TROJAN HORSE

 Ο ΤΡΩΙΚΟΣ (ΔΟΥΡΕΙΟΣ) ΙΠΠΟΣ

The Trojan Horse, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson[1]

Απεικόνιση του Δουρείου Ίππου σε αγγείο της Μυκόνου του 670 π.Χ.[5]

Βοιωτική περόνη με παράσταση Δουρείου Ίππου, 700 π.Χ. [7]

Σύμφωνα με τον Marescalchi Consuelo: 

The artist [Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson] shows the episode from the Trojans' point of view. He sets the scene between two strong columns decorated with trophies and linked with garlands (an allusion to the festive reception given to the horse). The architecture in the foreground, perhaps Priam's palace, which a Greek on a ladder is trying to break into, symbolically suggests the transgression of the threshold: the enemies have entered the impregnable city. Better still, the framework indicates a point of view, deliberately choosing the Trojan side. The scene is described from their ramparts. It is thus not by chance that the artist has depicted the dozing, useless guards, a pathetic metaphor of the destiny of the defeated. Girodet gives new impetus to line drawing: in his hand, line conveys life rather than an idea; it is the vector of movement used to render the turmoil of the scene and the feverishness of the attack. His capricious, twisting, mercurial line floods the page with energy, seeking less to illustrate than to translate the event, focusing on the effect rather than the idea.

Ερμόπολις (Tuna el-Gebel), οικιόσχημος τάφος 23, ο Τρωϊκός Ίππος[9]

Δούρειος Ίππος στην Gandhara![11]

Απεικονίζονται πέραν του Δουρείου Ίππου: η Κασσάνδρα υπό τις Σκαιές Πύλες, ο Λαοκόων (ως ήρως / μέλλων Βούδας κατά ωρισμένους!), πιθανόν ο Πρίαμος (πίσω από τον ίππο) και ο διπλός πράκτωρ Σίνων (?), Εντοπίζονται ομοιότητες με την απόδοση του ίδιου θέματος σε άλλες περιπτώσεις από τον Ελληνο-Ρωμαϊκό κόσμο, εξαίρεση η Κασσάνδρα η οποία εμφανίζεται φέρουσα το ένδυμα paridhana - dhoti των νυμφών - yaksis, ενώ πιθανόν φέρει κορώνα σχήματος τειχών πόλεως (corona muralis) όπως οι πολιούχες θεές (άλλωστε υπήρξε μάντις!)! The Provenance of the Gandhāran "Trojan Horse" Relief in the British Museum, Peter Stewart

BRITISH MUSEUM SCOLIA: 

Panel showing perhaps a theme from a Trojan cycle. Almost in the centre of the space beside the doorway a horse stands on a rectangular platform with, on the outer side, two densely and irregularly spoked wheels; the horse's head, badly damaged in front, reaches almost to the top of the panel and looks slightly outwards towards the viewer. The body shows some modelling; the mane is a low ridge along the back of the neck. In front of the horse a male figure, bending towards it, legs flexed, holds a spear with a long narrow point in both hands against the animal; his right arm is badly damaged and only his left hand is visible in low relief on the shaft of the spear. He wears a girt knee-length tunic and probably a 'chlamys', damaged on the left and with no visible clasp or fibula. His legs are bare but above the ankles is a roll, probably at the top of low boots; the hair is apparently long and flowing but the outer side of the head is damaged and no hair seems to fall below the shoulders. Behind the horse, over the haunches, is the bust of a standing male wearing a garment densely ribbed for folds covering both shoulders, but for this figure there is no continuation below the horse's body and, although only an irregular vertical break is left of the head, it is tempting to think that he was bearded. Beside the horse's tail another male, in profile, appears to be pushing the horse with both arms, although only one hand is visible; he is perhaps wearing a cloak seen from the side and reaching below the knees, and the lower arm may be sleeved to the wrist with a thick material. His left shoulder and upper arm are badly gashed. On his legs rolls (of the tops of boots) are much clearer. The head is largely broken and, like that of the figure opposite, retains some features only on the inner side carved in probable asymmetry with those on the outer. Beside him is a slender shaft, inclining slightly to the right, with a curved and reattached shape at the top, all that is left of a spear and of an arm curving upwards behind it and ending in a hand holding it below the point.

