MACHAIRA: The Carnage of Troy | The Last Night of Troy

The Carnage of Troy

The Ilioupersis, the fallen of Troy through the Greek ruse of a wooden horse is not cited by the Iliad but by Odyssey and by some ‘minor’ Greek literary works, although little of them is left. The iconographic project of Euphronios and Onesimos kylix and the one on hydria of Kleophrades focused on the carnage of Troy, culminating in the holocaust of Priam, king of Troy, at the hands of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, on the altar of Zeus Erkeios. In both masterpieces the machaira shows that these are ritual sacrifice scenes; about the kylix, the blade is on the floor, in front of the altar, while on the hydria it’s held by a hand. Furthermore, with machaira, Neoptolemus sacrifices Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles, but the same soldier will find his death in the enclosure of Apollo, in Delphi, at the hands of Machaireus.

During the siege of Troy, Greeks lost their aretè, the war virtue visible in the violence of Ajax the Lesser against Cassandra, asking for mercy at the feet of the statue of Athena, in her sacred place. Otherwise, on both vases there is a scene balancing the awful cruelty of Ajax, the reunification between Acamas and Demofos, sons of Theseus, and their grandmother Aithra, assigned as slave to Helen.  They are the only Greeks – with Odysseus, painted only on kylix – not guilty for war crimes.

Ilioupersis – Analogies between Hydria Vivenzio and Kylix of Euphronios and Onesimos (inner side)

The story on kylix is longer. On the other side, the cruelty of Ajax is balanced by the meeting of Menelaus and Helen, in which Eros makes the king of Sparta fall in love with her again, preventing him from killing her. Another scene of compassion is about Odysseus saving the couple Antenor and Theano. With them, he had a hospitality relationship, sacred in Greece, protected by Zeus. Furthermore, the Trojans – among the few to think that Helen had to be sent back to his husband – had hosted Odysseus and Menelaus in the Troy’s embassy before the beginning of the war, saving them from an ambush. The rest of the pictures are war scenes, enhancing the surprise attack and the failure of Trojans to respond to it: a Trojan, naked and wounded holds just the machaira and strikes a blow; a woman uses a pestle as a weapon, against a soldier completely armed; another one is trying to defend herself with a double-bladed axe, maybe Andromache, given the royal weapon.    

Now the carnage is over, the surviving and raped women are assigned as slaves to the Greeks, the elders, men and boys have been killed to destroy the Trojan race. On hydria, the story ends with Aeneas carrying his father Anchises, brother of Priam, on whose head is visible the royal band, and the little son Ascanius, the only to survive but forced to wander in search for a new homeland, to continue their descent.