The Sack of Troy,Footnote 1 a 691-line epic in Greek by the imperial poet Triphiodorus which recounts the critical events at the end of the Trojan war, constitutes the last extant Trojan-war narrative of ancient Greek literature.Footnote 2 To this day, it remains one of the least discussed poems from Graeco-Roman antiquity; like much of Greek imperial poetry, only in recent decades has it been rediscovered, or rather re-evaluated, by scholarship.Footnote 3 It is then hardly surprising that significant aspects of it have been overlooked, primarily the role (both in the narrative and in Triphiodorus’ poetic agenda) of Cassandra, a character who features prominently in the poem's brief narrative.
Cassandra lies at the heart, in that her speech extends over forty-one lines, the longest delivered in the poem.Footnote 4 Eighty-six lines, more than a tenth of the poem, are devoted to her. These features are all the more remarkable given Cassandra's previous literary depictions. In the extant pre-classical literature, references to Cassandra (discussed below) are particularly brief. A much more substantial presence of the prophetess can be located in tragedy, in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and in Euripides’ Trojan Women, although her role remains secondary.Footnote 5 Similarly, in Lycophron's Alexandra, Cassandra's foretelling ability facilitates the revisiting of the mythology of the Trojan war, while Cassandra's presence in Quintus’ Posthomerica, although deployed in the same part of the narrative, is extremely limited: her direct speech extends over merely thirteen lines,Footnote 6 while the part of the main narrative related to her presence barely surpasses fifty lines,Footnote 7 a fraction of the 8,772 lines which comprise the fourteen-book epic. These preliminary observations already reveal the unprecedented attention which Cassandra receives from Triphiodorus. In this article I argue that Cassandra's extended presence in the poem is related to her acquisition of metapoetic significations, specifically to her function as a doubling of the poet; and that an examination of Cassandra has a profound impact on our understanding of Triphiodorus’ poetic programme.
CASSANDRA, THE NARRATIVE AND THE LITERARY PAST
Cassandra's placing within the narrative highlights her role in the poem; a short excursus on the poem's structure will underscore this point. Triphiodorus’ narrative can be separated into sections of episodes marked by the poet with ἤδη. After the proem, ἤδη μέν (6) sets off the first section, which refers to the stagnant situation after ten years of war and to some of the most famous casualties on both sides, recapitulating some of the main events known from the Iliad. The second section, opening ἤδη καί (57), marks the beginning of the plot: it refers to Athena's new plan to defeat the Trojans, comprising the construction of the horse, Odysseus’ motivating speech to the Achaeans—after which several warriors enter the horse, while the rest sail to Tenedos—and Sinon's offer to remain as the plan's guarantor. The third section, starting with ἤδη δέ (235), covers Sinon's convincing the Trojans, the horse's transportation to Troy, and Cassandra's futile effort to avert the destruction. The fourth section, beginning ἤδη γάρ (452), refers to Helen's attempt to expose the Achaeans, Athena's intervention, the Achaeans’ exit from the horse and, finally, the sack of Troy. After the epilogue (664–7), the fifth and final section starts with ἄρτι instead of ἤδη, suggesting closer temporal proximity to the point of narration. This section describes the Achaeans’ departure after the loading of ships.
