Transcript Slide 1

WELCOME TO AN
UNFORGETTABLE ADVENTURE
Warning: Proceed with extreme caution –
you are about to enter the world of The Odyssey
The adventure begins with The Trojan War.
Sometimes we forget how wars begin,
so let’s review.
The main characters are:
Menelaus
Paris
Helen
These three were trapped in a love triangle
Helen of Troy
Paris
Menelaus
How did they weave their tangled web?
According to legend, the events that led
to the Trojan War started at a royal
wedding. Peleus, king of the Myrmidons
(a race of people created from ants!),
was marrying a sea nymph named
Thetis.
Many gods attended the wedding, but
Eris, daughter of Zeus, king of the gods,
wasn't invited because she was the
goddess of discord and was bound to
cause trouble.
Revenge and “The Apple of Discord”
Angry at being excluded, Eris decided to disrupt the wedding banquet.
She threw a golden apple marked "for the fairest" among the guests.
The goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite were there, and each
thought that she was the fairest of them all. They bickered for a while
about who deserved the apple, then asked Zeus to decide the matter.
Zeus didn't want to get involved, so he sent them to a prince named
Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).
The goddesses tried to rig the
contest by bribing Paris.
The Judgment of Paris
by Ludovico David
Athena: Goddess of Wisdom & War
Athena
promised to help
Paris lead Troy to
victory in a war
against the
Greeks.
Hera: Goddess of Marriage & Childbirth
Hera promised
to make Paris
the king of all
Europe and Asia.
Aphrodite: Goddess of Love & Beauty
Aphrodite
promised to give
Paris the most
beautiful woman
in the world.
The beautiful woman sounded better to Paris than power and glory, so
he awarded the Apple of Discord to Aphrodite.
His prize was Helen, a
half-mortal
daughter of Zeus.
Aphrodite
sent him
to Sparta to
collect
his prize.
There was just one
problem. The most
beautiful woman in
the world was already
married. . . .
Helen was already married to Menelaus, the
brother of the king of Mycenea, Agamemnon.
When Paris showed up in Sparta, Menelaus and
Helen welcomed him as a guest.
Then Menelaus left Sparta for a while. When he
returned , Helen was gone. She had eloped with Paris.
Menelaus was furious. Determined to win his wife back, he
summoned the princes who had promised to protect Helen.
His brother Agamemnon led the expedition.
Odysseus – King of Ithaca
• Odysseus did not want to go to war but he
had been a suitor to Helen and made the oath
to protect her. In order to avoid going, he
pretended to be insane. When Menelaus sent
Palamedes to get him, he hitched together an
ox and a donkey to one plow and began madly
plowing his fields with salt. Palamedes saw
through the ruse and threw his newborn son,
Telemachus in front of the plow. Odysseus
stopped working and revealed his sanity.
Agamemnon’s Mistake
• Right before the army was set to sail
for Troy, Agamemnon killed an animal
sacred to the Goddess Artemis and
boasted that he was as skilled a
hunter as she. As punishment,
Artemis calmed the winds so the ships
could not sail to Troy.
The Price
Finally, the
prophet Calches said
that the wrath of the
goddess could only be
taken away by the
sacrifice of
Agamemnon's
daughter Iphigenia.
Agamemnon did sacrifice Iphigenia - Her
death appeased Artemis, and the Greek
army (1,000 ships) set out for Troy.
That’s why Helen of Troy is often referred
to as
“The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships”
The Greeks besieged Troy for ten years.
According to legend, the gods took great
interest in the war.
Hera and Athena still resented Paris for
not giving them the Apple of Discord, so
they helped the Greek side.
Aphrodite assisted the Trojans.
Trojan War
In the 10th year, it looked as if the
Trojans would win the war. The
Greeks were ready to give up and
go home. Before they threw in
the towel though, one of their
greatest heroes was making one
final plan. The King of Ithaca,
Odysseus, came up with a foolproof plan to get the Greeks into
Troy.
The Trojan Horse
The Greeks built an immense wooden horse and
Odysseus, Menelaus, and other warriors hid inside.
After leaving the horse at the gates of Troy, the
Greek army sailed away. The Trojans thought the
Greeks had given up and had left the horse as a gift.
The horse was brought inside the walls of Troy and the
Trojans celebrated their victory. That night, while the
Trojans were sleeping, the Greek ships quietly returned.
The soldiers in the horse slipped out and opened
the city gates, and the Greek army quietly
entered Troy.
They started fires all over the city. The Trojans
awoke to find their city burning.
When they tried to flee, they were massacred
by Greek soldiers.
During the sack of Troy, Odysseus found Helen
and took her to her husband, Menelaus. He
told Menelaus that Helen had helped him
steal a sacred Trojan statue, the Palladium.
Pleased to hear that Helen was still loyal to
the Greeks, Menelaus returned with her to
Sparta (it took them seven years to get home)
where, it seems, they lived happily ever after.
Now it was time for Odysseus and the
other Greeks to return to their kingdoms
across the sea.
Trojan War = 10 years
Odysseus’ journey home = 10 years
Here begins the tale of The Odyssey,
Odysseus’ 10 year journey home,
as sung by the blind minstrel Homer.
Now, lets embark on Odysseus’
exciting adventures . . .
Proceed with caution!!
Slide show created from work
by Susie Weigel
Auburn High School
English Teacher