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Translation is a bit strange in places, but here are some descriptions of Trojans as told in Tzetzes' Posthomerica :P

Shall we describe now what Trojans looked like, including Troilus, the tamer of horses? There is Priam with meeting eyebrows and large nose, a fiercely glaring, flame-coloured skin and an admirable face, well-equipped, with thick hair and beautiful eyes. Hecuba was of dark skin, tall and pretty, of a mature age, ambitious, gentle though. Andromache was spirited, of middle age, with a long face, delightful; she had dimples on her cheeks when laughed. Cassandra had a small bodily frame, like of a man, whiter than the milk with perfectly round eyes, she had huge breasts, a small face and she was gentle. Her brother, Helenus, was well-adapted, tall, with the beard just sprouting, white, blond, with a big nose and a pale face. He had a soft back, he could escape notice of many. Deiphobus was in the middle of his youth, with a large face, with a small nose and dark skin, beautiful face and well-bearded. Aeneas was short but fat and had a big chest. He had white skin; he was bold with a large face. Antenor was tall, slim and had the skin like the milk, white, with a curved nose and blond hair. And finally, Troilus was big, of quick feet and dark skin, with a delightful face, shaggy-bearded and with long hair [...] who the Trojans grieved the same as did for Hector, for his manhood, his beauty, and his blossom of youth.

#priam looking at cassandra and helenus “whos goddamn white baby is that”#i loveee hecuba and andromache's descriptions tho. tall hecuba smiling andromache all i could ask for #priam #hecuba #andromache #cassandra #helenus #deiphobus #aeneas #antenor #troilus #trojan family #tagamemnon #mop #tzetzes

tzetzes saying palamedes was "a servant of wisdom and ares" is actually really funny when you remember:

athena's* favourites are odysseus and diomedes. you know, the guys that want him dead – and did kill him, actually!

ares is partying it up with the trojans

(*my personal hc is that "wisdom" refers to athena. the text actually means "wisdom" as a concept but again. just hc. and the reason i listed makes it funny lol)

#“nobody listens to tzetzes anyway” well! fair!! but consider that i think what he says is funny sometimes so i'm taking them for myself #palamedes #athena #ares #odysseus #diomedes #tzetzes antehomerica #tzetzes #hmmm. might as well tag as such →#greek mythology #tagamemnon #my rambles

In the Prolegomena to the Allegories of the Iliad, Tzetzes says of Alexandros Paris 'he was...very handsome and pale... often spitting out very refined spittle like the birds we call goldfinches'. I'm not familiar with spitting as a positive character trait... any cultural clues as to why this is a thing (or what it had to do with goldfinches)?

#Paris #Alexander #Troy #Trojan War #Tzetzes

Hi, I'm sorry to bother you but something's really puzzling me. This is an excerpt from Tzetze's Allegories of the Iliad, and according to the translation it says that Paris was 'often spitting out very refined spittle like the birds we call goldfinches'.

Given what else Tzetzes wrote I can quite believe that's what it says, but if it does, do you know of anything else at all that's similar? Either spitting as a positive trait in a person, or something goldfinches do? Or is it just a Tzetzes Cheese Dream?

Thanks!

Okay for once it is great that we see in Tzetzes that Paris was not some teenage boy! Hahaha in fact he lets us know that he was 32 years old and also mentions us that he was pretty (obviously), pale of skin (sign of nobility and beauty-> which has you questioning yourself like the hell was he doing when he was working with cattle out in the open! Hahaha unless he was chilling under trees playing the flute hahaha or he just avoided the sun like a plague when he got home with Priam hahaha kidding kidding. Probably mentioning he was naturally pale), gold of hair and having bushy hair aka rich hair. Now that of course is once more the sign of beauty at the times we speak about in general but Tzetzes in particular. Anyway Tzetzes is not exactly the most reliable source in the world when it comes to myth but some of his details are well-put.

Now we need to think that Tzetzes doesn't create myth exactly but an allegory. His text is more "christian friendly" where the gods are their actual attributes like desire or wisdom rather than gods and mystical beings (do we need to blame Tzetzes on the obsession of erasing the gods from modern day retellings? Hahahaha) The allegories or analogies that he creates were done due to the marriage of Bavarian princess to Manuel Komnenos in Constantinopole I believe. So Tzetzes ironically does what we try to do; connect the dots and actually show that there is a cultural continuation from antiquity in Greece to this day. Anyways unless I am mistaken yes that is his objective and writing style for the specific one. Not a perfect mythical transcription but a reimagining of the gods to their allegorical meanings and the analogy of the story to his contemporary one. The text was commissioned too by the future empress Eirene to introduce the foreign princess to the greek culture in general and Iliad in particular so she requested this to be made instead of directly introducing the princess to the original text (Tzetzes and Eirene am I to blame you for the retelling craze?!?!?!? hahahaha People thought they can imitate you?!?!?!!?!?)