On the left is a doorway containing a female figure standing almost frontally with both arms raised to the top of the lintel. She wears a lower garment, seemingly a paridhāna, with, on her left, a short and thick excess of material hanging, perhaps looped, from the girdle. This garment extends as far as the double anklets on both legs. Above the girdle she is naked except for a collar and a necklace hanging between the breasts, she wears hoop earrings and her thick hair falls on either side of the head. Above the head and joined to it is an irregularly broken projection, the height of the lintel and roughly in the form of an inverted cone, which readily suggests a lost mural crown (despite the usually quite different dress of the city-goddess in Gandhāra, far more, it would seem, than the chignon). The face is chubby with very full cheeks, somewhat suggesting a child; the mouth is a slit, but the eyes are open and ringed to show the upper and lower lids. On her undamaged left forearm are about five wristlets. The doorway has deeply moulded architraves. Only the bottom of the panel is framed and has a prominent plinth and torus below a fillet slanted back and suggesting a cavetto.

Ο ΤΡΩΙΚΟΣ ΙΠΠΟΣ ΠΥΡΗΝΑΣ ΒΟΥΔΙΣΤΙΚΗΣ ΠΑΡΑΒΟΛΗΣ

Σύμφωνα με τον Stewart ίσως η καλύτερη υπόθεση,[13] αναφορικά με την παράσταση του Δουρείου Ίππου στην Γανδαρίτιδα τέχνη, είχε διατυπωθεί πολλά χρόνια πρίν από τον Alfred Foucher,[15] ο οποίος πρότεινε ότι η Τρωική ιστορία είχε προσαρμοστεί και παρουσιαστεί ως μία jataka - ήτοι ιστορία του παρελθόντος του Βούδα - και ότι ο Λαοκόων του σχολιαζόμενου αναγλύφου ήταν στην πραγματικότητα ο ίδιος ο Μποντισάτβα, ο μελλοντικός Βούδας, ο οποίος προσπάθησε να σώσει την πόλη αποκαλύπτοντας το τέχνασμα του εχθρού. 

ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΕΙΣ

[1]. The Trojan Horse, Between 1810-11 and 1824 (Louvre), Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (Montargis, 1767-Paris, 1824).
[5]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykonos_vase#/media/File:Mykonos_vase.jpg
[7]. Sparkes 1971, p. 55, fig. 1. (BM 3205, Museum number 1898,1118.1).
[9]. https://scontent.fath3-4.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/128269064_254601126313118_7548969601749016627_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=HkePolHmPpwAX9EcfoT&_nc_ht=scontent.fath3-4.fna&oh=8bf4bc5ab8a2722ef9945b7a80253348&oe=60D705F5
[11]. British Museum nr. 1990,1013.1.
[13]. Stewart 2017.
[15]. Foucher 1950, pp. 410-411. Ακολουθεί σχετικό απόσπασμα:
p. 410:
our public places or at our stations. The bas-reliefs show us currently the hometown of the Buddha, Kapilavastou, lamenting of his "Departure in religion", or that of Çrâvastî marveling at his “Great Miracle”.[1] However - the stone keeps an undeniable trace, although its wear allowed Mr. Allan to dispute it – the female figure is rightly wearing a wall crown.

No doubt is allowed: it is with the nagara-dêvatâ, with the protective deity of the City that we are dealing: alerted by "her divine eye" (mean by her supernatural foreknowledge) of the disaster that is being prepared for her, it is she who stands thus, arms outstretched, on her doorstep, to bar access to the fatal machine.

On the strength of this identification, which is evident from the eye, the Indianist does not fail in its turn to draw the necessary inferences from it.

Since at least partial Indianization of the work is a demonstrated, there are strong presumptions that its author has in no way intended to reproduce a specimen of European imagery of which he and his public would still have fully understood the meaning, but rather to use in the decoration of a monument Buddhist Indian adaptation of a scene whose original meaning had already obsessed and significantly modified in the exotic environment where she had lost her way. If the so-called "single exception" fits thus in the common rule, nothing is easier than to apply to it a new interpretation, as detailed as it is edifying.