The distribution of the plot in five sections is intertwined with Triphiodorus’ poetic programme. Maciver has noted the persistent use of terminology relating to horse-riding, particularly the horse-riding metaphor describing the poetic process in the proem (1–5) and in the epilogue (664–7).Footnote 8 Tracing this metaphor to an allusion to the chariot-race in Patroclus’ funeral games in Iliad Book 23,Footnote 9 Maciver implicates in Triphiodorus’ poetic designs the Trojan horse itself, which becomes a symbol of the poem. Building on this metaphor, I argue that the structure of the poem mirrors Triphiodorus’ poetic programme in as much as the sections demarcating the narrative correspond to the stages of a horse-race. After the first section leads by recapitulating the war, the construction of the horse and its loading with Achaeans in the second section mark the preparation and the placement at the starting line of the horse-race. Despite the perverted nature of this horse-race, where only one (wooden) horse competes, the connotations of a horse-race are very much there, with the boarding of the Wooden Horse vividly bringing to mind a mounting (again, perverted) of a horse before a race. In the third section, not coincidentally the longest, the actual movement of the horse is recounted, representing the beginning of the horse-race. This transportation to Troy marks the turning point of the war, the poem's main topic, as disclosed in its first word: τέρμα means not only the end but also the goal around which chariots had to turn at races, therefore a literal turning point. Finally, the Achaeans’ exit from the horse in the fourth section marks the finishing line of this horse-race and the dismounting of the winner, signifying victory in both race and war. As the horse-race finishes, the poem is also brought to an end.Footnote 10
Within this five-fold structure, with sections one and five recapitulating the war's earlier years and recounting its aftermath respectively, and with sections two and four correspondingly recounting the inception and completion of the Greeks’ plan, the third section takes centre stage. It is in this section that Cassandra is carefully placed, inserted in an additional structural scheme. The section comprises Sinon's persuasion of the Trojans regarding the need to transport the horse within Troy, the transportation of the horse, and Cassandra's futile attempt to persuade the Trojans of the impending danger. Cassandra contrasts with Sinon: the truthful yet unconvincing female Trojan princess vs the deceitful yet convincing male Achaean warrior. Their contrast is verified textually too; Cassandra refers to the goddess Athena as πτολίπορθος, sacker of cities (390), whereas Sinon characterizes Athena as ἐρυσίπτολις, protector of cities (302), the direct antonym. The characterization of Athena with directly antithetical terms by the two characters implies that they have been created on antithetical terms themselves. Moreover, Priam's responses to the characters’ speeches are enlightening. Sinon is soothed with a gentle voice (ἀγανῇ μειλίξατο φωνῇ, 283), whereas Cassandra is reprimanded with words (ὁμοκλήσας ἐπέεσι, 419). The pair's profoundly contrasting qualities are, finally, visualized with their placement at the opposite ends of the section, reflecting the transition from male to female protagonists in the second half of the poem.Footnote 11
Triphiodorus certainly had a large pool of literary Cassandras from which to draw inspiration. Despite the scarcity and the fragmentariness of the surviving material from the Epic Cycle and from the lyric poets of the late seventh, sixth and early fifth centuries, there is evidence that Cassandra remained a favourite subject.Footnote 12 Aside from Homer's brief references to the prophetess,Footnote 13 Cassandra featured in the work of Alcaeus,Footnote 14 Ibycus,Footnote 15 BacchylidesFootnote 16 and Pindar.Footnote 17 Perhaps more importantly, Cassandra featured in Stesichorus’ Sack of Troy, a poem which may have influenced Triphiodorus, as the common name and the extensive thematic overlap—particularly the prominence of the horse—suggest.Footnote 18 Unfortunately, we do not know how extensive Cassandra's presence was in Stesichorus’ poem and must therefore reserve any conclusions about the extent of Stesichorus’ influence on Triphiodorus’ use of Cassandra, as is the case with the remaining lyric poets too.
This is not the case, however, with Euripides, since Triphiodorus draws extensively on the Cassandra as depicted in Trojan Women.Footnote 19 First, the extensive use of female characters, especially in the second half of the poem, can perhaps be attributed to the influence of Euripidean tragedy, especially Trojan Women.Footnote 20 Second, Triphiodorus adopts Euripides’ version of Hecuba's future, namely her transformation into a hound, as Cassandra announces (402).Footnote 21 Third, the Euripidean Cassandra herself proclaims that, although inspired by the god, she will set her frenzy aside (ἔνθεος μέν, ἀλλ᾿ ὅμως | τοσόνδε γ᾿ ἔξω στήσομαι βακχευμάτων, 366–7), announcing her ability to detach herself from her inspired body and produce rational, unusually clear, speech.Footnote 22 Similarly, Triphiodorus’ Cassandra is characterized as being in frenzy (Κασσάνδρη θεόφοιτος ἐμαίνετο, 374), yet several indications alongside her reasonable speech suggest otherwise, as discussed in the following section. Finally, Euripides’ Cassandra argues with fervour that the Trojans eventually prove more fortunate than the Achaeans (πόλιν δὲ δείξω τήνδε μακαριωτέραν | ἢ τοὺς Ἀχαιούς, 365–6), since the surviving Trojans did not sacrifice ten years of their lives away from their country and loved ones, while their dead are buried in their homeland, unlike the dead Achaeans who lie in foreign soil (ἐν ξένῃ δὲ γῇ κεῖνται, 378–9). The same argument appears in reverse in Triphiodorus’ Cassandra, who, contemptuous of a life away from her homeland, asks why she should live if death in a foreign land awaits her (τίς γάρ μοι χρειὼ βιότου πλέον, εἴ … | … ξείνη δέ με γαῖα καλύψει;, 406–7).Footnote 23 All the above suggest Triphiodorus’ profound engagement with Euripides.
