EPISODE 7 “THE MAD KING”

You are listening to Trojan War, the podcast, history's most awesome epic. This is episode number seven in the series. Today's episode is titled The Mad King. So welcome back to Trojan War, the podcast. Now you'll notice that I've titled this episode The Mad King, and the reasons why I've chosen that title are going to become apparent very, very quickly. Just if you want to recall, when we left things at the end of the previous episode, Eggmanon, the king of my senai, the most powerful of the Greek warlord kings, was in the process of assembling a massive coalition army. An army which Eggmanon hoped when it was complete would be 100,000 men strong and would then require 1,000 boats, boats that Eggmanon was currently in the process of building, and then that coalition army, Eggmanon, was confident, would sail across the Aegean Sea to the city of Troy, and in a quick pitched battle, 100,000 Greeks against Troy's 75,000 soldiers, Eggmanon would destroy the city of Troy, and well Greek ascendancy in the Mediterranean, an age of Greek ascendancy in the Mediterranean would begin with Eggmanon as a king of kings who had pulled off the venture in the first place. Eggmanon was a warlord of overarching ego and ambition, and he'd lie awake at night on the beach at allless where he was assembling this coalition army, and Eggmanon's eyes were just filled with dreams of glory, and of possibly even a unified Greece with all the other warlords deferring and bowing down to him. Now over the course of the summer, the warlords assembled, 50 of them assembled initially, the warlords who had agreed to the oath of the quartered horse and were bound by that oath to come an attempt to rescue Helen of Sparta who was now residing in Troy and was now Helen of Troy. The warlords were there with their armies for that particular reason, but even more warlords filtered into the beach at allless over the course of the summer wanting to participate in Eggmanon's military venture. Now the warlords that came to allless to the port where Eggmanon was assembling were, they were there for the reasons that warlords and soldiers show up at armies, well throughout history, right up to the 21st century, and three primary reasons, I suppose. There were a whole contingent of warlords, maybe a little bit naive in their belief, who had actually taken Eggmanon's propaganda hook line and sinker, believed the whole thing, and had reported at allless genuinely sincerely believing that they were heading off on a mission which was more of a crusade on principle to rescue Helen, this poor damsel in distress, who these warlords believed had actually been kidnapped by Prince Paris, and well when they arrived and they arrived with their foot soldiers who equally believed that they were off on a heroic adjust cause to rescue poor Helen, well Eggmanon certainly didn't take them aside and disabuse them of their notion, if they wanted to fight for idealism and highly principled beliefs that Eggmanon thought I don't care as long as they're willing to fight and die for my reasons. No, Eggmanon's reasons and the reasons of many of the more wily and crafty warlords were strictly economic, Eggmanon couldn't have cared less about menolation, losing his wife, Eggmanon saw it as he isn't the first of the last man in history, the planet, who has been cuckolded by an unfaithful wife, it's hardly a matter for a war, but Eggmanon saw in a coalition army and in this cause which he had trumped up of rescuing Helen an opportunity to bring Troy to its knees and that was the plan for Eggmanon, it was all geopolitics, it was all wealth, it was all about the money, it was all about the big political game and certainly there were warlords there with that belief and there were common foot soldiers who had joined this expedition simply because they wanted to be part of the sack of Troy and maybe grab some form of gold or treasure and bring it back to enrich their own lives and retirement pension plans, so there were people there that were there for completely mercenary economic reasons, it's the kind of things that we would consider jaded and cynical in all to 20th and 21st century and then of course there were the third group of soldiers and the third group of warlords and they were the men who go to every war with dreams of glory blazing in their naivies and the Greek world, this patriarchal world that celebrated the noble warrior culture well, if anything there even more men with these misplaced dreams of glory in that world than there are in our contemporary world where maybe we've just seen too many documentaries on the genuine horrors of war to embark on wars as enthusiastically as our Bronze Age cousins did but there were soldiers who had reported to all us who hoped to make a name for themselves who could hardly wait to get into battle against some Trojan, beat Trojan heroically and then have the birds sing the songs of the battle that the Greek have been involved in down through the centuries and the ages and those guys were there of course, they were there in every war. So the army really that was assembling on the port of all of a set summer looked like really any army in the history of the planet with multiple motivations of the politicians who were leading the force and multiple militations and beliefs and ideas behind the soldiers who were going to do the fighting and the dying. Well, things moved along swimmingly during the course of the summer. The fleet came together very well, agimemnon's carpenters were doing a great job of building the boats and as I told you at the end of the last episode there was only one or two minor little concerns as a summer proceeded and that was the notable absence of two of the prominent warlords who should have been there. One of the warlords of course was Odysseus, the warlord king of the island of Ithaca, Odysseus the man who had proposed the concept of the oath of the quartered horse in the first place and Odysseus was nowhere to be found and the other warlord that was missing was Greece's very own weapon of mass destruction, Achilles, the greatest fighter to ever walk the face of the planet and nobody in Greece had a clue where the 18-year-old superstar was holed up and why he hadn't reported joyously to this particular war. Well, we're going to focus on this particular episode of the podcast on agimemnon's quest for Odysseus and save the quest for Achilles to the next episode of the podcast. So let's look at why it was so critical that Odysseus actually joined this particular invasion force and here's why. As the summer proceeded on and this fleet got closer and closer to the date of departure, the absence of Odysseus was remarked upon by more and more of the warlords and alarmingly by more and more of the common foot soldiers too and here's the problem. Odysseus was recognized throughout the Bronze Age world as being the the wildest, the most clever, the most cunning and intelligent of all the Greek warlords and the fact that this man who had all these cognitive qualities and was renowned for them had chosen to absent himself from agimemnon's operation Trojan