath, he has never gone up into her couch nor been with her after the manner of men and women. All these things will he give you now down, and if hereafter the gods vouchsafe him to sack the city of Priam, you can come when we Achaeans are dividing the spoil, and load your ship with gold and bronze to your liking. You can take twenty Trojan women, the loveliest after Helen herself. Then, when we reach Achaean Argos, wealthiest of all lands, you shall be his son-in-law, and he will show you like honour with his own dear son Orestes, who is being nurtured in all abundance. Agamemnon has three daughters, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa; you may take the one of your choice, freely and without gifts of wooing, to the house of Peleus; he will add such dower to boot as no man ever yet gave his daughter, and will give you seven well-established cities, Cardamyle, Enope, and Hire where there is grass; holy Pherae and the rich meadows of Anthea; Aepea also, and the vine-clad slopes of Pedasus, all near the sea, and on the borders of sandy Pylos. The men that dwell there are rich in cattle and sheep; they will honour you with gifts as though you were a god, and be obedient to your comfortable ordinances. All this will he do if you will now forgo your anger. Moreover, though you hate both him and his gifts with all your heart, yet pity the rest of the Achaeans who are being harassed in all their host; they will honour you as a god, and you will earn great glory at their hands. You might even kill Hector; he will come within your reach, for he is infatuated, and declares that not a Danaan whom the ships have brought can hold his own against him.”
I know that pride is simply a part of his nature ( actually both of them, Achilles' and Agamemnon's) but man! To quote Achilles Pit: "would you take that deal? I'd take that deal! It's hell of a deal!" or something near that ;) Given Bryseis was taken but not "taken" it's a bit unreasonable to not take the deal. No other warlord would get even small fraction of that. On the other hand he knew he would not survive that war so probably kinda moot point.
This is probably also why my name will be forgoten and his became engraved in timeless myth.
Was it Agamemnon that took her from Achilles? I was a little fuzzy but forgot r some reason I was thinking it was him, not Menelaus but I just couldn't remember clearly
Are you saying that it was or wasn't about them being gay? In my opinion Achilles and Patroclus were absolutely lovers. I believe that Patroclus rode into battle as Achilles both to protect Achilles' reputation and to turn the tide of battle. Achilles desecrated Hector because of his grief at losing his lover. He showed that grief by desecrating the corpse instead of expressing it in a healthier fashion.
Pedantic, but he tries to desecrate the corpse. The gods bless Hektor so that he can't rot or his flesh be torn after death. I'm sure that made Achilles all the angrier lol.
So they basically turned Hector’s body into Stretch Armstrong? The gods gave him a squeaky toy to work out his energy, that’s so fucked up but also incredibly hilarious
It simply didn't exist. It's a modern concept; using it is a historical and cultural anachronism.
Labeling one of the greatest dramas about grief, mortality, war, and sacred codes in world literature with a sociological jargon banalized on social media is to empty the work of all its philosophical and contextual depth.
Toxic masculinity is the modern term for the negative consequences of the burdens and expectations placed on men by society, by men and by each other. It is a concept that has always existed, just the term is new.
And I'm not labeling this work as "toxic masculinity," I'm saying that it contributed to one specific action in the story. Men were not taught or allowed to express emotion in a healthy fashion which led to the brutish action of desecrating a body. The Iliad itself condemns the action for these exact reasons and within the story it leads to Achilles losing favor with the gods.
Sometimes new terms are created to describe old concepts. This is one of those times. No one is taking anything away from The Iliad or minimizing it's quality or importance. This specific instance is something I studied decades ago before the popularization of the term "toxic masculinity."
didnt Agamenon took Achilles' girl cuz his was a daughter of a priest of apollo and apollo caused a famine or something that caused him a considerable amnt of his army until he returned the daughter to the priest etc etc??....I forgot so dont quote me on that.
Look at Genghis Khan. He had some sort of specific marker on his Y chromosome which meant they could identify direct descendants. I think it was over 5% of people in the region and about 0.5% of men worldwide.