The next literary Cassandra from whom Triphiodorus could have drawn inspiration is Lycophron's. The poem takes the form of a monologue in which a messenger, acting as the doublet of the poet, reports to Priam Cassandra's prophecy at the moment of Paris’ departure for Greece, which encompasses the entire mythology of Troy. A comparison of the overlapping sections in the plot of the two poems does not yield sufficient results to suggest a strong intertextual relationship between the two Cassandras. Intriguingly, however, a piece of imagery from the Alexandra does seem to show similarities with a piece of imagery in the Sack of Troy; at Alex. 13–15, the messenger reporting Cassandra's prophecy claims that he, as a winged runner, will reach the finishing post: ἐγὼ δ᾿ ἄκραν βαλβῖδα μηρίνθου σχάσας | ἄνειμι λοξῶν εἰς διεξόδους ἐπῶν | πρώτην ἀράξας νύσσαν ὡς πτηνὸς δρομεύς. This metaphor is completed in the epilogue, where the messenger refers to himself as an ἄψορρον τρόχιν (1471), a returning runner.Footnote 24 This notion of the forward motion towards a finishing point is reminiscent of the equivalent finishing point in the prologue and epilogue of Triphiodorus, especially owing to the synonyms νύσσα and τέρμα. It is possible that Triphiodorus expanded Lycophron's imagery of running into an imagery of horse-racing.
Finally, the attestation of Cassandra in Quintus’ Posthomerica could have proved influential for Triphiodorus too. Quintus’ Cassandra utters a particularly short and cryptic speech (12.540–51), and also has less of an impact on the narrative of the Posthomerica, since Laocoon has already—unsuccessfully—attempted to avert the destruction (12.387–497).Footnote 25 In the Sack of Troy, on the other hand, Cassandra becomes the last person with a chance to avert the capture of the city by interfering with the horse's transportation into Troy.Footnote 26 Her role thus obtains the potential for a significant impact on the plot, which naturally does not materialize (the outcome of the war being known even to the most inexperienced reader). Despite their differences, Triphiodorus’ deployment of his Cassandra in the exact same setting as Quintus’ suggests a connection.
In light of the above, the Cassandras of Euripides and Quintus appear as the strongest contenders for having influenced Triphiodorus. The Euripidean Cassandra can be read retrospectively as a continuation of Triphiodorus’; it is possible that Triphiodorus devised a Euripidean Cassandra envisaging potential aspects of her behaviour prior to the sack of Troy, and then placed her in the setting in which Quintus placed his Cassandra.Footnote 27 In so doing, Triphiodorus proclaims two literary attestations of Cassandra against which his own will be read.
INTRODUCTORY SIMILES
Cassandra is the only character in the Sack of Troy introduced with two successive similes. Initially she is likened to a young cow stung by a gadfly (359–66):
Having broken the bolts, she ran like a light heifer whom the sting of the gadfly that torments the oxen has terrified. She neither looks at the herd, nor obeys the shepherd, nor desires pasture, but pierced by the sharp dart she transgresses the boundaries of oxen; thus tormented in the heart by the piercing of the strike of prophecy, the maiden shook the holy laurel wreath.
