Ancient & modern
As WMDs fail to surface in Iraq, it looks more and more likely that we went to war on false pretences. This is no new phenomenon. According to the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 490-425 Bc), the first war of Western literature was fought on equally illusory grounds — though that did not stop Herodotus justifying it.
In his Iliad and Odyssey, Homer (c. 700 Bc) informs us that Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam, seduced Menelaus' wife Helen back to Ilium in Troy. The Greeks raised an army to get her back. Efforts to reach a settlement failed, but after a ten-year siege Ilium was sacked and Helen recovered. Homer even portrays life chez the Menelauses back home in Greece in their twilight years.
Rubbish, says Herodotus, and for a very persuasive reason: 'Had Helen really been in Ilium, she would have been handed over to the Greeks with or without Paris' consent, since I cannot believe that either Priam or any other relation of his was mad enough to be willing to risk his own and his children's lives and the safety of the city, merely to let Paris continue living with Helen.' So Herodotus argues that Helen was not in Ilium and never had been; and when the Greeks went there to demand her release, the Trojans (correctly) replied that she was in Memphis, Egypt. The Greeks, naturally, said 'Pull the other one', and battle began. But when they took the city — no Helen.
Herodotus' claim that Helen had been in Memphis all the time is based on an Egyptian story. This was that Paris and Helen, en route for Troy, had been swept off course by a storm and landed there. The Egyptian king, hearing their tale, sent Paris away with a flea in his ear for making off with his host's wife, but kept Helen safe and sound for Menelaus to collect. This Menelaus duly did after Ilium had been sacked, Helen was nowhere to be found, and the Trojans wearily repeated, 'Told you. Now why not go to Memphis like what we said in the first place. squire?'
Herodotus was treating the Trojan war as history, but as history Homer's version made no sense to him. He therefore imposed sense on it by concluding that Helen was never in Troy at all and the whole venture was based on a false premise. But was the Trojan war therefore pointless? No, says Herodotus: it proved that the gods thought great crimes like Paris' should meet with great punishment — a line of reasoning not a million miles from that of Bush and Bush-baby Blair.
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