THE ORIGINAL IDOMENEUS: HOMER AND HESIOD

Homer and Hesiod are the earliest Greek authors we know. They lived at about the same time during in the eighth to seventh century BC. Opinions vary as to who came first.

Hesiod introduced the Five Ages of Man. In the best known of his works, Works and Days, he said of the Trojan War: “Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, …some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen’s sake”.

No one knows for sure who Homer was. In fact, many believe “Homer” was at least two different people who lived at two different times. Others are convinced that one man wrote both The Iliad and The Odyssey. In the classical Greek period, Plato and his contemporaries never doubted there was only one Homer, and that his stories were true history. Herodotus rejected some parts of the stories as impossible but believed many of the characters actually lived. While scholars suggest that the stories were originally told orally, some are convinced they were in written form from the beginning. Although by the time of Homer, writing was once more available in Greece, bards telling oral stories were still active. They could chant four hours a day for two weeks to tell a story, which varied but little from telling to telling. It could be that Homer spoke the stories, and a scribe wrote them down. In the 550s BC the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus is said to have produced a definitive text of the Homeric epic for recitation at a festival. This suggests there were several versions at the time. At any rate, it is all moot, since the earliest currently extant written versions of "Homer's" works date from centuries later.

At the time of Homer, there were very many other stories, now gone, which “he” could have used as sources, and he omits much of what he could have assumed to be common knowledge of the time. Scholars suggest that there developed a canonical cycle of seven poems, recounting history from the creation of the gods to the death of Odysseus and the marriage of Telemachus, his son, to Circe. At first, all were attributed to Homer but, by the fourth to third century BC, Homer was recognized as author of only two of these, The Iliad and The Odyssey. The others lasted for as long as six hundred years more and were available to the writers of the classical period such as Æschylus and Euripides. However, they are now lost. In fact, of the late classical stories which once existed, we have only seven of eighty-two by Æschylus, seven of one hundred twenty-three by Sophocles, and nineteen of ninety-two by Euripides. What we know of the lost works comes from citations in medieval manuscripts copied from copies.

In Homeric Hymns, a collection of 33 poems, the author speaks of his blindness. Since Homer is no longer credited with this book, even the picture of the blind poet may be false.

How well did Homer know the period of which he wrote? Certainly he believed he was singing about the heroic past of his own country. While it is true that the Homeric poems present a distorted and anachronistic picture of the Mycenaean period, much of what he described has been verified by archaeology. For example, his description of the helmets and shields of the Greeks are validated by archaeological finds.

In The Iliad there is a Catalogue which lists the ships contributed by each of the various Greek kings. Most scholars believe that this list predates the rest of The Iliad. It is very like the lists found on the Linear B tablets, and may reflect an oral tradition carried down from the Mycenaean period. In fact, many of the names of people and places found in Homer have been found on the Linear B tablets. Mycenaean-type pottery has been found in the areas reported to have sent contingents to the Trojan War, and places named in Homer refer to places which really existed at the time of which he writes. Homer records two sacks of Troy, verified by digging. He speaks of Troy’s fine horses and many horse bones have been discovered there. The palace at Mycenae, Agamemnon’s capital, was one of the richest in Greece. Homer’s Agamemnon was the most powerful king, with some sort of loose lordship over other Greeks.


THE TROJAN WAR AND TROY
Most historians agree that there was some sort of great war around 1200 BC, which was carried down in folk memory for hundreds of years until the time of Homer. Supposedly Troy was built with the aid of the gods Apollo and Poseidon. Poseidon’s hostility to Troy started because, once the walls were built, the promised reward for his help was refused.

If there was a Trojan War, its most probable cause was the desire of the Greeks to expand into Asia Minor to exploit its riche, but the legend of Helen of Troy, with what Marlowe called “the face that launch’d a thousand ships” is more interesting.

