So griefs and various disasters shall grip them, as they mourn their destiny of no return, the requital for my ill-wedded violation. Not even those who jouyfully arrive home at last will light votive flames of sacrifice, paying thanks to Kerdylas, the Larynthian. [Zeus]  (lines 1087-1092)

The glory of the race of my grandfathers will be greatly increased by their descendants [Rome]. With their spears, they will win the victory-wreath and the first-spoils, taking sceptre and kingship over land and sea. Nor, my miserable fatherland [Troy], will you hide your renown, withered away in darkness. (lines 1226-1231)

I had heard of the poem Alexandra, usually in notes or side-allusions in reading about ancient Greek or Roman texts. While I was waiting for Simon Hornblower’s recent release Hannibal and Scipio: Parallel Lives to arrive I dug into other work he has done and his monumental work on this poem kept turning up. When I saw the Oxford World’s Classics version of this as an affordable version of the poem I thought, “This will be fun.”

Fun? Yes, in a way. “Work” is the word that springs to mind now that I’ve actually finished it. If you want to dig deeper into Greek and Roman myths, especially unusual variations, and aren’t afraid to thumb between the text and notes to understand exactly what it is you’re reading then this is for you. I found it satisfying work. OK, and eventually fun, too.

Alexandra is a poem written (probably) around 190 BC by a pseudonymous author taking the name of a third-century tragedian. Written in Greek, the author combines previous myths and histories from various sources and adds unique spins. The poem is a prophecy by Kassandra (I’m going to follow the updated spellings of names), King Priam’s daughter, as she foresees the fall of Troy, her rape by Ajax in Athena’s temple, the disastrous returns of the victorious Greeks because of the rape, and the subsequent founding of a new Troy (Rome) by Aineias (Aeneas). There are also the foundation stories of many cities around the Mediterranean Sea after the war. The undermining of the heroic deeds of many of the usual heroes, though, make for a jarring read at times. The timing of this poem’s creation preferred by Hornblower and others (spelled out in his Introduction) would be after Rome has triumphed over Hannibal in the Second Punic War and was in the process of defeating the Seleukid king Antiochos III. (I know…it’s taking me time to adjust to the new spellings. Autocorrect keeps wanting to change my typing. Wait until you get to Circe….I mean Kirke.)

The poem begins with a prison guard reporting to King Priam what Kassandra has recently prophesied, not in calm utterances but in “a vast and confused cry.” Why Kassandra is locked up in a stone cell away from the public is never revealed, but you have to guess that her prophecies (not believed thanks to Apollo) unnerve the general Trojan population. Her prophecy that the guard repeats is a foretelling of the upcoming Trojan War and its aftermath, some history before this conflict between Europe and Asia, the unhappy nostoi (homecomings) of the Greek warriors after the Trojan war, and the second founding and ascension of Troy’s power through its rebirth in Rome.

The last point first: the kleos or glory of Troy is at the forefront of the poem, both in its fighting against unworthy Greek opponents as well as its power reborn. Greek heroes are often derided and put down, especially Achilles and Odysseus. Special mention is made of those warriors’ attempts to shirk military duty by feigning madness (Odysseus) or pretending to be a woman (Achilles). While some of these myths were available in plays and other stories, I kept getting the feeling that this isn’t your father’s Iliad or Odyssey in painting these Greek heroes as cowards. Achilles’ achievements are constantly put in a bad light while Odysseus’ conquests and return are painted in a most unflattering way. An example: Penelope is described as a slattern with the suitors while draining Odysseus’ wealth entertaining them during his absence. There is no slaying of the suitors in this version. Consistent with what I’ve read earlier, see my previous comments on Aeneas (habits are hard to break with spelling) in this post on the Iliad.

Other returns by the Greeks will be troubled, which is hardly a new theme given the wealth of stories around the surviving plays or fragments of the Epic Cycle. However, the approach in the text is presented so concisely that the story packs a brutal punch. Kassandra explicitly pins the “bad luck” of their returns on her rape by Ajax and the Greeks unwillingness to do anything about it when it happened or make restitution later. The brief description of Athena turning her gaze away while the rape happens is especially hard to read and unflattering to the goddess. In this telling, the gods are just as complicit in the offenses as humans, if not more. It’s a powerful and overwhelming narrative in the poem’s presentation.