Storm. Well, it was more than a little bit disconcerting and warlords began to ponder and ask questions. What is it that Odysseus knows about this expedition that agimemnon knows and isn't telling us or what is it Odysseus knows about this expedition that agimemnon doesn't know? Why is Odysseus not here? Is this a bad mission or are we doomed to die in the beaches of Trojan? Agimemnon realized that the fears and the gossip and the worries about the legitimacy and the certain success of Operation Trojan Storm were only going to increase until the day when agimemnon had Odysseus safely in the camp at alless and singing from agimemnon's song sheet that it was going to be a quick expedition to quick fight over in a matter of days and then the Greeks would certainly attain glory. So agimemnon knew that his top priority as the summer stretched on was to locate Odysseus and get him to the beach at alless as quickly as possible one way or another. Well, agimemnon put his cleverest man on the job. His cleverest man, of course, would have been Odysseus. So he had to settle for number two. But there was a widely old veteran soldier in the army, a man named Palemites and Palemites was bright. So agimemnon had turned to Palemites and said, get to Ithaca, find out why Odysseus isn't with the fleet and get him back here. Whatever you have to do, get him back here, we need him. And Palemites had taken a fast boat towards Ithaca on a hunt for Ithaca's king. Now, Palemites was no fool. So he knew it was only going to take him a three-day sale to get to Ithaca, but Palemites didn't want to arrive at Ithaca unprepared. So he had stopped at a number of cities along the way and spent some time making inquiries, learning as much as he possibly could about Odysseus, so that when he arrived at Ithaca, you'd have a lay of the land, in a sense of what might be going on. And as a consequence, it took Palemites a good five days to make the otherwise three-day trip. But five days later, Palemites is both pulled into the harbor of Ithaca, and Palemites stepped off his boat to survey the scene. Well, what Palemites saw when he stepped onto the dry land of Ithaca? was an island kingdom deep deep deep into a grief or mourning process. It was as as if the entire kingdom was undertaking this communal funeral. Everywhere that Palomites looked people had downcast eyes they were clearly crying. The women the entire Greek population of women from the most simple women selling fruit or vegetables in the street to to the women he saw in homes were all wearing black as if they themselves were widows in mourning and Palomites recognized as something dire and terrible had obviously happened inside of the kingdom of Etica. But whenever he approached a man a woman a common person and said tell me what is happening here and and and is there something wrong with your leader Odysseus? Well the commonithic and folk either broken to tears or where they saw after the just side shook their heads but they refused to speak to this stranger that they did not know they just walked away. So Palomites had decided he'd have to head up to the palace and get detailed information from Odysseus or somebody of the palace himself. When Palomites got to the gates of Odysseus's palace he recognized that the situation had spread throughout Etica because at the main gates were two guards should have stopped him and acquired into his business. Well the two guards were so deep and lethargy and sorrow that they didn't even notice Palomites as he walked directly into the palace and then unimpeded or unquestioned by anybody Palomites actually made it to the private quarters of Odysseus and his queen and I'll be without being interrupted or questioned by anybody once. Well Palomites stepped into the private quarters and over sitting in the corner beside her loom Palomites spotted Odysseus' wife Penelope. Now Palomites had done his research he recognized that Odysseus had married Penelope six years earlier shortly after the oath of the quartered horse and that the two of them had been married six years and now here she was Penelope was 20 years almost 21 years old now and she was sitting quietly beside her loom and in her arm she was holding an infant son. The first foreign son of Odysseus and Penelope had taken a few years the boy's name Palomites had learned and his inquiries was Telemachus. Well as Palomites looked at Penelope the the young woman she was clearly in mourning herself she was dressed all in black and and though she was only 20 years old the age lines in her face showed the struggle and the misery and the sorrow of somebody who had just undertaken an absolutely horrific shock inside of her life. Well Palomites delicately approached Penelope he introduced himself he explained that he was on a mission of inquiry and goodwill from Agamemnon King of Kings and had come to inquire into Odysseus as well being state of health and indeed where Odysseus might actually be and he asked Penelope if she could provide any information on what had happened to her husband. Well eventually with a few slightly less and well-watered glasses of wine the story came out of Penelope in bursts and sobs and moments of long hysterical screaming but Palomites hung in through the whole tragic story story and here's what he learned from Odysseus's wife. Two days ago Penelope went on to explain up until two days ago well life in Ithaca had been according to Penelope a absolutely wonderful love Odysseus and Penelope were happy together there was the new heir to the throne the infant son Telemachus and Odysseus apparently was doting on his son his heir and the kingdom was doing well the crops were doing well in short Penelope painted a picture of marital and domestic city bliss inside of Ithaca and then apparently three days ago Odysseus and Penelope had to relate this part through eye witnesses because she hadn't seen it herself but Odysseus had been down at the harbor supervising a new shipwrecks that he had been working on for the last month or so and suddenly in the middle of the day in front of an entire group of Greek shipwrites and sailors and carpenters Odysseus had suddenly frozen stood stock still and then collapsed face first on to the hard ground below him as if he had been struck by an invisible blow well Penelope went on to explain that he had immediately been attended to by the Greeks and that were working in the area and and they had taken a moment Odysseus apparently had remained unconscious for moments but but then when he had revived they had gingerly lifted up the king of Ithaca and acquired into what had happened to him and that's when the true horror of what had happened to Odysseus was revealed his eyes Penelope said they say that his eyes went blank they it was as if he had the thousand mile stair he was looking off into the distance and seeing nothing and and then when they inquired and asked him questions all that came out of his mouth Penelope said was was babbling gibberish an incoherent sentences that made no sense at all and Penelope said it appeared as though some God had had struck Odysseus mad well the Greeks at working at the