The comparison of Cassandra to an animal has a literary precedent: Quintus introduces Cassandra with a comparison to an injured lioness, whose roar echoes throughout the forest (12.529–35).Footnote 28 Triphiodorus draws the inspiration, or rather the outline, for Cassandra's introduction from Quintus’ Cassandra, namely Cassandra's only previous portrayal in epic poetry in this particular setting.Footnote 29 Instead of a lioness, Triphiodorus’ simile involves a cow. The preference for a domesticated animal allows Triphiodorus both to portray with greater clarity Cassandra's restrictions as a young virgin, who is also a member of Troy's royal family, and to place emphasis on different aspects of the behaviour of his Cassandra. Whereas Quintus’ simile focusses on Cassandra's cry, by portraying her behaviour in terms of the roar of an injured animal (μέγ᾿ ἴαχεν, εὖτε λέαινα, 12.529), Triphiodorus’ simile elaborates on her movement (ἔδραμεν ἠύτε πόρτις, 360), simultaneously focussing on her transgression of boundaries (βοέων ἐξήλυθε θεσμῶν, 364). In contrast to an injured wild animal, which roars and runs away, acting according to expectations, Triphiodorus’ cow reacts beyond the typical or expected range of behaviours. Therefore, he realigns Quintus’ version, by adjusting key features of Cassandra's introduction.Footnote 30
Triphiodorus’ correction, so to speak, of Quintus’ version takes place on a second level as well. A young cow as the subject matter of a simile is first used by Quintus, for several female characters.Footnote 31 However, his depictions lack a basic component of Triphiodorus’ simile, namely the gadfly's sting.Footnote 32 Instead, Triphiodorus recalls a simile from Apollonius’ Argonautica, in which Heracles’ extreme reaction upon receiving the news of Hylas’ disappearance is visualized (1.1265–72):Footnote 33
As when a bull, stung by a gadfly, rushes leaving meadows and marshlands behind and takes heed neither of the herdsmen nor of the flock, and at times moves without stopping, at other times stands still and roars raising high his broad neck, having been stung by the evil gadfly; thus Heracles at times eagerly moved his quick knees continuously, at other times ceasing from the labour bellowed with a loud piercing cry reaching far away.
Triphiodorus’ τυπεῖσαν | κέντρον … μύωπος (360–1) alludes to Apollonius’ μύωπι τετυμμένος (1.1265), while ἡ δ᾿ οὐκ εἰς ἀγέλην ποτιδέρκεται οὐδὲ βοτῆρι | πείθεται οὐδὲ νομοῖο λιλαίεται (362–3) echoes Apollonius’ οὐδὲ νομήων οὐδ᾿ ἀγέλης ὄθεται (1.1267).Footnote 34
By rendering explicit the connection of his simile with Apollonius’ simile, Triphiodorus advertises his departure from Quintus’ approach. More significantly, he strengthens the content of his simile in a metaliterary way. The portrayal of a character transgressing her boundaries on the intradiegetic level (inside the narrative) is paralleled by a transgression of boundaries on the extradiegetic level (outside the narrative); the poet oversteps the limits set by previous epic poetry by applying to a woman a simile not only always used for men in the epic tradition but also particularly reserved for Heracles, the archetypal male Greek hero. Triphiodorus recasts Heracles’ frenzied reaction at the potential personal loss of a companion or lover into that of Cassandra at the potential fall of an entire city, implicitly elevating Cassandra's effort from an action performed for personal benefit to one for the greater good of a city. Cassandra's transgression of her social boundaries and her acquisition of features related to men, strengthened through this novel use of the simile, are completed in the main narrative: the verb ἐβρυχᾶτο (367), typically associated with the roar of a bull, describes Cassandra's roar in an expansion of the heifer-simile intended to produce the paradoxical auditory image of the bellowing of a bull attributed to a heifer.Footnote 35 Cassandra's dissociation from traditionally female qualities is also verified in the main narrative: λίπεν δέ ἑ παρθένος αἰδώς, maiden shame abandoned her (368). Through Cassandra, the Sack of Troy rewrites aspects of the epic tradition and gives greater space and extended roles to female characters.Footnote 36
The second simile on Cassandra constitutes the poem's only negative comparison (369–74). Cassandra is likened to a Thracian woman made frenzied by the god Dionysus:
Not so did the delightful flute of Dionysus, frenzied on the mountains, strike the Thracian woman in the forests, who, stricken by the god, strains a senseless eye shaking her naked head wreathed with dark ivy. So Cassandra, starting from her winged mind, raged driven by divine frenzy.