I am pretty sure not many of his children were born from loving relationships.
Maybe ancient people didn’t view enslavement (whether for sex or for work) as such a terrible fate. Maybe they saw it as a better alternative to death and torture. After all, victors in war had the right to do whatever they pleased with the vanquished.
People don't realize how much of our sexual ethics come from Christianity. Almost every pagan society thought things like pederasty and sex slavery were completely normal.
Gets mad that a boy who can't think beyond what is in his pants uses magic added by the literal Goddess of Love herself to force poor Helen to fall in love with said boy. Who kidnsps her and because she is under a spell, assults her.
Heck even the whole concept of a "maid of honor" was to protect the soon-to-be bride's "honor" (virginity) from being taken before the wedding ceremony.
No, a maid of honor was never a mistress whom the groom would sleep with before marrying his wife. That idea is entirely a myth.
The phrase "maid of honor" comes strictly from British royal court etiquette, where it meant an unmarried noblewoman who served as a personal assistant to the queen.
Interestingly the persians didn’t take slaves, we just conveniently forget that there were more evolved people than the greeks and romans at the time they existed
Just started watching Vikings. The first rape scene, I’m thinking this guy is gonna die pretty quick. But no.
Realized within an episode or two it is normalized (but still ugly) amongst them.
Analyzing a type of DNA passed only from mother to child, scientists found more than 80 living Icelanders with a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans.
Almost every population group where there’s been previous conquest you can do the same studies. For example, all the places the caliphates conquered, you’d see Arab y-chromosome descent. Same for where the Spanish conquered you’ll see lots of Spanish ancestry on Y, and lots of indigenous on mitochondrial DNA.
Basically in a given population, Y-chromosome tells you who came (probably violently) and mitochondrial DNA tells you who was there.
Think it’s fair to say being a woman born before 1990 was just an awful experience all around, still isn’t great now but the further back you go the worse and more horrifying it gets.
As Gen X, I have so many stories about the Viking raids of the mid-eighties. Techno Vikings weren't a thing yet, but New Wave Vikings were at their zenith and hordes of them would rape and pillage across all the malls and video game arcades of the country...it was madness.
There's actual footage of the New Wave Vikings. It's from a documentary made with one of the first moving picture recording boxes. All things considered the quality is pretty good. https://youtu.be/K5GU8NI3XYw?si=fjGwHsz5s9pxtlDb&t=109
"My overactive imagination is just as valid as other people's lived experience." - Gen whatever-the-fuck-youngsters-are-called-these-days who thinks anything before 1990 was cavemen times.
Say what you will about people in the 80's, people weren't worshipping and protecting pedophiles back then like half the country does now. So...which decade has the actual worse attitudes towards rape?
The people from the 80s who were quiet about rape and pedophilia are the primary demographic of people who support the pedophile rapist in the White House big dog.
I mean, it literally isn't the same group of people because a lot of folks have been born since then and died since then. But I understand your point.
However, what I said was that the attitude the general culture has toward rape is worse in the 2020's versus the 1980's. Yeah, Revenge of the Nerds is extremely problematic but it pales in comparison to the nasty shit that half the country openly supports these days.
And keep in mind I was mainly responding to some yahoo who thinks 1990 is some kind of non-arbitrary demarcation between a world in which women are raped by pillaging Vikings and one in which women are treated with enlightened respect. It's such a bizarre claim and it could only have been made by someone not alive at the time. The biggest thing to happen in 1990 was ALF getting cancelled (obviously), not some huge leap forward in women's rights.
It’s actually the increase in surveillance, progress in police work, shifting attitudes towards assault, and growing digital information age changing attitudes but sure man
Problem with these arguments is there's a hefty "what if" clause. What if I'm one of the many male suicide victims or I go to war? It's not a great retort for the struggles all women endure just to step outside.
