Dear Classical Wisdom Reader,
For nearly three millennia, Homer’s Iliad has captivated audiences with its towering heroes, immortal gods, and unforgettable visions of glory and grief...
Yet the enduring power of the epic lies not only in its legendary battles, but in its remarkable ability to reveal something new each time we return to it, each time we read it once more.
That’s because beneath the bronze armor and battlefield triumphs are other, quieter stories...ones that allow us to look more closely at the human realities hidden within the myth.
One such figure is Briseis.
She is a woman who speaks little, yet whose presence shapes the entire course of the epic. Indeed, examining Briseis more carefully allows us to deepen our understanding of the world the poem emerged from, and the uneasy truths it preserves about honor, power, and the cost of war.
It’s an important reminder that sometimes the most revealing insights are found not in the loudest voices of an old story, but in the silence surrounding those history almost forgotten.
Classical Wisdom Members: You can delve into the Mycenaean Civilization and the Bronze Age to discover some of the hidden tales inside the Iliad in today’s Member’s-only in-depth article on Briseis, below.
All the best,
Anya Leonard
Founder and Director
Classical Wisdom
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Briseis: The Sound of Silence
By Mary Naples, author of Unsung Heroes: Women of the Ancient World
Before Achilles’ fatal war cry shattered her world, Briseis was a princess living a life of privilege. She was married to Mynes, the son of the king of Lyrnessus, a city in the Troad allied with Troy.
In the beat of a heart, everything changed when her city was destroyed during the Greek invasion; she witnessed the massacre of her husband, father, and three brothers, along with most other males—many of whom were mere boys.
As with Mycenaean Greek conquests, the women were spared, but they were treated as possessions, the spoils of war, stripped of their freedom and dignity and forced to serve their captors in whatever way their captors saw fit.
Briseis was no exception, it was in that very way she came to Achilles.
Briseis has intrigued scholars from ancient times to our own.
Although she plays a minor role in Homer’s Iliad, her presence looms large throughout the epic, as she unwittingly becomes a catalyst for a schism within the Greek expedition…
 | A guest post by
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