The Rape of Troy
Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer

A highly innovative study analysing Homeric conflict from the perspective of modern evolutionary biology.

Jonathan Gottschall (Author)

9780521870382, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 March 2008

236 pages, 1 b/w illus. 1 table
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.42 kg

'Though serious in its purpose of advancing knowledge, The Rape of Troy is also powerfully literary. Gottschall became imaginatively absorbed in the Homeric poems, and through the often virtuoso quality of his interpretive rhetoric, he enables the reader to share in his responsiveness to Homer's poetry. When we speak of criticism that “impresses us with the power, richness, and responsiveness of the critic's mind,” it is to criticism of this quality that we refer.' Joseph Carroll, University of Missouri

Homer's epics reflect an eighth-century BCE world of warrior tribes that were fractured by constant strife; aside from its fantastic scale, nothing is exceptional about Troy's conquest by the Greeks. Using a fascinating and innovative approach, Professor Gottschall analyses Homeric conflict from the perspective of modern evolutionary biology, attributing its intensity to a shortage of available young women. The warrior practice of taking enemy women as slaves and concubines meant that women were concentrated in the households of powerful men. In turn, this shortage drove men to compete fiercely over women: almost all the main conflicts of the Iliad and Odyssey can be traced back to disputes over women. The Rape of Troy integrates biological and humanistic understanding - biological theory is used to explore the ultimate sources of pitched Homeric conflict, and Homeric society is the subject of a bio-anthropological case study of why men fight.

Introduction
1. Rebuilding Homer's Greece
2. A short ethnography of Homeric society
3. Why do men fight? The evolutionary biology and anthropology of male violence
4. What launched the 1,186 ships?
5. Status warriors
6. Homeric women: re-imagining the fitness landscape
7. Homer's missing daughters
8. The prisoner's dilemma and the mystery of tragedy
Conclusion: between lions and men.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]