Greek Heroes and Heroines Research Papers (original) (raw)

Ancient women, specifically their bodies, are the political pawns in the wars of men, and the Homeric heroines exemplify this unfortunate tradition. In the Iliad, the Trojan women, particularly the royal women, are, for the Greeks, the tools for the total destruction of the Trojan enemy, and their sexual violation is the pièce de résistance of this destruction. In Euripides’ Hecuba and Trojan Women, the fates of the now-captured royal Trojan women are frequently described in relation to their sexual captivity by their Greek enemies, as well as how their sexualities can be used, with varying degrees of success, to improve their new circumstances.
This paper examines the politicisation of women’s bodies in Homeric warfare as the means by which epic heroes secure (or lose) power. By examining the fates of Homeric heroines in the Iliad, as well as their continued stories in Euripidean tragedy, the sexual ownership of women’s bodies is more clearly revealed as the foundation upon which the ideology of male victory is built. This ideology is not without its ancient Greek historical or social precedents, and as the myths of these Homeric heroines demonstrate, ancient Greek women were not uncommonly at the center of men’s politics.