Power Worship

Check out this aggravating quote from an article on the way various archaeologists have responded to Troy:

Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, said outright in the film that the war was fought for power and wealth and not over a beautiful woman named Helen.

Cline [associate professor of archaeology and ancient history at George Washington University], who took his students to see the movie on opening day, said he was so excited when Agamemnon gave his speech that he stood up in the middle of the theater to cheer.

It's so horrible to see that modern notions of the supremacy of the political (which boils down to class-based power relationships) have spread so deep. This man is supposed to be a professor of ancient history. The Iliad and surrounding myth clearly states that the Trojan War was fought to reclaim Helen (when Menelaus of Sparta won her hand in a contest with other Greeks nobles, the losers agreed to fight to protect Helen from abduction by any party that was unsatisfied with her legitimate marriage to Menelaus). But, of course, honor and oaths are simply masks used to hide underlying power struggles; the war was only about Agamemnon taking over a rich city. That's rubbish, plain and simple. People are not the base creatures Marx would have them be. However, perhaps some prophecies are self-fulfilling.