The deployment of the simile in conjunction with the narrator's characterization of Cassandra as θεόφοιτος (374) and of her voice as μαινάδι (375) makes the reader only too willing to accept at this stage that Cassandra is fully surrendered to mania.Footnote 37 However, subtle indications suggest otherwise. By incorporating all of the typically manic features in a simile, namely a secondary narrative outside the realm of the main narrative, Triphiodorus does indeed allude to the long-established tradition of Cassandra as a Bacchant,Footnote 38 yet skilfully undermines it in the portrayal of his Cassandra: she is likened to a most typical example of a maenad and, therefore, is not that kind of woman, just as a hero likened to a lion is self-evidently not a lion. The proximity of the terms of comparison—both Cassandra and the Thracian are women—and the use of words related to mania for the description of Cassandra in the main narrative have perhaps misled scholars into arbitrarily applying features of the Thracian woman of the simile's narrative directly to Cassandra in the main narrative.Footnote 39 In reality, the simile confirms that certain aspects of Cassandra's behaviour surpass in intensity the behaviour of a manic woman, yet also dissociates Cassandra's behaviour from a typical Bacchant's.Footnote 40
Setting aside the simile on which scholarship has primarily grounded the characterization of Cassandra as a maenad,Footnote 41 the primary narrative also illuminates aspects of her behaviour as being at odds with that of a Bacchant. First, regarding her non-verbal behaviour, Cassandra is described as beating her head and breast and loudly crying (374–5), movements associated not with divine frenzy but with mourning or despair.Footnote 42 It is also stated that she did not care for her parents or friends (οὐδὲ τοκήων οὐδὲ φίλων ἀλέγιζε, 367–8). The verb ἀλεγίζειν entails primarily the notions of respecting, considering, caring; it entails personal involvement and a fully conscious selection, and the epic tradition is unanimous in this.Footnote 43 The primary narrator appears to underplay the divine element in favour of a personal choice made by Cassandra and leading to a voluntary transgression of social boundaries. The role of the god is not completely undermined, as the divine sign constituted the reason behind this transgression; however, Cassandra's personal engagement is brought forward, again colliding with typical Bacchic mania.
Cassandra's speech is equally revealing. In the Posthomerica, Cassandra's speech constitutes a prime example of a speech uttered by a person driven by divine frenzy, as her prophecy entails a mixture of fire, blood, divine signs, a calamity within the horse, Erinyes and a bloody dinner (12.540–51)—metaphorical imagery unclear to the reader, let alone to the intradiegetic audience. Conversely, in the Sack of Troy, Cassandra utters a reasonable, well-structured speech, which explicitly recounts with surprising clarity the imminent pouring of warriors from the horse (ὁρμήσουσι τελειότατοι πολεμισταί, 385).Footnote 44 Her last-minute attempt to avert the tragedy even entails clear instructions to the Trojans, thus projecting Cassandra's reason rather than ecstasis.Footnote 45
The most enlightening detail for this discussion can be traced in the opening of this speech; Cassandra's first address to the Trojans asks for the reasons for their mania (τίνα … δαιμόνιοι μαίνεσθε;, 376–7). Her question implies that a character attributed with mania only a moment ago (374) can now discern its symptoms in others, a demonstration of logic and reasoning incompatible with actual Bacchic mania.Footnote 46 This is perhaps the most emphatic way in which Triphiodorus undermines Cassandra's mania. The only way in which Cassandra can be seen as a Bacchant is focalized through the eyes of the Trojans, whose ecstatic presence in large crowds immediately precedes Cassandra's presence in the poem and dominates its central section (304–57). In reality, the divine presence in the poem is subtle. The initiation of the Achaeans’ plan lies in Athena's initiative, but the reaction of the Trojans is not influenced by any gods:Footnote 47 the Trojans’ embracing of their own doom is entirely their own responsibility.
It can, then, be argued that neither Cassandra nor the Trojans are in true mania, with the possibility left intentionally undetermined by the narrator, who thus wishes to exploit its tragic potential.Footnote 48 Both Cassandra's and the Trojans’ behaviours appear not only absurd to each other but also beyond the scope of typical human behaviour, and are thus explained by both sides as affected by some divine presence. The mutual interpretation of each other's behaviour as manic becomes a tool in Triphiodorus’ hands in the portrayal of the utter inability of Cassandra and the Trojans to comprehend each other and, therefore, of Cassandra's inability to convince them.Footnote 49 The Trojans’ ecstatic joy and Cassandra's fervent attempt to convince them push the limits of a human being's expected behaviour, yet they are still human reactions. The profound influence of Euripides’ Cassandra is hereby thrown into relief, as Triphiodorus’ Cassandra also appears to set aside her Bacchic revelries.Footnote 50 The inability of Cassandra and the Trojans to communicate despite their being on the same level renders their interaction tragic and presages the ineffectiveness of Cassandra's warning and, consequently, the sack of Troy. At the same time, Triphiodorus’ daring originality in promoting Cassandra, a female character, to a—sane—protagonist of his epic narrative, and in fact after tapping into the tradition of Cassandra as a Bacchant, but subsequently departing from it, reveals the particular weight which Cassandra carries within his poem.Footnote 51 The remainder of this study will demonstrate that Cassandra is also actively engaged in Triphiodorus’ poetics.
