James,
Granted, I may be overinterpreting, but let's remember that Athena
was also a war-goddess. I think what I've said about the importance of
horses for military victory and conquest fits in nicely with the horse
being a gift to Athena, which is something I had in the back of my mind
all along, though I didn't make a point of it before. As for the
_hippodamos_ epithet being applied to others besides the Trojans, sure,
the Greeks didn't rely on their ships for everything, and in fact needed
horses for the chariot-warfare on the battlefield outside the walls of
Troy, as well as for their ordinary lives back home in Greece. It's just
that the Trojans are almost entirely a land-based power in this particular
situation, whereas the Greeks have ships as well as horses. So I think it
is reasonable to interpret the wooden horse as a symbolic gesture in which
the Greeks seem to be "throwing in the towel" to the ostensibly victorious
Trojans. That's how it would have seemed to the Trojans; it's a symbolic
image that would push all the right buttons for the Trojans beholding it.
Since the subtle, manipulative cleverness of Odysseus is involved here (it
was his idea to build the horse) and we see similar tactics of
misdirection in Sinon's emotional appeal to the Trojans--playing on their
wishful thinking--I think it not improbable that the horse image could
have the kind of resonance I suggested.
Randi Eldevik
Oklahoma State U.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply.
Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message
"unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You
can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