There are several different stories about of the parentage and birth of Helen. In the most popular one, Zeus took on the form of a swan and seduced Leda, the wife of Tyndareos. She later bore Helen and Pollux by Zeus and, on the same night, Clytemnestra and Castor by her husband. In a more fanciful story, Helen’s mother was Nemesis who took on the form of a bird, and Helen was born from an egg. Others say that, while Nemesis bore Helen, Leda suckled her.

The beautiful Helen had dozens of suitors, among whom were Idomeneus, Odysseus and Menelaus (right). Hesiod tells us that most of the wooing was done by proxy, but Idomeneus came in person to meet the famous beauty of whom the whole world was speaking. The competition among the suitors was carried out by gift-giving. Before Helen announced her choice, all the suitors made a pact to abide by her decision, and to revenge any wrong done to the winner. Menelaus, the king of Sparta, whose gifts were the most expensive, won. The picture below shows a drawing of Mycenaen beauties from the time of Helen.

Meanwhile, back in Troy, Hecuba, the wife of King Priam, was pregnant with Paris (called Alexander in The Iliad ), and dreamt he would destroy Troy. To prevent this, she abandoned him on a mountain where a shepherd found him and brought him up. When Paris was grown, he was asked to judge which of the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera or Athena was the fairest. Each made him a promise. Aphrodite’s promise was Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, so he chose her. The jealous competitors resolved to destroy Troy, fulfilling Hecuba’s dream.

Several years later, Paris went to Sparta to visit Menelaus, but he was away in Crete visiting Idomeneus. When Paris saw Helen, he determined to have her, and so charmed her that she eloped with him back to Troy. True to their vow, all of her former suitors banded together to help Menelaus take revenge.

They assembled a huge fleet — Idomeneus supplied 80 of the ships — and sailed for Troy, starting the war which would last ten years. The Iliad deals with only a few weeks of the tenth year and ends before the Greeks won by the stratagem of the Wooden Horse. The story of the horse is told in The Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, and a number of other books. A medieval representation is at the left.

It was a different type of war. Tens of thousands of warriors swarmed around the siege site, but most of the fights were between two men. There was no one who commanded or gave orders; men entered and left battles at will. The gods took sides, as themselves or in disguise, and aided their favorites; the Trojans were supported by Apollo, Artemis and Aphrodite; the Achaians (Greeks) by Hera, Athena and Ares. In one version, the gods started the Trojan War to settle one of their conflicts, and many of the battles were really between gods who used men as surrogates.

The Odyssey starts after the war, with the return of the Greek heroes to their native lands. Many encountered trouble, most prominently Odysseus. Most are not heard from again. Stories, such as the one told about Idomeneus in the opera, does not appear in presently surviving literature until long after the time of Homer.


IDOMENEUS IN HOMER

While he was not as prominent in Homer’s stories as Achilles, Odysseus and Hector, Idomeneus does appears frequently. Archaeology has shown there was at Knossos a palace which was occupied by a Greek “king” in the thirteenth century. “Idomeneus” could indeed have taken an army from Crete around the traditional date of the Trojan War. Armor of his time found in Crete is shown below. Note the helmet made of bones.

In The Iliad, Idomeneus is one of the most important generals and takes part in all leadership councils. He is usually called “spear-famed”. The thirteenth book is all about one of his battles in which he was injured but not critically. Helen tells Priam (King of Troy) that Idomeneus is like a god among men. Some excerpts:

Book II, lines 645-652: Idomeneus, the spear-famed, was leader of the Cretans, those who held Knossos and Gortyna of the great walls, Lyktos and Milestos [etc.], all towns well established and others who dwelt beside them in Crete of the hundred cities. Of all these Idomeneus, the spear-famed, was the leader.

Book IV, lines 251-3: On his way through the thronging men [Agamemnon] came to the Cretans who, about valiant Idomeneus, were arming for battle. Idomeneus, like a boar in his strength, stood among the champions.