CASSANDRA'S SPEECH
Cassandra's speech can be divided into five sections. First, she addresses the Trojans, querying their illogical behaviour (376–81). The second section refers to the horse and its imminent birth of Achaean fighters (382–90), which will lead to the complete destruction of the city, as described in the third section (391–7). In the fourth section, the prophetess refers to the consequent fate of her family and to her own imminent doom (398–409). Finally, through ring composition, she addresses the Trojans again (410–16) and utters a last-minute warning.
The first section is of particular interest (376–81):
Miserable ones, why are you in divine mania and why do you, by bringing this hostile horse, speed toward the night and the end of the war and the unwaking sleep? This martial band is hostile. Already must the birth-pangs of miserable Hecuba's dreams be delivering, the delayed year of the resolving of the war is coming to an end.
This section effectively constitutes a re-articulation of the poem's proem (1–5):
Of the delayed end of the laborious war and of the horse-like ambush, the work of Argive Athena, tell, Calliopeia, to me in my haste, omitting redundant myth, and solve with a quick song the ancient strife of men in the decided war.
Cassandra recalls the proem's most important features. The horse, a symbol of the poem, articulated here as ἀνάρσιον ἵππον, recalls the ἱππήλατον ἔργον Ἀθήνης of line 2. The narrator's request to the Muse to sing the end of the Trojan war in a swift song (ταχείῃ ἀοιδῇ, 5), as he is in a rush (σπεύδοντι, 3), is recalled in Cassandra's question to the Trojans over the reasons of their rush (σπεύδετε, 378). σπεύδω is pivotal in the poem, as it summarizes the programmatic speed that Triphiodorus desires for his poem. Moreover, the πολέμοιο πέρας (378) recalls the proem's τέρμα πολέμοιο (1), a programmatic phrase which bears several meanings, among which are the end and the turning point of the war. On this occasion, immediately after the occurrence of the turning point of the war, portrayed in the movement of the horse to Troy, only the meaning of the end of the war is required, since only the actual end of the war remains. Therefore, πέρας is selected for its lack of unnecessary side-meanings. Finally, the phrase πολέμοιο λυθέντος (381) recalls the primary narrator's address to the Muse in the proem with the words (ἔριν ἀνδρῶν) κεκριμένου πολέμοιο | λῦσον (4–5). The transition from the request to resolve a decided war (κεκριμένου) to a resolved war (λυθέντος) marks the Achaeans’ progress until Cassandra's appearance: the war is practically won already.Footnote 52
The careful re-articulation of the proem, a passage in which the voice of the main narrator is heard emphatically and without obstructions, in Cassandra's first words signifies his official entrusting of the narration to Cassandra for the duration of her speech. This attempted association of the primary narrator with Cassandra also means the transmitting of some of the former's qualities to the latter, the veracity of whose speech thus becomes uncontested. Furthermore, as the narrator's opening words resound in Cassandra's opening words, the reader is led to expect that the content of the speech will reflect Triphiodorus’ broader poem. Indeed, Cassandra's speech entails similarities with themes and imagery used by the narrator throughout; her prophecy constitutes a lens through which critical imagery deployed in the first half of the poem will be completed or reversed in the second half. It follows that Cassandra's speech obtains the function of a mise-en-abîme, a poem within the poem.Footnote 53
After her first address to the Trojans, Cassandra refers to the parturition of the horse (τέξεται ὄβριμος ἵππος, 384).Footnote 54 This pregnancy involves several peculiarities, since a wooden horse will be giving birth to fighters and the goddess Athena will be replacing the midwives in delivering the labouring horse. The imagery of pregnancy has already been prepared by the main narrator during the transportation of the horse. In lines 340–1, amongst the crowd gathered around the horse en route to Troy, wives, maidens and midwives dance together. This assembly constitutes perhaps the embodiment of the Trojans’ hopes over the end of the deviant situation of war and the resumption of everyday life, whose essential aspects, such as the creation of families, have been neglected. Along these lines, the undoing of women's belts (νήματα μίτρης λυσάμεναι, 345–6) is strongly reminiscent of passages referring to sexual intercourse or pregnancy.Footnote 55
Therefore, Cassandra's reference to pregnancy recalls lines 340–6, which express the Trojans’ hopes of resumption of normality, personified as young wives and midwives. The abnormality of the pregnancy described by Cassandra in lines 382–90 operates as a distorting lens through which the annulment of the Trojans’ hopes is foreshadowed and articulated later in the text with one of the poem's most distressing images, that of the miscarriages of Trojan women and their death alongside their dead infants (556–8):
And many, carrying untimely born and dead infants and shedding the labour of the womb prematurely, shudderingly died themselves with their children.
