Briseis and Phoenix, red-figure kylix, c. 490 BC, Louvre (G 152)[1]
Achilles' surrender of Briseis to Agamemnon, from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii, fresco, 1st century AD, now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples

Briseis (/braɪˈsiːɪs/; Ancient Greek: Βρισηίς Brīsēís, pronounced [briːsɛːís]) ("daughter of Briseus"), also known as Hippodameia (Ἱπποδάμεια, [hippodámeːa]),[2] is a significant character in the Iliad. Her role as a status symbol is at the heart of the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon that initiates the plot of Homer's epic. She was married to Mynes, a son of the King of Lyrnessus, until the Achaeans sacked her city and was given to Achilles shortly before the events of the poem. Being forced to give Briseis to Agamemnon, Achilles refused to reenter the battle.[3]

Description

Briseis receives the same minimal physical description as most other minor characters in the Iliad. She is described with the standard metrical epithets that the poet uses to describe a great beauty, though her appearance is left entirely up to the audience's imagination. Her beauty is compared to that of the goddesses.[4]

Briseis was imagined about two millennia later by the Byzantine poet John Tzetzes as:

"tall and white, her hair was black and curly;
she had beautiful breasts and cheeks and nose; she was, also, well-behaved;
her smile was bright, her eyebrows big"[5]

Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian (between 1st century BC and 5th century AD), Briseis was illustrated as ". . .beautiful. She was small and blond, with soft yellow hair. Her eyebrows were joined above her lovely eyes. Her body was well-proportioned. She was charming, friendly, modest, ingenuous, and pious."[6]

Mythology

According to her mythology, Briseis was the daughter of Briseus and an unnamed mother. She had three full brothers who died in the sack of Lyrnessus.[7]

In the Iliad, when the Achaeans led the assault on Lyrnessus during the Trojan War, Achilles slew several of the men in her family.[8] She was subsequently given to Achilles as a war prize. In the Mycenaean Greek society described in the Iliad, captive women like Briseis were slaves and could be traded amongst the warriors. According to John Tzetzes he suggests that it was Palamedes that abducted Briseis. And from the Achaeans collected spoils Achilles was given Briseis.

According to Book 1 of the Iliad, when Agamemnon was compelled by Apollo to give up his own slave, Chryseis, he demanded Briseis as compensation. This prompted a quarrel with Achilles that culminated with Briseis' delivery to Agamemnon and Achilles' protracted withdrawal from battle. His absence had disastrous consequences for the Greeks. Despite Agamemnon's grand offers of treasure and women, he did not return to the fray until the death of Patroclus.

Achilles was angry at Agamemnon, and seethed with rage in his tent that Agamemnon dared to insult him by stripping him of the prize that had been awarded to him. When Achilles returned to the fighting to avenge Patroclus' death and Agamemnon returned Briseis to him, Agamemnon swore to Achilles that he had never had sex with Briseis.[9]

When Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix visit Achilles to negotiate her return in book 9, Achilles refers to Briseis as his wife or his bride. He professes to have loved her as much as any man loves his wife, at one point using Menelaus and Helen to complain about the injustice of his "wife" being taken from him.[10] This romanticized, domestic view of their relationship contrasts with book 19, in which Briseis herself speaks. As she laments Patroclus' death, she wonders what will happen to her without his intercession on her behalf, saying that Patroclus promised her he would get Achilles to make her his legal wife instead of his slave.[11]

In book 19 of the Iliad, Achilles makes a rousing speech to the Achaean soldiers. He publicly declares that he will ignore his anger with Agamemnon and return to battle. During his speech, Achilles says he wishes Briseis were dead, lamenting that she ever came between Agamemnon and himself.[12] This contrasts his own statements in book 9.

She remained with Achilles until his death, which plunged her into great grief. She soon took it upon herself to prepare Achilles for the afterlife. According to Robert Bell, following his death, Briseis "was given to one of Achilles' comrades-at-arms just as his armor had been", after the fall of Troy.[13]

In medieval romances, starting with the Roman de Troie, Briseis becomes Briseida[14] and is the daughter of Calchas. She loves and is loved by Troilus and then Diomedes. She is later confused with Chryseis and it is under variations of that name that the character is developed further, becoming Chaucer's Criseyde, then Shakespeare's Cressida.

Portrayals in art, film, and other media

Worn papyrus fragment. Two men and a woman are drawn in reddish ink.
Abduction of Briseis, 4th century

Notes

  1. ↑ Beazley Archive 203900.
  2. ↑ From the A scholium at Iliad 1.392 we learn that "[Homer] forms the names [of Briseïs and Chryseis] patronymically. For as other ancient [poets] relate, Chryseis was called Astynome, and Briseis was called Hippodameia." Dictys Cretensis calls Briseis by the latter name in his account of the Trojan War. See Dué 2002: Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis 56-58.
  3. ↑ Roman, Luke; Roman, Monica (2010). Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. Infobase Publishing. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-4381-2639-5.
  4. ↑ Homer. "19". Iliad. p. 497 (Robert Fagles translation). And so Briseis returned, like golden Aphrodite...with both hands clawing deep at her breasts, her soft throat and lovely face, she sobbed, a woman like a goddess in her grief
  5. ↑ Tzetzes, Antehomerica 356-358
  6. ↑ Dares Phrygius, History of the Fall of Troy 13
  7. ↑ Homer, Iliad 19.291-95
  8. ↑ See, e.g., Homer, Iliad 2.688–94
  9. ↑ Homer, Iliad 19.261–63
  10. ↑ Homer, Iliad 9.406–20
  11. ↑ Homer, Iliad 19.348–54. "Again and again you vowed you'd make me godlike Achilles' lawful, wedded wife, you would sail me west in your warships, home to Phthia, and there with the Myrmidons hold my marriage feast." (Robert Fagles translation)
  12. ↑ Homer. "19". Iliad. p. 490 (Robert Fagles translation). Agamemnon--was it better for both of us, after all, for you and me to rage at each other...all for a young girl? If only Artemis had cut her down at the ships--with one quick shaft--that day I destroyed Lyrnessus, chose her as my prize.
  13. ↑ Bell, Robert (1991). Women of Classical Mythology p.244
  14. ↑ Brizeida in the letter of Azalais d'Altier.
  15. ↑ "The Women of Troy by Pat Barker review – bleak and impressive". the Guardian. 20 August 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2022.

References

  • Media related to Briseis at Wikimedia Commons
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