Book XIII, lines 232ff: Then in answer spoke the shaker of the earth, Poseidon: “Idomeneus, may that man who this day willfully hangs back from the fighting never win home again out of Troy land, but stay here and be made dog’s delight for their feasting. Come then, take up your armor and go with me.”…Idomeneus, when he came back to his strong-built shelter, drew his splendid armor over his body, and caught up two spears, and went on his way

Book XVII, lines 605: Now as Hector made a rush for Leïtos, Idomeneus struck him on the corselet over the chest…but the long shaft was broken behind the head, and the Trojans shouted. Now Hector made a cast at…Idomeneus as he stood in his chariot, and missed him by only a little.

In The Odyssey, Idomeneus brought all his men to Crete, all, that is, who had survived the war. “The sea got none of them”. When Odysseus finally got back to Ithaca, he was in disguise and told many “stories” to people about who he really was. Three involved Idomeneus. 1) Odysseus claims to have killed Idomeneus’s son, Orsilochus; 2) Idomeneus was in Crete repairing the damage his fleet had suffered in a gale; and 3) (Masquerading as Idomeneus’s fictitious brother) “Out in the wine-dark seas there lies a land called Crete....One of the ninety towns is a great city called Knossus, and there King Minos ruled and every nine years conversed with mighty Zeus. He was the father of my father, the great Deucalion, who had two sons, myself and Prince Idomeneus. Now Idomeneus had gone in his beaked ships to Ilium (Troy)…so it fell to me…to meet Odysseus and exchange gifts of friendship….The first thing [Odysseus] did was to go up to the town and ask for Idomeneus, whom he described as a dear and honored friend. But nine or ten days had already gone by since Idomeneus had sailed for Ilium,…so I took Odysseus to the palace and made him warmly welcome.”

That is all that Homer tells us about Idomeneus. Other stories extant at the time may have given more details, but the next remaining mention of him comes from hundreds of years later.


GREEK SOURCES AFTER HOMER

Electra, one of the major characters in Idomeneo, is neither a figure of Greek mythology nor of extant pre-classical epic, but appears for the first time in works written 300 years after Homer. How she managed to get to Crete, as in the opera, is a very late addition to the story; as one of the principal figures in the works of the Greek poets, she would never have had the time. The following tell her story: Æschylus (525-456 BC) in Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides; Sophocles (495-406 BC) in Electra; and Euripides (485-406 BC) in Iphigenia at Aulis, Electra, Helen, Orestes and Iphigenia in Tauris. These plays tell stories of the House of Atreus, a very dysfunctional family. While the stories differ slightly from playwright to playwright, they may be summarized as follows:

The founder of the House of Atreus was Tantalus, who offended the gods by feasting them on his son’s flesh. For this he was condemned to Hades where he could see food and drink but never reach it. His son, Pelops, had two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. Thyestes seduced his brother’s wife and was banished by Atreus, who then lured him back for a reconciliation and feasted him on his children’s flesh. Thyestes cursed Atreus and his descendants and fled with his remaining son, Aegisthus. The sons of Atreus were Agamemnon and Menelaus, who married Clytemnestra and Helen, the two daughters of Leda. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had three daughters, Electra, Iphigenia and Chrysothemis, and a son, Orestes. Agamemnon became the leader of forces which attacked Troy to revenge the seduction of Helen by Paris.

The Greek fleets assembled at Aulis, but there the wind they needed to take them to Troy failed so they could not continue. A priest, Calchas, told Agamemnon that he must sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to get favorable winds. Agamemnon sent for his wife and daughter under pretext that the girl was to marry Achilles. As he prepared for the sacrifice, Agamemnon insisted it was necessary to protect Greece. Achilles tried to stop him from killing Iphigenia, but she resolved to die for Greece. (Here we have one possible source for the later stories about Idomeneus.) As the knife struck her throat, she vanished, and a dead deer appeared in her place. Clytemnestra, who did not know her daughter had been saved, resolved to avenge her death. To add insult to injury, at the end of the Trojan War, Agamemnon seized Cassandra, the daughter of Priam of Troy and a priestess of Apollo, and took her to Argos as his mistress. A furious Clytemnestra, aided by Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin, killed her husband and established herself and Aegisthus as rulers over Argos.