Cassandra's prophecy of the successful birth of the Achaeans from the horse connects the images of Trojan pregnancy before and after her speech and the reason behind the failure of the Trojan pregnancy: only one of the two pregnancies can be successful, since Triphiodorus exploits the connotations of birth, namely new life, the extension of a generation and the hope brought to the parents. The end of the war brings only death and no new hope to the Trojans. It follows that a Trojan pregnancy cannot be successful.Footnote 56
Cassandra then deploys a second metaphor (391–2):
And purple will it roll within the towers, the sea of poured blood and the wave of killing
ἑλίσσεται, often used—especially with the prefix ἀμφί—in the description of ships and their movement in the sea, evokes maritime connotations and recalls lines 63–4, in which the horse, constructed by Epeius, is compared in terms of size to a ship (ὁπόσον νεὸς ἀμφιελίσσης). The delay of the verb's subject(s) until the second hemistich of line 392 and the stress on πορφύρεον temporarily put the horse as subject of the verb ἑλίσσεται in the readers’ minds in what appears to be a garden-path sentence, in which the reader receives new information as one reads which forces one to reanalyse the passage syntactically; that is the case particularly because of the horse's association with the purple colour,Footnote 57 as well as the discussion of the horse's parturition in the immediately preceding section of Cassandra's speech (382–90).Footnote 58 It can, then, be inferred that the image of the horse as sailing within Troy lies within the narrator's intentions. But even if the ship is not recalled by the reader, Cassandra's imagery of a bloody sea within the Trojan walls—where the Achaean horse is—certainly expands from the association of horse and ship, particularly in those passages where ἑλίσσεται is used, namely the construction of the horse's belly in comparison to a ship (63).Footnote 59 The same adjective, used in Homer exclusively for ships, is also used in the epilogue (τέρματος ἀμφιέλισσαν ἀοιδήν, 667). In this last passage, the characterization of the poem with ἀμφιέλισσαν inextricably ties together poem, ship and horse like communicating vessels.Footnote 60 In preparation of this triple entanglement, Cassandra's imagery has already rendered explicit the connection of horse and ship. In this sea of blood that will drown most of Troy, the Achaeans will win and survive. Conspicuously, what provides refuge from a turbulent sea is a vessel. Under the circumstances, it is the horse that becomes a vessel for the Achaeans to enter Troy. It also signifies their motion forward and their progress towards their ultimate goal. The accomplishment of this goal, the fall of Troy, will only leave one final step, their return, which will be accomplished by means of ships. In this sense, horse and ships, all wooden constructs, are associated, since the latter will succeed the former in the Achaeans’ movement and progress towards their victorious return to Greece. As Troy is the destination of the horse and the starting point of the ships, it becomes ground zero in Cassandra's speech, in which she brings the two images together: a city full of a (bloody) sea.
The destruction of Troy, as described so far, will inevitably entail the reversal of the Trojans’ reality. Accordingly, Cassandra portrays this reversal in the description of women's hands as tied with their bridal bonds (δεσμά τε συμπαθέων πλέκεται περὶ χερσὶ γυναικῶν | νυμφία, 393–4). This imagery reverses the imagery used earlier in which women untangle the threads of their belts to garland the horse (ἐπιμάζια νήματα μίτρης | λυσάμεναι κλωστοῖσι κατέπλεκον ἄνθεσιν ἵππον, 345–6). The expression of their affection to the horse not only goes unanswered, but on the contrary eventually becomes the source of their misery, as the threads originally wrapped around them as ornaments are now wrapped around their hands, depriving them of their freedom.
Cassandra utters advice to the Trojans to remove the cloud that has enwrapped them (411):Footnote 61
Put away, my friends, the cloud of the maddening infatuation.
Her advice recalls a comment made earlier by the primary narrator, in which he characterized the Trojans as enwrapped in a fog (310–11):
Miserable generation of senseless mortals, by whom a mist surrounding the future cannot be seen.
Cassandra's presence is again heightened to the level of the primary narrator, as she conveys notions similar to those of the latter, thus confirming her own gravity within her speech. Finally, she prepares imagery to be reversed later in the text: her advice to postpone their banquet and dances until the destruction of the horse goes unanswered (415–16):
And then have a banquet and raise yourselves to dance having set up craters in honour of lovely freedom.