Along those lines, Hornblower’s introduction points out a theme in “the ill-treatment and sufferings, often violent and sexual, of innocent and mostly young women at the hands of men or gods.” Hornblower delves into this theme as well as the possibility of a woman having written the poem (coming down against it in probability, though not ruling it out). Regardless, it’s a recurring theme in this telling.

There is an epigram in The Palatine Anthology, a collection of Greek epigrams (collected in the Loeb editions and elsewhere), that I found an accurate description of this text: 

In our much-twisting labyrinths you will not easily come to the light, if you can manage it at all. For such are the tales which Priam’s daughter Kassandra uttered, and which the emissary, the messenger of crooked utterances [the guard], reported to the king. If [the muse] Kalliope loves you, take me into your hands; but if you are ignorant of the Muses, you are carrying a heavy load in your hands. (The Palatine Anthology (collection of Greek epigrams); Loeb edition 9.191)

I don’t know that Kalliope or any other muse came to me while reading this. Probably not as it felt like a heavy load, but still worth the effort. The parts that read the easiest for me had to do with the precursors of and actions during the Trojan War as well as the nostoi of Odysseus and Agamemnon. A little more difficult were the additional conflicts called out by Kassandra between Europe and Asia. As a reader of The Histories will notice, the starting point for these conflicts uses Herodotus’ opening chapter, which are about as veiled or skewed in their telling as these in Lykophron’s lines.

There is a lot more going on turning what you usually learn about Greek mythology on its ear. Helen’s story, for example, is both sympathetic and judgmental. We learn that Troy had been destroyed before by Herakles. Metamorphoses happen throughout the poem, led by Troy changing into Rome. And since Troy (in the East/Asia) becomes Rome (in the West/Europe)…would this be a warning to Rome not to overstep its bounds as it becomes ? Or could it be a complex celebration of the transplanted power from Asia now ruling over Europe? That might be the case if the author was someone with Greek lineage, smarting from subservience to Rome, wanting to send a warning of their own (which, of course, would be listened to and believed just like Kassandra/Alexandra). At times, too, I began to wonder if this might be parody, using a deliberately elusive text to make fun of Hellenistic poetry.

This Oxford World’s Classics edition takes advantage of Hornblower’s Oxford University Press translation and commentary (2015 hardback, 2018 paperback update), providing useful commentary, context, and background for a more casual (non-academic) reader.

A few links that may be helpful:

Bryn Mawr Classical Review’s review of the more detailed Oxford University Press edition of Hornblower’s earlier work, which provides an in-depth summarization of the text itself as well as Horblower’s work on it.

I’ll provide a lengthy introduction to Simon Hornblower’s own notes on the work at Classics for All: The ‘dark poem’ that everyone hates: Lykophron’s Alexandra.

My subject is a long post-classical Greek poem, the Alexandra, which must win some kind of prize for unpopularity among modern critics of ancient literature. But unlike many of my academic colleagues, I think it a wonderful and daring construction and a minor experimental masterpiece, unique in ancient writing, and of enormous historical importance not only for the Greek attitude to the conquering Roman superpower but for Hellenistic and Roman history more generally.

I begin with two quotations from near the end: ‘with their spears, they will win the victory-wreath and the first-spoils, taking sceptre and kingship over land and sea’. Then 250 lines later: ‘ … after six generations, my kinsman, a unique wrestler, after joining in a spear-fight, shall come to a reconciliation about sea and land … ’. These pseudo-prophecies (prophecies long after the event) are delivered in the metre of classical tragedy by a mythical figure, Cassandra, the most beautiful daughter of King Priam of Troy. But their subject-matter is historical: they both refer to the Roman acquisition of pan-Mediterranean power. ‘Kinsman’ refers to the myth of Trojan foundation of Rome. Both are cryptically expressed, but in my view the victorious kinsman is the proconsul Titus Quinctius Flamininus; the defeated power is Philip V of Macedon; the ‘spear-fight’ is the decisive battle of Cynoscephalae fought in Thessaly in 197 BC; and the ‘reconciliation’ the political settlement after the battle. The author is the subject of this article, a poet who went under the name Lykophron. The mix of myth and rational history is bold, and is further proof that myth did not – as is sometimes said – replace logos, reason, in the Hellenistic age.