port had gently placed their king on to a pallet and carefully brought him back up to the palace and the priests were brought in and the wisewomen were brought in with their healing herbs and ointments and potions and the priests and the wisewomen had gone to worth and trying to restore Odysseus to health but nothing had worked no ointment no paltus no potion seemed to make any difference to Odysseus's health and then the priests went to work and it turned out that no prayer or sacrifice to any one of the Olympian gods made any difference whatsoever the king of Ithaca formerly the most intelligent wise clever witty and creative man and in all of Greece had been struck down and was now a babbling dumb fool and an idiot and that was Penelope's story well Pelomete's lesson then looked at Penelope as she told the story she obviously believed the story she was she was devastated sitting there clutching on to her poor little son and and Pelomete said is there anything else you can tell me my lady he he started the standard medical questionnaire he asked about his Odysseus's eating habits as he asked about Odysseus his his bathroom habits he he asked about Odysseus's sleeping habits trying to piece together some sort of a story and what might have happened to Odysseus and Penelope related the strangest details she explained that aside from the thousand miles staring the eyes and and aside from the babbling gibberish nonsense Odysseus seemed to be totally healthy he he had a healthy appetite the servants were continuing to bring him his meals and and he was continuing to eat them at regular intervals and he wasn't throwing food all over the place he was eating in a very civilized and genteel fashion he had a hearty appetite Penelope said and and then the one bit of grace that the gods allowed Penelope were counted is that when Odysseus lay down at night he fell soundly asleep and and appeared to sleep peacefully without any babbling or gibberish of a madman and in fact was fine until the morning and then would he get out of bed the thousand miles stare and and the hollow eyes and the gibberish and the babbling would begin and and then Penelope he said and and then just yesterday Odysseus started his plowing penelope side when she said plowing and Palimites said my lady his plowing what do you mean and Penelope said it it's easier if I if I show you than if I explain it because you won't believe me unless you see it yourself and Penelope he had stood up she had held the baby telemaca's tightly to her breast and she said come with me I'll show you my husband and his plowing well Penelope had guided Palimites out of the palace down the hill beyond the harbor to a long sweep of sand beach along the shores of the Mediterranean and and from a distance Penelope had sighed in motion to Palimites and said see that man down there see what he's doing that is my husband Odysseus and as you can see he's he's plowing the sand to beach well the figure was too distanced for Palimites to recognize whether it was Odysseus or not but there was clearly a man engaged in well in some ways the most familiar but in other ways the most bizarre ritual that Palimites had ever seen the familiar part was the plowing the man was guiding a team of draft animals down a stretch of soil and the man was guiding the draft animals who were pulling a heavy two-handed plow with a heavy heavy bronze blade that was cutting through the soil and the man was reaching occasionally into a huge sock which he slung over his shoulder and reaching into that sock and and grabbing fistfuls of something and then throwing it into the the freshly plowed furrow in the soil and and so far this is a scene that Palimites would have seen on any farmer's property anywhere inside of the Bronze Age world this is the way that fields were plowed and cultivated and seed was sowed for for the following years crop so nothing unusual so far but as Palimites looked more carefully he did see a few things which were entirely bizarre the first of the things of course was a location crops do not grow on sand beaches on the shore of the Mediterranean they grow in fertile fields and the man who was doing the plowing was entirely wasting his efforts because no crops would ever grow in that sand beach in fact where the man was plowing within a matter of hours the tides were going to come in and smooth over whatever furrows he made anyway so that was the first strange and bizarre thing but the next thing Palimites noticed was was the team of domestic draft animals pulling the plow one of the animals was quite normal unusual a heavy oxen which was a standard plowing animal but it's plowing mate trying to pull that plow beside the oxen instead of being another oxen which would have been the normal course of affairs was was actually a huge stallion obviously a war horse trained in autumn pulling plows but in pulling a warlord king's chariot and as Palimites watched it was the most bizarre and disturbing and if you forgot about the context comic thing you'd ever seen because the two animals were clearly not designed to be hitched together and And the oxygen was. lumbering along at a steady but slow pace, and going in one direction, and the warhorse with much longer legs was charging off in the opposite direction, and the two animals were completely out of sync with each other, and bellowing in their respective languages, ox and horse, I suppose. The Roman misery and hatred of the other animal and tried to convince the other animal to get in line with their own personal gate. And as a consequence, as Pelamedi's watched, the furrow down the beach was not a straight line, but an erratic, crazy serpentine line, and the blade of the bronze plow was spending as much time bouncing along the surface of the sand as it was actually digging into it. That was then the second strange and bizarre thing happening in that beach. And the final thing, of course, is what the mad King Odysseus was actually sowing by wave a crop into the furrows he was cutting in the sand, and Pelamedi's turned around and said to Penelope, "I can't see from here, but it doesn't look like grain my lady. What is he sawing?" And Penelope had burst into tears and said, "My husband is attempting to grow a field of salt. He has a bag of salt by Lord Pelamedi's. He's sowing the field with salt." He's gone completely mad. He's trying to produce a crop of salt. And then Penelope had burst into hysterical tears and clutching Telemachus and run back up to the palace, leaving Pelamedi's alone to witness this entirely bizarre and strange sight. While Pelamedi's, I told you, was a clever man, and he decided to watch for a little while to see if there was any variance inside of the mad King's routine. But Pelamedi sat under an olive tree in the shade and watched Odysseus work his way up and down the long expanse of sand to beach for a number of hours and not once did Pelamedi see Odysseus break his gait or quit with his gibberish and babbling and or relax if it wasn't act, whatever it was that he was doing. And Pelamedi's thought, "Well, if this is real, then it's terrible." But as Pelamedi sat under