At this time, Electra and Orestes (left) were about 10-12 years old. Orestes was spirited away to be raised elsewhere. Electra was left with her mother and her new husband Aegisthus. When she grew up she had many suitors, but Aegisthus, fearing that children of hers would kill him, married her off to a poor farmer who respected her virginity. When Orestes returned with his friend, Pylades, Electra did not recognize her brother at first; she had been a little girl when Orestes went into exile. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus were murdered by Orestes and/or Electra — the versions vary about who actually did the killing. Electra married Pylades and presumably lived happily ever after. The Furies drove Orestes mad and pursued him to Apollo’s shrine at Delphi. The goddess Athena appointed a group of men to conduct a trial for manslaughter. Orestes was acquitted, found his sister Iphigenia in Tauris, and brought her home. Later he married Hermione, the daughter of Helen and Menelaus.

Meanwhile, Athena planned to make the Greeks’ return home a disaster. Zeus promised that, as the heroes neared home, there would be a mighty storm and lent her his thunderbolts. She asked Poseidon’s help in making mountainous waves.

There are many stories about what happened to Helen. In Helen by Euripides, she has been in Egypt all during the war and never was with Paris. Only her shadow was in Troy. After the fall of Troy, Menelaus wandered the seas for eight years searching for her. His ship was wrecked off Egypt, where he found Helen. Others report that, after the death of Paris, she married his brother Deiphobus whom she then betrayed to Menelaus. She and Menelaus returned to Sparta and lived happily until their deaths or, — when widowed — she was driven out by her stepsons and fled to Rhodes where she was killed by its queen in revenge for the loss of her husband during the Trojan War.

One other Classic source is Lycophron’s The Alexandra. The author (c.330-325 BC) worked in the great library at Alexandria where, presumably, he had access to many versions of the legend. He wrote that Idomeneus had found an exposed infant, Leucus, whom he brought up as his own son. On leaving for Troy, he entrusted Crete to Leucus and promised him his daughter, Cleisithera, on his return. But Leucus seduced Meda, the wife of Idomeneus, and then murdered her, her daughter, and her two sons. (He reasoned that if she could betray Idomeneus so easily, she would soon betray him.) On his return from the war, Idomeneus was driven out of Crete by Leucus.

So the changes in the story had begun.


POST-GREEK SOURCES
Virgil’s Aeneid
The Roman poet, Virgil (70-19 BC), tells the adventures of Aeneas, a Trojan, who survived the war and was told that his descendants would be Romans.“Then a Trojan Caesar shall rise out of that splendid line. His empire’s boundary shall be the Ocean; the only border to his fame, the stars. His name shall be derived from great Iülus, and shall be Julius”. Mention is also made of the Wooden Horse and of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Aeneas leaves Troy carrying his aged father on his back. On the trip he says, ”Out in the middle of the sea lies Crete, the island of great Jupiter [Zeus].…The Cretans have a hundred splendid cities.…Let us follow where the gods have led. Let us appease the winds and seek the shores of Knossus.…We hear a rumor that Idomeneus, the prince of Crete is exiled from his father’s lands, that the coasts of Crete have been abandoned, there are no enemies, deserted houses await us there”. Later he mentions Idomeneus of Lyctos on the Italian coast.

Apollodorus, who lived sometime between 140 BC and AD 800, no one knows for sure (the first time he is cited was in the ninth century AD), fills in some of the gaps as follows: Meda, the wife of Idomeneus, committed adultery with Leucus, but Leucus killed her along with her daughter Clisthyra on Crete, although she had taken refuge in a temple and, having caused ten cities on Crete to revolt, became tyrant of them. When Idomeneus landed at Crete after the Trojan war, he blinded Leucus and drove him out of Crete

Marius Servius Honoratus, about 400 AD, wrote a commentary on The Aeneid, and, for the first time, the story begins to resemble the one told in the opera. On his return from the Trojan War, Idomeneus promised he would sacrifice the first person he met on land to Poseidon. He either tried to, or did, kill his son (or daughter). The people, aroused because of his cruelty (or because he caused a plague), banished him from Crete.

