Monday 3 October 2016

Troy

In SM Stirling's Against The Tide of Years, the Hittite King refers to Alaksandrus of Wiulusiya and to the Ahhiyawa. Two Nantucketers agree that this is getting creepy. In archaic Greek, "Alaksandrus of Wiulusiya" becomes "Alexandros of Wilios." Later Greek will drop the "w" so that "Wilios" will become "Ilios," also known as "Troy." Alexander of Troy is also known as "Paris."

The Homeric Paris is the son of Priam and the Alaksandrus referred to by the Hittite King is the son of Pirusia. The Wiulusiya breed and tame horses as did Homer's Trojans. Finally, the Ahhiyawa are the Achaeans or Greeks. I needed to google to make sense of all these references but, having done so, I agree that it is creepy indeed. For some relevance to Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, see the first link above.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

One thing I thought of as I read this is that we don't see a Prince HECTOR as the older brother of Alaksandrus "Paris." But, it would have been most implausible to think a real Troy would match Homer's description exactly.

Sean