that olive tree thinking, he thought that a little bit of the scenario he was watching just didn't quite add up. The first thing that occurred to him is that this ailment that Odysseus the mad King was experiencing was a very unique and very custom designed ailment for a mad man. It was an ailment that allowed the mad man, Pelamedi's noted, to eat three square meals a day and when the servants would arrive with watered wine mid-morning and mid-afternoon, the mad man was more than capable of drinking. So Pelamedi saw this is a little stranger to assume a mad man would have lost his ability to neatly eat or drink or even his appetite. And then when Pelamedi's put that together with Penelope's account that every night Odysseus slept quietly and peacefully and soundly, and the madness only came and he got out of bed in the morning. Well again, that seemed like a very very convenient form of malady for Odysseus to have. And so Pelamedi's continued his line of reasoning and he watched what he was actually seeing on the beach. And of course, he recognized that there was some incredible distractress. The insanity of pulling a plow in a sand beach would be enough to convince most people that Odysseus had gone crazy. But Pelamedi's knew from his research that Odysseus was a prudent steward of the land and Pelamedi's thought, you know, Odysseus is sewing salt into a field which in any normal field would destroy any possible crops for years to come. But Odysseus is chosen as his field of sand beach where sewing salt will make no difference whatsoever. And that hardly seems like the act of a mad man that seems more like a rational and carefully calculated active deceit. And the next thing Pelamedi's noticed of course is that by sewing the salt into the field, Odysseus was not throwing away valuable grain. He was using salt, which was there was lots of it around. It wasn't in expense. And Pelamedi's began to seriously suspect that it was a very good piece of theater and the oxen and the stallion were really great distractors. But at the end of the day, Odysseus was not really behaving in a way that you'd expect a man who had been struck by madness by the gods to really behave. And so then it was going to be a matter of finding Odysseus out and catching them in his con. And Pelamedi's knew from Odysseus' reputation that this wasn't going to be easy. The con had successfully conned the entire island Kingdom of Ithaca and more impressively Pelamedi saw it. Odysseus, if he was lying, hadn't bothered to let his wife and life partner Penelope in on the lie. She believed the lie to Penelope genuinely and clearly believed that her husband was mad and sane. And Pelamedi shook his head and Riley wondered about the temerity of a man of Odysseus' nature who would, if he was sane and faking it, would be willing to subject his dear wife to the misery that she was currently experiencing. He might be clever Pelamedi's reason, but he certainly doesn't have a heart. But then it was going to be the problem, of course, of finding out and catching Odysseus in his act if indeed it wasn't act. So Pelamedi's decided he had done enough for a day. He retired back to the palace. He took a guest room in the palace and he slept sadly knowing in the morning he'd wake up with a plan. And he did. Pelamedi's woke the next morning. He had a simple breakfast and then he went looking for Penelope. He sat down, he warmly greeted Penelope. He listened sympathetically to her tears for a moment. And then he proposed that Penelope Telemachus and himself pack up and head down and spend some time watching the Mad King plowing his beach. Pelamedi said, "Penelope, if you're with me, I can ask you some more questions. Maybe I'll be able to come up with a solution. Maybe there is a way of lifting this curse from him. It's best if you're with me and Penelope desperately grasping at any straws that she could have willingly agreed to follow Pelamedi's down to the sand beach." When they got there, of course, Odysseus, the Mad King or the play-acting Mad King of Ethica, was well into his plowing. And as they arrived, Odysseus was actually heading down to the far, far end of the beach and then would about 12 or 14 minutes later make a sweep back again in the direction that Pelamedi's was waiting. So Pelamedi's decided it was time to put his hypothesis that Odysseus wasn't mad into effect. As soon as Odysseus was well out of your shot range, Pelamedi said, "Turn to Penelope." In his best doting old father routine, it said, "My lady, Penelope, if you'll forgive me, my own sons have grown up." It has been a long time, my lady, since I've had the pleasure of holding a young son in my own arms. And may I just hold Telemachus for a few moments? It would mean a lot to me, my lady, if you don't mind. And well, the act had been convincing and Penelope, who was suffering and devastated by what was happening and what she was witnessing had turned around, and handed the baby Telemachus over to Pelamedi's and said something like, "You might as well hold him, his own father, his biological father, never again will." And then, well, Penelope had turned and said, "Keep him as long as you want. When you're tired of holding the boy, bring him back up to the palace. I'm going there now. I cannot bear this anymore." And bursting once more into tears, Penelope had left up to the palace, and again, Pelamedi's was left all alone on the sand beach holding the air to the throne, Odysseus's youngest and only son Telemachus. Well, Pelamedi's waited. He waited till Odysseus was at the far end of the beach, and then sucking in his breath and hoping that his plan was correct and hoping that his hypothesis that Odysseus wasn't really mad was correct. Pelamedi's had held Telemachus tightly in his arms and stepped out onto the sand beach, lining up his body so he would be directly in line with the oncoming oxen stallion and bronze tipped plow of the mad King Odysseus. Pelamedi's turned his back so that as Odysseus and his team approached to all that Odysseus would see as Pelamedi's back. And Pelamedi's held his arms in such a fashion that, well, what he was holding in his arms, the baby Telemachus was completely concealed from the mad King and then Pelamedi's waited. He had done his best to count the gait of the oxen and the stallion his best he could, and Pelamedi's hoped that his math was correct. He waited till he heard the oxen and the stallion approaching. And when he thought that the two animals and the sharp bronze tipped plow might be about ten paces away from him, Pelamedi's had bent over his back still turned to Odysseus and gently deposited the baby Telemachus onto the sand directly in what would be the path of the oncoming tuton oxen and the huge stallion and the sharp bronze tipped blade of the plow. Pelamedi's had stayed bent over shielding Telemachus from the mad King's sight until he heard the gait of the two animals and thought that he was only about five paces from them actually stepping and running over Telemachus and then Pelamedi's had stepped quickly out of the way and well the mad King had an opportunity as he plowed to look at the furrow