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First things first,
previously on the song of Ilium we saw
Achilles and Agamemnon fall out over
female captives in book one. 
Then in book two Agamemnon is tricked by Zeus into
attacking the Trojans.
The Greeks deal with their discipline problem and
Homer gives us the full roster for both sides.
This time in book three, the two armies
have a little parlay.
Wherein Paris and Menelaus agree to
have a duel to resolve the war.
The Trojan Prince is whisked off the
battlefield by Aphrodite to Helen's bed.
The most beautiful woman on earth then
comes to meet the pusillanimous Prince Paris
after helpfully giving King Priam some roster notes.
Book 3 is the book
where Homer touches on the casus belli.
Which is the official on-paper cause for
the war. The best way to enlighten those
who buy the face-that-launched-a-thousand
-ships narrative is with a quote from
the great David Foster Wallace's novel
Infinite Jest
"Paris and Helen were the excuse of the"
"war. All the Greek states in addition to
the Sparta of Menelaus attacked Troy"
"because Troy controlled the Dardanelles
and charged the ruinous tolls for"
"passage through, which the Greeks who
would like very dearly the easy passage"
"for trade with the Orient of East,
resented with fury. It was for commerce"
"this war. The one quotes love when does
not quote off Paris for Helen was merely"
the excuse." Nowadays, as the densely
packed cultivation in the satellite tour
revealed, Greece is something of an
agricultural powerhouse but for a long
time in ancient days Greece couldn't
feed itself, certainly not reliably.
For centuries grain was brought from the
Black Sea coast, which includes the
modern-day breadbasket of Ukraine, to the
Mediterranean through the two sets of
straits. From Troy to the rich Lydians to
the powerful
Persians to the martial Macedonians
to the relentless Romans to the backward
Byzantines on to the opportunistic
Ottomans, the state which controls the
straits controls the food supply,
controls the Mediterranean world.
Many believe the Iliad represents an episode
of what historians call "the Bronze Age collapse".
The idea is that across the
Mediterranean world droughts led to food
scarcity which led to war against the
people who kept food prices high like
the Trojans. Now to me that sounds a lot
more likely than one guy missing his hot
wife, right? Which brings me to the topic
of women in the Homeric world.
My mom found a lot of the female
characterization in the Iliad super
misogynistic and it is. 
She's been reading the new
novel Circe which is from the Homeric
nymphs perspective and we both agreed
the Iliad has a very "it's all Eve's fault" 
sort of feel to it. Male characters
in the Iliad, as occurs in day to day
life unto the present, project their own
weakness out on to women and force these
delusions in place with violence.
Quite simply physical force is what patriarchy
always comes down to and in a world
where the rulers are the mightiest
warriors, one can comprehend why
Mycenaean Greece was such a misogynistic place. 
In the modern world,
women are starting to assert equality as
the strength of will and mind come to
matter more than the strength of arm.
However on the bright side, you can see
the modern female power on the horizon
in the Greek goddesses and noblewomen
if you read between the lines.
Women like Athena and Hera and Aphrodite
drive the plot and ended up making most
of the decisions.
Likewise mortal women such as Penelope
and Helen and Andromache are portrayed
as virtuous, intelligent and
incredibly tough in the face of the
mistreatment by the beastly men around them.
There's a Greek saying that I think
Zeus and Hera would well understand.
The man is the head but the woman is the
neck and she can turn the head anyway
she was wants. Much thanks to all my actors.
I'm still looking for help so please let
me know if you would like to act,
animate, edit or contribute in any other way.
So without further ado I present you
book 3 of the Iliad.