Most of the later versions of the story were based on two books which were forgeries.
Dictys of Crete claimed to have accompanied Idomeneus as a scribe and written the official history of the Trojan War in Phoenician. In the fourth century AD, a certain Lucius Septimus prepared what he asserted was a Latin translation of the original. This was accompanied by a letter which said it had been found by shepherds in the tomb of Dictys on Crete, was translated into Greek, and given to the Roman emperor Nero. The book tells much of the story of the Trojan War in The Iliad, but says it took only five years for the fleet to collect.

A plague struck the forces, and Agamemnon was stripped of his command. Palamedes, Diomedes, Ajax and Idomeneus were chosen to lead in his stead. After three more years the fleet finally sailed and sacked many cities on the way to Troy. Idomeneus was chosen as one of those who decided on the division of the spoils, including the women who had been captured. (The records of Crete include hundreds of women working at menial tasks. They may have been slaves. Ilia, in the opera, was one of these captives although she doesn’t enter the story for many hundreds of years more. As a princess she received much better treatment.) The fleet was scattered on the way home from the war, and Idomeneus ended up in Corinth. Orestes, who had been given to him as a hostage -- strange since he was the son of Agamemnon who was on the winning side -- accompanied Idomeneus when he returned to Crete. When Orestes was grown (he was a baby at the beginning of the Trojan War), he asked Idomeneus for men and a ship so he could return home. Idomeneus lived peacefully on Crete, where he received a visit from Menelaus and Helen. All the people assembled “to see her for whose sake almost all of the world had gone to war”. Ulysses also stopped in Crete during his long journey home, and Idomeneus gave him two ships to help him on his way. He died on Crete and was succeeded by his friend Meriones.

The other book was by Dares Phrygius, a self-styled eyewitness who told the story from the Trojan point of view. It was quite different; Hector slew Idomeneus in battle. It was the probable source for the Troilus and Cressida story told by both Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Joseph of Exeter was a twelfth century Englishman and crusader who wrote The Iliad of Dares Phrygius based on the above. In it, both Idomeneus and Meriones were killed by Hector. A number of other books based on Joseph’s were written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but, in 1702, both Dictys and Dares were shown to be forgeries.

In 1699 (before Dictys and Dares were shown to be forgeries), François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon (1651-1715), a French theologian and man of letters who, among other things, wrote A Treatise on the Education of Girls, published Les Aventures de Télémaque which tells the story of Telemachus, the son of Odyseus, as he searches for his father. It includes more about what happened to Idomeneus and most of the story which appears in the opera. (Mozart read this book as a teenager.) It is also a reflection of the author’s political views. According to Fénelon, Idomeneus made the vow and sees his son as in the opera. On his return, his son throws himself on his neck and is astonished by father’s cold response. The story continues:

Idoménée said: “Oh Neptune, what have I promised? At what price…prevented shipwreck.…Let my son live. Take my blood”. So saying, he pulled out his sword to kill himself but those around him stopped him. Then old Sophronyme, interpreter of the will of the gods, assured him he could satisfy Neptune without killing his son. “Your promise was imprudent. The gods don’t want to be honored through cruelty. Do not compound your error by acting against nature. Offer 100 white bulls to Neptune. Spill their blood at his altar crowned by flowers. Burn sweet incense to his honor”. Idoménée listened with lowered head and didn’t respond. There was madness in his eye. His pale face changed color, one saw his limbs tremble. Meanwhile his son said, “Here I am Father, your son is ready to die to appease the god. Do not bring his wrath upon you. I die happy, since my death will save your life. Strike, Father. Do not fear to find in me a son unworthy of you, who fears death”.