in front of him and recognize that sitting in that furrow his own son, his Telemachus. And at that moment the thousand yard stare of the king of Ethaca and the incoherent babbling of the king of Ethaca came to an abrupt and instant an absolute end. Clearly Odysseus had suddenly recognized that the obstacle in his path that he was about to trample over was his son and Odysseus in a clear authoritative voice and yelled out a huge woe to the animals. The animals had stopped and then Odysseus in an athletic move that a madman wouldn't have even considered let alone attempted had vaulted over top of the bodies of both the ox and the stallion, leaped, grabbed. his son, Telemachus, from certain death rolled to one side, and God's be praised Telemachus emerged unscathed from the heroic rescue. Well, Odysseus had stood up. Telemachus was screaming and crying in fear, and Odysseus had clearly seen and clearly rational words had worked on comforting Telemachus held him, assured him that his father loved him, that he was fine, that he was safe, and once the baby Telemachus had calmed down, and Odysseus had quit shaking. He had unleashed a string of hateful invective in the direction of Palomites, and the invective in the curses and the words that Odysseus used were so eloquent, so well chosen, and so appropriate to the moment in the occasion that there was absolutely no doubt in Palomites mind that Odysseus had never been mad in the first place, and was certainly in full control of his intellectual and cognitive faculties at this point in time. The whole thing had clearly been an act. Well, Odysseus was in a rage. He turned to Palomites, and he said, you could have killed my son, and Palomites had corrected Odysseus and said, no, you could have killed your own son, and hard truth of it Odysseus is, if you had been mad, you would have killed him without ever caring or noticing. But at that point, Palomites had taken charge of the situation. He had turned to Odysseus and said, I found you out, and the con is over Odysseus. I am Palomites. I'm the right hand man of Agamemnon, and he's instructed me to come find you, and one way or another get you back to the beach at allis where the fleet needs you, and Agamemnon personally needs you before the fleet can sail for Troy. And Palomites had explained to Odysseus what Odysseus had already figured out that now that the jig was up, that Odysseus is con game, and his fake madness have been revealed. Odysseus really had no choice whatsoever but to go. And Palomites turned to Odysseus and said, so now that I figured it out, and now that you know you have to go, can you tell me what you did, Odysseus? Can you fill me in on the details, if you will? And Odysseus explained what he had done, and Odysseus freely confessed that he he didn't want to join Agamemnon's fleet. He didn't believe it would be a short war. Odysseus was a bright enough man that he knows that the politicians always promised a short war, but Odysseus had turned to Palomites and said, why would I want to go? It could be a long protracted affair. I've got a lovely wife. I've got a new son. I've got a wonderful kingdom. Why would I want to join this? And Odysseus, enough of a pragmatist, very cynically pointed out to Palomites, that if he faked to the madness and didn't go in this expedition, and Agamemnon was successful in Troy fell, well, I think it was going to benefit any way if if there was better trade in the Mediterranean, better access for all the Greek kingdoms to Copper and Tin. Well, then Odysseus would be fine and his kingdom would benefit anyway. And Odysseus said, and of course, if Agamemnon fails in his mission and I'm not there, well, all the better for me. So doing the math, Odysseus had explained to Palomites, it was his own interest to actually stay away from the mission. And of course, then Palomites had said, but but why the madness Odysseus? And Odysseus had laughed and said, well, it's because Agamemnon doesn't need me for my fighting skills on everybody knows I'm a I'm a mediocre soldier at best, but what I am is a brilliant mind and a tactician. And Agamemnon wants me for my brains. And the last thing Agamemnon wants is he doesn't want a mad king joining him. So Odysseus pointed out to Palomites that his best ruse was to fake madness because that was the one thing that would make him completely, completely useless to Agamemnon and Agamemnon would give up on his hunt for Odysseus a moment that the report of the madness had been heard. So that's why the madness as to the practical matter of how Odysseus had done it, well, that had been simple enough. He knew that Agamemnon was mustering aflating. He knew that Agamemnon had become looking for him. So Odysseus had paid a man. Odysseus had a man at all as a spy, if you will. And the man had been paid well in advance by Odysseus to keep an ear on things. And the day that Agamemnon had sent a messenger looking for Odysseus, the messenger turned out to be Palomites. Odysseus's man, waiting at all, was supposed to get on to a very quick boat and do his very best to make it back to Ithaca before Agamemnon's man made it back to Ithaca. And that turned out to be very easy. Palomites had stopped along the way to make inquiry. So Odysseus's man, the messenger saying Agamemnon sent somebody looking for you, had actually arrived a full two days earlier and down at the harbor where Odysseus had been waiting every day, ostensibly supervising shipworks. And the moment he had heard the message, that's when Odysseus had faked his madness. The only final detail, which Palomites figured out for himself, questioned Odysseus. And Odysseus grinned and said, yes, was that Odysseus had another man under his employee still waiting at all. And that man's job, of course, was to wait until the day when the Greek fleet departed for Troy. And on that day, that man was to hop onto a fast boat, make it back to Ithaca to announce to Odysseus that it was all clear the Greeks had sailed to Troy. And then Odysseus had miracle of miracle. Whichever God had cursed me with madness, would relent, and my madness will be lifted. And I could carry on with my life. So that was the plan. And now that Odysseus had shared it with Palomites, Palomites, and Odysseus agreed that there really was no option but for Odysseus to join the fleet. Palomites essentially said to Odysseus, you come with me now, and you go to Troy, or I go back on my own, and I tell Agamemnon, and I tell every other one of the Greek warlords that you're faking madness. And well, Odysseus knew that there were 50 warlords who were there because they had sworn Odysseus' oath of the court at horse, and they were leaving behind their wives, their kingdoms, and their heirs. Odysseus knew that if he didn't join the fleet now, and word of his fake madness and refusal to fight made it back to the rest of the Greek world. Well, Odysseus would be a pariah among men, and well, if Agamemnon succeeded in the war against Troy, Ithaca would be punished. Agamemnon would certainly economically isolate Ithaca from the rest of mainland Greece, and the economic benefits of the war. Or if he was