Mr. Hargreaves had well foreseen, we are in the presence of one of those tales of times gone by whose hero was systematically identified with the Buddha during one of his countless previous existences. Not content to collect by the hundreds these fables and these fables for the needs of his preaching, the Buddhist community ended up casting them all in the same mold conventional. Also do we know in advance that the character sympathetic will by definition be one of the reincarnations of the Bodhisattva or future Buddha: we will therefore recognize him here in the warrior who, for the salvation of the City, tries to stop the fatal war machine. Whoever, on the contrary, pushes her forward maybe his cousin Dêvadatta (Dieudonné), the traitor appointed of all these apologues. No less automatically the so-called Priam becomes the king of Benares; and, anyway, the Cassandra supposed to surrender her gift of clairvoyance to the divine patroness of this city. As for the horse on wheels, it continues to stand center of the composition, but the harmless air that its small dimensions remind us very aptly that the fairy tales Buddhists always have a happy ending, and invites us to [NEXT PAGE] to foresee that the terrified goddess will be released for fear; because the intervention of the future Buddha can only be effective. In short, in the spirit of the donors as under the artist's chisel, the tabula Iliaca has changed into a jâtaka.

p. 411: 

 … predict that the frightened goddess will be released for fear; because the intervention of the future Buddha can only be effective. In short, in the spirit of the donors as under the artist's chisel, the Tabula Iliaca has changed into a jâtaka.

So at least the Indianist likes to reason, and nothing will to depart from this opinion: because the manifest change of identity of the alleged Cassandra is a sure pledge that the other three characters, although they have kept a lot of their appearance classic, have also changed their name and nationality.

But, if he is honest and you have remained in disbelief, he must confess that he cannot provide demonstrative proof of his assertion. Himself enacted a law that no identification can be considered as definitively acquired as long as it faces the bas-relief we could not place the corresponding text and verify the concordance of the two versions, figurative and written; however, in the immense Buddhist literature one has not yet noted, as far as we know, any allusion near or far to the old Homeric legend of the capture of Troy.

The rule stated above is undoubtedly too absolute, and among the Indian sculptures there is no lack of these narrative bas-reliefs, readable at first sight, that a contemporary label, engraved on the stone, expressly designates like jâtaka and of which until now we have no literary counterpart. It remains nonetheless true that, in the case which occupies us, the argument which would be without reply continues to default.

We are thus brought back to the question we asked from the beginning, and more than ever embarrassed to resolve it in any way decisive. In this case it is not a question of guessing, if one can, the basic meaning of this story without words: just like the origins Mediterranean in its staging, it is beyond discussion; but we must choose, if we dare, between two possible locations of the city and, consequently, between two serial identifications of characters. The curious thing is that this choice is dictated to us in advance by our habits of mind and the ordinary turn of our studies.

Spontaneously a Hellenist believes himself before Troy, and, consequently, in right to recognize in the actors those whom Homer and Virgil have made famous; certain of the Indianization of one of them, which is nothing less than the personification of the city, the Indianist supports with no less confidence that the others have shared the same fate and represent the traditional protagonists of moral tales of Buddhism. While the subject, if not the end of the drama which is played out remains in both hypotheses substantially the same, the whole story changes depending on whether the lighting projected on the bas-relief comes to him from the East or the West. There is not properly …

p. 412: 

.. talk about ambiguity {αμφισημία}; if it is permissible to borrow this expression in scientific language, there is almost ambivalence. It is exactly this approximation of equilibrium between the advanced interpretations on both sides which makes the special interest of this mediocre work and justifies the need for a new notice. It would indeed be good difficult to find a more clearly hybrid specimen and, consequently, more typically representative of the Indo-Greek art of Gandhâra.

ΒΙΒΛΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ

https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/news/newsDetails/mary-lefkowitz-on-the-trojan-horse-and-women-in-ancient-greek-democracy
Mary Lefkowitz on the Trojan Horse and Women in Ancient Greek Democracy, September 15, 201

https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-12/Large%20print%20guide_Troy.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/642388

Sparkes, B. A. 1971. "The Trojan Horse in Classical Art," Greece & Rome 18 (1), pp. 54-70.

Stewart, P. 2017b. “A well near Hund,” in Classical Art Research Centre. Gandhara Connections, < https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ASP/blog.asp> (12 March 2021).

A well near Hund... Perhaps the best hypothesis was advanced many years ago by Alfred Foucher, who proposed that the Trojan story had been appropriated and adapted as a jataka ­– a past life story of the Buddha – and that the 'Laocoon' was in fact the bodhisattva himself, the future Buddha, saving the day by defying the enemy's ruse.[2]

https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1950_num_94_4_78594

Foucher, A. 1950. “Le cheval de Troie au Gandhâra,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 94, pp. 407–412.

ΤΕΛΕΥΤΑΙΟΣ ΕΜΠΛΟΥΤΙΣΜΟΣ - ΕΝΗΜΕΡΩΣΗ: 04.06.21