Instead of the Trojans, it is Enyo who will be dancing and revelling in the spill of Trojan blood before the end of the same night (559–61):
And Enyo danced all night around the city, like a thunderstorm, seething with the waves of the roaring sea, revelling in the drunkenness of unmixed blood.
Cassandra's paraphrasing—at times even quoting—of the primary narrator and the abridgement of the whole poem within her prophecy, with even the easily demarcated structure of her speech reflecting the compartmentalization of the entire epic, eventually reveal a connection between her and Triphiodorus: Cassandra becomes a doublet of the poet. The bond between poetry and prophecy, established since Plato's Phaedrus (245a), is stronger in Late Antiquity, with epic poetry even obtaining prophetic potential.Footnote 63 It is this bond which Triphiodorus visualizes here, by bringing prophetess and poet effectively on par in his poem.Footnote 64 If we add to this Socrates’ famous verdict from the same passage in Phaedrus on the madness of divine inspiration (from the Muses) as a type of mania necessary for the production of good poetry (ἡ ποίησις … τῶν μαινομένων), then Cassandra's mania obtains a further layer of meaning and indicates her connection with Triphiodorus.
Yet do the two share more than a theoretical similarity? Both Triphiodorus and Cassandra know the story's end owing to their relationship with divinities: Cassandra with Apollo, Triphiodorus with the Muse. The key fact which separates Cassandra from all other prophets is her inability to convince, of which she is aware and in lieu of which she utters her speech. Can this aspect of Cassandra find its equivalent in Triphiodorus? At this point we must bring Triphiodorus’ poetics back into the discussion. Triphiodorus’ allusions to the famous horse-race in Iliad Book 23,Footnote 65 the quasi-identification of poem and horse, and the arrangement of the narrative in terms of a horse-race all suggest that Triphiodorus presents his persona as competing in a horse-race; it is reasonable to assume that he does so in the hope of winning. As Antilochus needs to commandeer his father's horses with speed and guile to win the race, Triphiodorus needs to commandeer horses which he inherits from great poets of the past, primarily Homer. In his steering, he uses speed and non-traditional means which separate his work from the plethora of Homeric imitators. Yet the possibility of a win is precluded. The war Triphiodorus is narrating is decided, κεκριμένος (5) not merely in the intradiegetic level owing to its known ending but in the extradiegetic too, since ‘it has been told by poets already’,Footnote 66 rendering Triphiodorus’ compliance with fixed plots inevitable. Homer, especially, will always be the winner in this horse-race; albeit honourable, Triphiodorus’ attempt is futile. Similarly to Cassandra, Triphiodorus’ attempt to retell aspects of the Trojan war will not be convincing and he shall fail in his metaliterary horse-race. Triphiodorus and Cassandra share the instinct to proceed despite their awareness of the futility of their attempt.
CONCLUSION
This article has presented the pivotal role of Cassandra in the Sack of Troy and, above all, in Triphiodorus’ poetics. The transformation of the unconvincing prophetess into a protagonist with extended duties in the poem's central section is particularly noticeable if compared against the limited, supplementary roles attributed to Cassandra in her previous literary portrayals. The unprecedented attention Cassandra receives in the Sack of Troy can be textually verified both before her speech and, most significantly, within the speech itself. Cassandra's prophecy reveals the poet's artistry as it condenses the entire poem and constitutes the connecting point between the critical imagery used before and after her speech. Her prophecy realigns in the grim second half of the poem parts of the sanguine imagery deployed in the first half like an optical prism refracting the light entering through one of its surfaces. Cassandra's prophecy constitutes the poem's quintessence and operates as a mise-en-abîme. At the same time, her elevation to the primary narrator's level renders her a doublet of the latter, in a technique used in epic poetry as early as Homer with Demodocus and Phemius, but even more in Hellenistic epic poetry.Footnote 67 Triphiodorus’ decision to elevate this particular character lies perhaps in the established connotations that Cassandra creates in the tradition which he follows, as a character who—in defiance of the futility of her attempt to convince, of which she is perfectly aware—nevertheless proceeds to the task. Similar to Cassandra, Triphiodorus proceeds to the creation of his poem despite his certain failure, as he competes against the poet whom he attempts to emulate, namely Homer. Simply put, Cassandra becomes the mouthpiece of Triphiodorus’ poetic programme.