really flushed with glory, Agamemnon came in and just destroyed Odysseus' kingdom to punish him that way. So Odysseus knew that now that the jig was up, his best option was to go to Troy with Agamemnon, and use his cunning in his wild, and all of his skills to affect his quicker end to the war as it all possible. Palimites turned to Odysseus, and he said, "You'll want to say goodbye to your poor wife, the poor girl. I can't believe that you did this to her. Go, but you need to be back in my boat in an hour, and then we're sailing together. I'm not letting go of my sight to Odysseus until I have you delivered back to Agamemnon." And so Odysseus said, bundled up his son, his heir, his kid, Telemachus, and headed back to the palace to have a very difficult and painful conversation with Penelope. Now, folks, history doesn't record. None of the tellers record what happened during that conversation. So I think we're just going to have to employ our own imaginations in empathy, but can you imagine how that conversation went? Odysseus was going to step into the room, and Penelope, who was convinced the love of her life, her husband was insane, and Penelope had now had 48 hours to sit and worry about the implications of being a single woman in a kingdom with an infant son as an heir, and Penelope had had these two days to worry about what's going to happen to her, what's going to happen to her son, if Odysseus indeed struck Madden, never recovers, and now here was her husband, Odysseus stepping back into the palace, and well, the thousand yard stair, the thousand mile stair was gone, Odysseus wasn't babbling gibberish anymore, he was clear, he was coherent, and then the first words out of Odysseus is mouth, of course, where Penelope, I'm fine, I was faking it all along, I never really was mad. Well, I don't know how Penelope would have responded, relief, of course, tears of joy and relief, but immediately after that, I mean, recriminations, anger, did she beat on Odysseus and say, how could you not have told me, how cruel could you be, who knows what she did, but it would have been a wrenching moment for Penelope to receive all of this information, and then just as she was processing that information that her dear husband wasn't mad, and that the madness had left him, Odysseus, of course, had had to turn around to Penelope and say that one form of madness had left him, but he was embarking within the hour in another form of madness, war, and that he had no choice but to go, and Penelope found herself now with less than an hour, with her now once again saying husband to say goodbye, because her now once again saying husband was having to leave on a war against Troy, a war that he didn't want to go to and a war that he was convinced was going to take much longer than the few days that Agamemnon stated it would. In fact, Odysseus had not lied to Penelope. He had turned to her and explained that Agamemnon thought it would be a very short mission over in the course of weeks, if not days, and Odysseus had explained to Penelope, that his suspicion is that the war against Troy would be a more protracted affair, and he could fast that he thought he might be gone upwards of a full year, and he had turned to Penelope and said, "But don't worry, I'll look after myself, and I promise you this pen, I will come back." Whoever long the war goes on, I will come back to you, so wait for me, and Penelope, I'd like to believe, had turned to Odysseus throwing her arms around her husband and said something beautifully, beautifully beautiful Odysseus, I love you, and I will wait forever if I have to until you return. And then the two of them said goodbye to each other for what was going to turn out to be well, to put it delicately, a rather longer absence from each other than either of them had anticipated. Well, Odysseus headed down to Palimades' boat, the two of them hopped onto a boat and set sail for all us in Agamemnon's army. A day out, Palimades had approached Odysseus and thought he should clear up a few things. He turned to Odysseus and he said, "I'm sorry that I had to reveal your con and bring you back. here. I was working under Agamemnon's orders and I had no choice at no hard feelings, I hope, and Odysseus had smiled blightfully and it said absolutely no hard feelings. I've completely, completely forgotten the incident. Palamedes don't worry about it again. And Palamedes hadn't worried about the incident again, which was likely a mistake, because Odysseus, as I told you, was a great liar, a great con and a great actor, and Odysseus was never going to forgive Palamedes for what he had done that day. And Odysseus was doing was waiting, biting his time till he had an opportunity for his revenge. That opportunity came some months later when the Greeks had made it to Troy, where camped out on the beach. And Palamedes coming back to his tent one day was shocked to discover a contingent of Greek warlords at his tent. And it turned out that the Greek warlords had received a mysterious tip from some unidentified stranger that Palamedes was actually a double agent working for the Trojans and communicating with Pryom himself. And so the warlords had investigated this burst into Palamedes tent where they had found incriminating evidence documentation that very, very clearly pointed to the fact that Palamedes was a traitor to the Greeks and working with the Trojans. Palamedes, who of course was innocent, had protested his innocence furiously and pointed out that he had obviously been framed and set up by somebody who had a vendetta against him and whoever had done it had done a brilliant job of of the framing in the setup. But the Greeks were so convinced that Palamedes was a traitor that Agamemnon had Palamedes dragged out into the center of the Greek camp and the warlords had surrounded and picked up stones and Palamedes was stoned to death by his own forces. Odysseus threw the first rock. And that's likely a fairly grim but good place, ladies and gentlemen, to leave this particular episode of Trojan War the podcast, the episode which you now understand. I chose to call the mad king. Hey folks, 2025 Jeff jumping in again with some value added content on the episode you just listened to. So poor Odysseus, his mad king deception exposed, now off to Agamemnon's operation Trojan storm, leaving his wife Penelope and his newborn son Telemachus behind. No bit of context. Back in 2017, when I was creating Trojan War the podcast, I had only a cursory familiarity with Homer's other great epic, the Odyssey. But two years later, in 2019, by the time I had released Odyssey the podcast, well I knew that epic pretty well. Now it was during those two years of reading and research that I really got to know Odysseus' wife, the resourceful, the resilient and the all-round remarkable Penelope. And it was then that I began to better understand why Odysseus had so desired to marry Penelope in the first place and why Penelope of her own free will had chosen to marry Odysseus. So that takes me forward to when I sat down to write the full disclosure Iliad. Folks, when I sat down to write that book, I took a great delight in weaving all of the newly gained Odysseus Penelope insights that I'd learned into this mad king episode of the book. Now I will avoid plot spoilers here of course, but suffice it to say that when you get to the full disclosure Iliad, you'll discover Penelope is no longer a passive witness or even a victim of Odysseus' deception, but rather Penelope becomes a significant player, some say even the co-author of the entire mad king scheme. You want more details? Well the full disclosure Iliad arrives spring 2026. Keep abreast of when it's going to arrive and how to JeffRiteStoryteller.com. So now back to 2017 Jeff and you folks are in for a treat, the absolute comic delight of episode 8 Finding Achilles. I'm going to spend the entire post-story commentary geeking out on Greek naval technology and I know that's not everybody's cup of tea, but I find it actually kind of cool and interesting him. I'm going to spend some time talking about the boats that Agamemnon was using in this particular expedition and how that had any impact on the war against Troy. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, if you're going, oh well this could be fascinating. Then stick around and learn a few things and on the other hand if you're going thanks, but that's way too much technological geeked them for me Jeff. Then well I'm going to pause in a few seconds and this will be your opportunity to get on with your lives and rejoin the story with episode number 8 when it's posted up on the website. So for those of you leading, have yourself a great day. So let's actually begin our well-or-conversational naval technology by a quick overview on the nature of the Greek heroes who sailed these craft. And folks for one of a better word, the best way to describe these men would be to call them all pirates. And the word pirates is not at all my own. In fact, the word pirates actually shows up extensively inside of Homer's seafaring tale titled the Odyssey. And inside of Homer's Odyssey, when a stranger arrived on a man's shore or at the threshold to a man's home, the standard Greek greeting was to inquire as follows and I quote directly from the Odyssey. Strangers, who are you? Why are you here? What country did you come from and are you here on a trading voyage? Or do you wander at random over the seas like pirates, risking your own lives and bringing ruin to other men? And well, the truth of the matter is folks that for the Greeks who inhabited Homer's Bronze Age world of 1250 BCE, the most honest answer to that particular question would have been something like this. Yep, we're pirates. And then those pirates would have killed you, raped your daughters and burned your city to the ground. Homer's Bronze Age heroes were ugly, violent men, at least by any standard we in the 21st century would care to employ. Early in Homer's Odyssey, for example, a warlord commander of a successful pirate raid on an unsuspecting city, brags as follows. I plundered the city, I killed all of the men, and we took the women with us as slaves, along with a vast hull of treasure. So simply put, the Greek heroes of the Trojan or epic were at their hard pirates. But why? Well, here if we remove our moral lens and view for a moment the Bronze Age Greek world through a structurally socio-economic filter, well, there was actually very good reason why men like Agamemnon, Odysseus and Achilles chose to make their living on the sea, either as traders or as pirates. And here are those reasons. First off, much of the land that the Greeks lived on was rugged, rocky, and generally not conducive to large-scale agriculture and farming. Places like Odysseus' Ethica, for example, were mostly conducive to the grazing of sheep. And further, it is difficult to find any place in the entire mass of the Greek world that is more than a day's travel from the sea. And so as a consequence, the Bronze Age Greeks looked outward to the seas, for their trade, for their commerce, and frequently for their piracy. Now that leads us nicely into a conversation about the ships that the Greeks used for their trade, their commerce, and their piracy. Now needless to say, there would have been a huge variety both in the size and the design of Greek craft. So let's focus our attention on the ships employed for piracy and for war. And even more specifically, let's focus our attention on those thousand ships that Agamemnon is currently assembling at the seaside port of Allis. Now, of course, even inside of that fleet, we can reasonably assume that there would have been some variety in the ships, but let me give you an overview of a typical one of those thousand ships. It would, of course, have been constructed of wood, with one central mast and a solitary sail. It would have had a shallow beam and a shallow draft. And if you want that in non-nautical terms, well, the ship would have floated high up in the water, such that it could skim nimbly across the surface of the sea, as opposed to struggling to plow through the sea. And as for the sides of those ships, well, they would have been low deliberately, so in order to make the ships less subject to being blown all over. over the place by the sometimes wild and unpredictable winds of the Mediterranean. Now onto propulsion. A crew on one of these boats only would have had two options to move that boat forward. With any lock, when you're out there on the sea traveling, you would have the wind at your back. And then all that a ship's crew had to do was to hoist to that great main sail and to steer with a rudder. Just a side note, it's worth noting that these ships did not yet have the technology to allow them to tack into the wind. If one of these ships at the doldrums or worse still needed to advance forward against the wind, well then the only remaining option was to row. Now folks, there's some historical debate on the size of these ships and therefore on the size of these ships's crews. But a typical crew, at least a typical crew is described inside of Homer's Odyssey, consisted of 60 men. With 25 banks of oars on each side, for a total of 50 men capable of rowing that ship at any particular time. Now the balance of the crew would have been fleshed out with a homesman, a musician in order to drum or to pipe out a steady rhythmic rowing beat, plus a few men to monitor sails rigging and to well do the odd jobs that needed doing around a ship. Now with 50 trained men, rowing heart, if a ship really needed to get from point A to point B in a hurry, well that ship, once it got up to speed, could pretty much fly across the surface of the sea. But only I hasten to add for a short while, before the men's backs, their arms and especially their cardiovascular systems were totally tapped out. So that pretty well covers technology. Now let's move on to military tactics. How would a warlord like Agamemnon or Odysseus have employed his fleet of ships for the purposes of piracy? And here is what would have happened. Ideally, the town or the city targeted would have no advance idea that the Greek raid was coming. In fact, folks, the element of surprise vastly increased the success of the raid and also vastly