At this moment, Idoménée, beside himself, torn by the infernal Furies, surprised all who were watching. He plunged his sword in the heart of his son, then pulled it out, all covered with blood, and tried to plunge it in himself. Again he was restrained by those around him. The boy fell in his blood. The shades of death covered his eyes. Like a beautiful lily in a field cut down by the plow, which cannot stand, he had not yet lost his color or the brightness which charms the eye. But the earth no longer nourished him, and his life was snuffed out. So Idoménée’s son, like a young and tender flower, is cruelly mown down in his early life. His father was insensible with the excess of his sorrow. He didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, what he should do.

Meanwhile the people were touched with compassion for the boy and with horror for the barbarous deed of the father.…They took sticks and stones.…The wise Cretans forgot their vaunted wisdom. They didn’t recognize the grandson of Minos. The friends of Idoménée…led him to a boat. They embarked with him and put themselves at the mercy of the waves. Idoménée came to his senses.…The winds conducted them…he would search for a new kingdom.

[Télémaque (Telemachus), the son of Odysseus, has been looking for his father who had not yet returned from the war. At one point, he lands on Crete and the citizens consider him for a new ruler.]

The citizens of Crete started to choose a new leader. Do they want the son of Ulysses to rule Crete? The god said “Your descendants will lose the throne when a stranger comes to your island to uphold your laws”. They feared a foreigner would conquer Crete. But Idoménée’s tragedy and the wisdom of the son of Ulysses, who knows better than any mortal man the laws of Minos, showed what us what the Oracle meant. “What are we waiting for to crown him whom fate has sent us as King?” Télémaque was acclaimed as king, but he refused with gratitude, wanting to find his father.

[Meanwhile, Idoménée founded Salente in Hesperia. When Télémaque visits, Idoménée tells him how, a fugitive from gods and men, he came to a desert isle.] With a small number of companions, he made it his new homeland. “I should be an example to overproud kings who think they are untouchable”. Minerva, in the guise of Mentor, establishes in Salente all the best laws and most useful government policies, not so much to make Idoménée’s kingdom flourish, but to show Télémaque an example of what a wise government can do to keep its people happy and to give a good king a long-lasting glory. People are happier and work to keep the countryside prosperous. Better than gold and riches. Minerva had made Idoménée the wisest of all kings, a greater achievement than winning a war.

In 1705, Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762), considered in his day as the rival of Voltaire wrote a play, Idoménée. With each new version, there were new accretions.

The story had become a very popular subject for libretti, one of which was Idoménée, a tragédie lyrique by Antoine Danchet. Danchet’s libretto was set to music by André Campra, the most important French opera composer of his day. In writing his libretto, Danchet named Ilione (Ilia), the beloved of Idoménée himself, and introduced Electra. Venus calls on Aeolus to unleash a storm that will prevent Idoménée from reaching home. Venus and Neptune unite to punish Idoménée for his part in fall of Troy. Neptune quells the storm and demands fulfillment of the promise. Electra calls on Venus to avenge her unrequited love. At the end, as his abdication is being celebrated, Electra’s prayers are answered. Nemesis strikes Idoménée with such hallucinations that he kills Idamante. On regaining his senses, he prepares to take his own life, but Ilione insists that he live as punishment; she must die. He is prevented from suicide by his retinue and forced into exile. Presumably, Ilione dies.

The Danchet-Campra opera was first heard in Paris in 1712, and revised in 1731. The first edition was the ultimately source for Mozart’s Idomeneo, Rè di Creta. Much of Varesco’s libretto is a translation of Danchet, but he rejected Danchet’s supernaturally inspired love of Idomeneo for Ilione. He also rejected the supernaturally induced madness which caused Idomeneo to slay Idamante. As ordered by the Elector of Bavaria, Varesco gave his libretto a happy ending, changing a French tragédie lyrique into a more human, but still moral, drama.