In Quintus of Smyrna’s epic poem Posthomerica, Odysseus devises a plan to trick the Trojans into letting Greek forces sneak into the city by creating a wooden horse and displaying it as a trophy. As soon as their great and courageous leader, Achilles, died, the Greeks could not advance in the battle against Troy. Thus, they pretend to retire from the city’s outer walls; this strategy succeeds, leading the Trojans to believe that the Greek fleet has abandoned the battle and sailed away. Epēius, the skilled artisan, wasted little time making the wooden horse that Odysseus had envisioned, which he intended to give as a gift to the enemy. Considering the significance of the horse to the Trojans and the possibility that it served as a symbol for their city, this theory is not as implausible as it first appears (Demchuk, 2023). It is believed that the centaur myth began when the ancient Greeks first saw these nomad riders galloping over the hill in reaction to the fact that the horse was first tamed by the Central Asians so that it could be ridden across great distances.
During the Bronze Age, many people in this region relied on horses for transportation and domestication. A disheartened Greek soldier named Sinon would appear at Troy’s gates pretending to be a deserter. To appease the goddess Athena for the Greeks’ sacrilege of the Trojan temples, he would pretend to travel solo and present her with a wooden horse as a gift (Demchuk, 2023). Because of their firm belief that the wooden horse would guard their city from future invasions and make it invincible, the notion appealed to the superstitious Trojans.
The legendary Trojan priest Laocoön alerts his fellow citizens to the presence of a questionable gift—a gigantic rat—or horse—and advises them against accepting it into the city. Poseidon, a Greek deity who desires victory for his people, sends two sea serpents to strangle him. Because the Trojans believed their priest had insulted the gods by challenging the idea that the horse was endowed with supernatural protection, they took his abrupt and clumsy demise as evidence that they should not believe his claim (Demchuk, 2023). Aside from everyone ignoring the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, she also warns that the horse is bad news. Naturally, the Trojans let the horse roll straight in, accompanied by the Greek warriors who had hidden inside the wooden animal. During the night, as the Trojans slept, the Greeks disembarked from the horse, destroyed the city with fire, and started killing every Trojan they saw.
My opinion of this legend is that though traces of a city by the name exist and the Trojan War is believed to have actually existed around the 12th and 13 centuries, I think that the legend is an educative experience and has great application in today’s society. The legend is recorded to mobilize and liberate people’s thoughts about making hasty decisions, especially in the midst of a conflict. An enemy is not to be trusted until proven otherwise. Trojans carelessly believed the Greeks, allowing a tragedy in their land. An enemy is won by defeat rather than retreated. When the Greeks retreated, that did not indicate that they surrendered the war. Trojans would have known this was a strategy to reorganize themselves for a more excellent inversion, which materialized a day later.
Which of the philosophers mentioned in the reading are most important and why? Make a short paragraph about it.
I think Odysseus is more important in the story than any other person. This is because he conceived the idea to make the wooden horse, which would be used to deceive the Trojans, allowing the Greek soldiers into the city. As the owner of the idea, he did not participate in making the horse, nor did he deliver the horse to Trojan City. However, he owes every credit to all other people who worked in pursuit of the idea. It would not have been implemented if he had not developed the idea, and the Greeks would have remained defeated. Thus, as the owner of the idea that granted victory to the Greeks, Odysseus has full credit for this victory.
Find the definitions of the following concepts and present a current example for each, whether it is a country or a situation.
Democracy: Yesufu (2023) defines democracy as a form of governance in which most of a state’s citizens hold the reins of power. An example is the United States, where the people are free to elect their leaders who present their interests in institutions like Congress.
Oligarchy: The term describes any country where a small group of people has the power to make national policy choices (Zafirovski, 2022). An example of oligarchy is evident in the oil business, where only a few countries produce the product and thus have control over price and distribution.
Dictatorship: According to Zafirovski (2022), a dictatorship is an authoritarian government in which one or more leaders have absolute authority over the government. The most egregious instances of such contemporary totalitarian regimes are the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin.
Militarism: This is the view that states should always have a robust military and be ready to aggressively protect or advance their interests (Yesufu, 2023). An example of current militarism is the present-day war between Israel and the Hamas, where the Israeli government is using its weaponry to protect its people against the militia group the Hamas.
Tyranny: The term “tyranny” refers to an oppressive kind of governance in which a few people have absolute authority (Zafirovski, 2022). A situational tyranny may be a family head who controls and makes every decision in the family and whose decisions are absolute and never questioned.
What were the limitations to which the Spartan was subjected to defend the state to be a good soldier?
According to Kakar et al. (2022), the Agoge was a state-sponsored education system in which all healthy male Spartan residents were required to engage. Its primary goals were the promotion of obedience, endurance, bravery, and self-control, which were regarded as the foundation for becoming a good soldier who could defend the state. The male Spartans lived near one another and gave their all to the military, which was a limitation. Every Spartan learned that allegiance to the state should take precedence over all other considerations, including those of one’s family.
References
Demchuk, R. (2023). The allusion to the Trojan myth in the legendary troposphere of Kyiv. Interdisciplinary Cultural and Humanities Review, 2(1), 20–26. https://interculture.com.ua/web/uploads/journals_pdf/Interdisciplinary%20Cultural%20and%20Humanities%20Review.%202023.%20Vol.%202,%20No.%201.pdf#page=20
Kakar, B. S., Khan, A. W., & Kakar, A. S. (2022). Education as the practice of emancipation: A critical study of educational approach of classical Pashto poet Khushal Khan Khattak. International Research Journal of Education and Innovation, 3(1), 47-56. https://doi.org/10.53575/irjei.v3.01.5(22)47-56
Yesufu, S. (2023). Democratic utopianism: Still searching for the truest meaning of democracy. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science, 12(8), 310–320. https://doi.org/10.20525/ijrbs.v12i8.2930
Zafirovski, M. Z. (2022). The social current of capitalist dictatorship? Neoclassical economic and non-marxist sociological conceptualization. Journal of Ideology, 41(1), 2. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ji/vol41/iss1/2
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