decreased the Greek casualty counts on such rates. So the Greek ships would approach, ideally a sand or gravel beach as close to the unsuspecting town or city as possible. And then the crews, well they would row hard, really, really hard, directly at the shore. Now these boats were so shallow of draft that the rowers' goal was actually to ram their ship right up onto the sand or gravel beach. And there are accounts of crews gaining so much momentum that their ships were fully half out of the water before friction finally ground the boats to a halt. And then the very moment that the ship did stop moving forward, well the crews would drop their ores, reach under their seats, and grab for their weapons, most likely a spear but possibly a sword, maybe a bow and arrows or even an axe or a club. Now some of the men might have had shields, but all of the men, save for the ship's commander of course, would have only had the lightest and the most limited of armor, armor likely composed of hardened leather. And then the men would have leapt out of their ship and either fought to establish a beachhead if they had not arrived by surprise or if surprise was still an element, then they would have charged en masse into the unsuspecting city or town. Now folks, most of these pirate raids were by definition smash and grab a fairers. The usual plan was to affect the surprise landing, hit the unsuspecting and unprepared target fast and hard, grab what you could by way of booty, treasure, booze, cattle, women, slaves, and then be back in the sea before the target city could organize an effective response or call in help from neighboring towns. Ladies and gentlemen, the Greeks of the Bronze Age were mostly uninterested in protracted sieges of well-defended targets. Rather their goal was to steal whatever they easily could and then ship that booty back home to improve the quality of life of their wives, their sons, their daughters, and their parents. Now, there were some limitations, I suppose we could say, to Bronze Age Greek naval tactics and technology. The ships were small and that meant limited space for transporting cargo. And what storage space a ship did have when it set out on a pirate raid was generally set aside for the hopeful spoils of such raid. So as a consequence, ships crews tended to travel very light. When a bunch of Greeks headed off on a raiding expedition, they brought limited food, shelter, and clothing with them. Rather, they expected the gods to provide. Or phrased less euphemistically, they expected to steal what they needed along the way. Now I have to be rather careful at this point in the commentary about plot spoilers. But it does bear mentioning that when Agamemnon decided to launch a full-scale invasion of a city the size and the scope of Troy, well Agamemnon faced some rather significant limitations in what he could ferry across the Aegean Sea. And if you're a reader of Homer's Iliad, well, you might just wonder how Agamemnon managed to ferry so many horses, so many chariots, and so many heavy brawn suits of armor on board his tiny little ships. And of course, if you're a reader of Homer, the reason you might wonder that is because Homer's Iliad is absolutely chock full of horses, of chariots, and of massively huge and heavy suits of armor. But we need a reality check. Of the 100,000 men that Agamemnon shipped across the wine dark sea to Troy, well less than 1% of those men would have been warlords. And only warlords came equipped with chariots, horses, heavy armor, and shields. Most of the soldiers that fought in the beaches of Troy, well, they came provided with only light weapons and very, very limited armor. So at this point in the post-story commentary, you might rightly be beginning to wonder about the city of Troy's naval capabilities. And exactly how Agamemnon's thousand ships were going to manage when they did get to Troy to break through Troy's fleet and even affect a beachhead landing in the first place. And it's a legitimate and a good question based on the quite reasonable assumption that a city of the size, the prestige, and the power of Troy would, no doubt, have a formidable navy. But folks, the strange thing is this, Troy had no naval military capacity at all. So why? Well, really two reasons. First of all, remember that Troy made its money not by raiding, but rather by trading. The Bronze Age Trojans were static merchants, not traveling marauders. And so most of the time, the people of Troy, while they simply were content to sit safely and patiently behind their high walls and, well, wait for the wealth of the world to come to them. And that approached to business required no navy. Next, culturally speaking, Troy looked eastward towards Asia Minor in the Middle East and not west toward the worlds of Greece and later of Rome. And as a matter of fact, the cultures that the Trojans most admired, most emulated and, then, allied with, were not maritime cultures. Rather, they were wealthy, high-walled, fortified, and quite frequently land-locked cities inland and well east of Troy. And none of those cities boasted powerful navies. And so, when Egememnon's fleet of one thousand ships rode within sight of the beaches of Troy, well, the Greeks encountered absolutely no naval resistance at all. And if at that point the Trojans, when they saw those thousand ships pulling up on their beach, well, then if the Trojans began to wonder about the wisdom of never having built a navy. Well, folks, by that point, it was a little bit too late. Now wander one final comment. Throughout this commentary, I have been referring repeatedly to the "thousand ships" and the "100,000 men" that Agamem non-launched against Troy. But in truth, I have not been able to find a historian anywhere who credits those massive numbers as believable. In fact, the consensus seems to be that the Bronze Age world simply did not have the technology, the science or the social, political infrastructure to stage and invasion our moda on anywhere near the scale as described inside of Homer's Elliott. So it is likely, most likely, folks that our favorite storyteller Homer engaged in some rather seriously epic exaggeration. Now where I a historian, I would be forced by these historical facts to change my podcast. But lucky for me, and I hope for you too, I am first and foremost a storyteller. And that frees me up rather nicely from any strict adherents to historical fact. So as I continue through Trojan or the podcast, my plan is to dance between the definitely true, the possibly true, and the not likely true at all, in my own epic telling of the tale. And so now we head into episode 8 of Trojan or the podcast, an episode that I am going to title "Finding Achilles". And now that Agamem non-King of Kings has located Odysseus, Agamem non can use Odysseus, to hunt down the elusive, most dangerous, most glorious, and most gorgeous weapon of mass destruction of all time, the missing hero Achilles. It's going to be an awful lot of fun. Thank you for listening. Hope you learned something about Greek naval tactics and technology, and we will talk again real soon, have an awesome day. Bye for now.