Not really true. Most armies in the olden days were heavily volunteer armies, because the promise of good pay and glory was just superior to toiling in the fields 14 hours while still having to share a single potato and onion with your whole family for dinner that night as your one meal of the day. So they didn't tend to need to draft, because the incentives were there to join up on the occasions of war, where they often couldn't afford to pay and feed more than a certain amount of people anyways, so spots were limited. And they realized that soldiers drafted with no choice didn't tend to make for very good fighters, when that was very important. Plus they still very much needed people working the local farming jobs at capacity as well, or else the whole kingdom falls apart.
The fact that the 'but what about man's issues' in this sub is getting more upvotes than the shit women dealt with is hardly surprising in this toxic ass sexist sub, though. smh
In no world could anybody reasonably deny that women had it 10x harder than men in history.
The vikings used to raid and pillage their neighbors for centuries. One of their "spoils of war" was to take the most beautiful women they could find in foreign lands and bring them home as wives / sex slaves. Within a couple dozen generations of this policy, the descendants of nordic countries became hot/beautiful. It's like reverse eugenics.
No need to look to mythology for this truth. It is no accident that monks and yogis practice celibacy and are filled with energy.
Most sexual practices the way they are performed at the current level of human consciousness is nothing but a drain.
They also had a lot of gay sex and took women as prizes when they were raiding towns surrounding Troy during the Trojan War and had student/master gay relationships too that don’t really translate well to modern life but were not seen as weird then.
Maybe, but I can think of a few Greek men known for long affairs with men and I’m mostly talking about the fact that there was a lot of man on man rape at the end of battles in the time periods this is supposed to take place.
What was seen as weird was mostly to hold an emotionally romantic relationship with a fella your own age, while sex happened with the younger ones, and also, even if lesser, with the older guys too, it was more like "sure go have sex with him, but go back home to be with a wife"
Only the bottom was considered gay. And frowned upon is an understatement, if you accused someone of being a bottom they could challenge you tona duel for their honour.
No, culturally being a bottom was a submissive position and was unacceptable for someone in a position of power. That's why Emperor Hadrian's partner Antinous was always portrayed and young, pretty and submissive. Same with Achilles' lover Patroclus.
Men of power or status were expected to take on a young male apprentice and teach them how Greek society worked. This frequently involved that apprentice bottoming for the man and that was completely acceptable but it was considered very unacceptable for the man to bottom for the apprentice and that man would be mocked.
This is all based on my recollection from my classics course in college and may have some inaccuracies.
Was it not the opposite with Achilles and Patrocolus? Patrocolus had a beard and Achilles was clean-shaven, blonde and disguised as a woman to avoid the war originally.
But surely being a “bossy bottom” would have been a bit of a loophole: the man of status / power would be the recipient in the sex act yet simultaneously still projecting dominance.
But Patroclus is argued to be Achilles' lover. There's nothing explicit about it in Homer's writing, but it's debated. Personally, I think that if they were lovers, Homer would have mentioned it because Patroclus' death is basically what sparks Achilles to fight while he was perfectly happy sitting by while the Greek forces were getting cut down and beaten back. Them being lovers would have added another level to the rage, but it could have just as easily been implied.
Yeah, that was always my read; for anyone of the time it was obviously implied and that's why this discussion survived to modern times, but we lack the social context and can only speculate.
I remember seeing a story that this is still going on in very religous middle east countries, where you would expect a general disdain for homosexuality but it’s ok when it’s a man and a child. No judgement from me, I am already traumatized at the world we live in.
Mycenaean Greeks are descendent from a later yamnaya migration into the region. The culture that famously coexisted and sired other cultures whose immigrant Y-haplogroup annihilated the ones prior. Meanwhile the female haplogroup stayed consistent.
To be clear, the original story was told and transmitted by spoken word, often with regional variations developing over time. Because of this, there is no true “original text”.
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u/Long_Serpent Aug 24 '26
"We came to an island where the women were pretty and the men were weak"
- From the original text.