But jokes aside as Tzetzes says with his text, it was supposed to be an analogy of the Iliad. Or as he says "allegory" which is surprisingly what myth actually is and I am always sad when people do not get it!

Anyhow back to the actual question you made; Paris depicted spitting. Now I have to say apart from spitting for contempt (negative) and for apotropaic reasons (warding off evil) I am not sure why that would be relevant to a good trait aka to show how pretty Paris was. My first thought would go to the text trying to show that Paris has youthful behavior (aka you know these "spitting contests" that kids sometimes would do aka aim for a target and hit it) or accuracy but apart from that not much to say on this

So my first thought is that it is not a positive trait at all. I think he shows it as a negative trait or rather a trait that he shows Paris has no lordly behavior for a court or that his moral values are generally looser so it were to show that if someone who thinks that behaving they way they do out in nature or when children fits to treat someone else in their own home than that is wrong. So I am not sure he says spitting makes him attractive but rather that he was attractive despite the fact that he was childish or didn't have some basic training in his behavior. Which would be Tzetzes "teaching manners" not to the princess in particular but whoever chooses to read his text; that someone can still be attractive but not knowing how to behave is a crucial thing

Now what the goldflinches do is another interesting thing since I believe the goldflinch is some kind of jay

which is interesting because jays are also associated with mimicking some other sounds and so it gives Paris some interesting deceiving aura to say the very least but the dual one in christian values is depicted as a symbol of persistence sometimes even associated with the Passion of Christ

Raphael's Madonna Del Castellano shows Christ holding a goldfinch jay in his hands. So does it try to give some positive trait to Paris, recognize the later suffering or maybe associate it with the persistence of Paris to win over Helen? As for the spit I am not sure. I looked a bit through and either found some evidence of birds building nests or even a froth like essence that certain nymphs of sap that is also, coincidentally called "cuckoo spit" in English literature (yeah...cuckoo? A bird that lives in other houses? Man I hate coincidences that do not have apparent proof hahahahaha)

so maybe Tzetzes is referring to the saliva that birds sometimes have to build nests with (again quite an interesting thing to say for Paris who if anything destroyed someone else's "nest" hahaha) and I know they say that not all birds produce this kind of spit but anyways maybe that is the reason Tzetzes uses a bird as a parallel too aka to show the analogy as an image from nature

I hope this helps because you are right it definitely is intriguing!

#katerinaaqu answers #greek mythology #tagamemnon #paris #paris of troy #helenaris #tzetzes

"And Heraclius quenched the fire of the Persians, which was reverential, A fire that on the one hand first came up out of a lightning bolt because of Perseus long ago," -TZETZES, CHILIADES

I think this is the first recorded instance of Perseus ever having lightning powers. i don't like him having lightning powers I think lightning is lame.

#greek mythology #ancient greece #perseus #heraclius #tzetzes #i dunno how to tag this

Out of all of Perseus’s 9 children only two weren’t directly stated to also be children of Andromeda, but no other mother is mentioned either. It could just be bc very few sources talk about them.

Autochthe’s existence is only mentioned by one author, Tzetzes (a Byzantine and therefore VERY late source) in a couple of his writings. She is mentioned as the daughter of Perseus, no mother mentioned. She’s also the wife of Aegeus (Theseus’s father) and had several unnamed daughters by him. Considering that none of the writings referencing her center Autochthe but rather the genealogy of the figures around her, it isn’t unlikely she was Andromeda’s daughter and that we just don’t have any surviving source directly stating her as such. But she could just be a “medieval OC” like Merros who I don’t really consider legitimate bc he’s likely just misspelled Mestor, I want Andromeda to have more than one daughter ok? Let me keep her.

Cynurus’s existence is mentioned exactly once, ONCE, in Pausanias Description of Greece (a more legit source than Tzetzes), where he led colonists from Argos to Cynuria. That’s it. It’s likely he’s also Andromeda’s son and it’s just that no source explicitly stated so survives.

Idk why I felt the need to talk about this, it’s just that I (as well as y’all) were always impressed by Perseus being one of the few ancient heroes to never cheat, but I wanted to be extra sure so I looked it up instead of just passing it around without thinking.