The Greeks Get the News

By Stephen O’Connor

Help me, O Muse, to tell this crazy story. As dawn spread out her fingertips of rose, captains of ships and men gathered by the smoldering fire before the spreading tented pavilion of Agamémnon, son of Atreus, and commander of the Argive army. The names of those heroes have passed into story and song. Among them were Meneláos, brother to Agamémnon and king of Sparta, mighty Akhilleus, son of Peleus and the sea-nymph, Thetis, Nestor, king of sandy Pylos, the great warrior Diomedes, Odysseus, son of Laertes and the gods of old, Idomeneus, King of Crete, Teucer, the famed archer, and the two Ajaxes.

            When the men had settled, Agamémnon looked around and inquired, “Where is Meríonȇs?”

“My Lord Agamémnon,” Ajax the Greater responded, “Machaon of Thessaly removed a spearhead from his thigh yesterday and stitched him up like a wineskin. He hobbled back to the fight but was run over by a chariot and beheaded.”

“Ah, too bad. Nice guy,” Diomedes interjected, and the others nodded.

Lord Agamémnon shrugged. “Oh well, c’est la guerre.” The son of Atreus continued. “Now, I’ve gathered you all here this morning in order to share with you some of what’s going on back home. We’ve been fighting here at Troy for ten years, and things are changing in Greece. While we were marauding up the coast last month, Nestor was in Athens at a seminar…”

“Excuse me, Lord Agamémnon,” Ajax the Lesser said, ‘what is a seminar?”

“A sort of lecture and discussion. It was held at the Academy in Athens…”

The men groaned and Odysseus said, “Oh, brother.”

The great commander raised a hand. “Hang on, now. I find Nestor’s report rather interesting. He tells me that the subject was ‘toxic masculinity.’”

The lack of reaction seemed to indicate that the men were nonplussed. “I know ‘toxic’ means poisonous,” Ajax the Lesser said. “Remind me. What is masculinity?”

“Nestor,” Lord Agamémnon said, “why don’t you explain?”

The Gerenian Horseman, the wisest of the Argives, nodded and said, “Masculinity is what makes you a man.”

The soldiers stirred uneasily. Diomedes shook his ashen spear and said, “In that case, we all have urns and urns full of masculinity!” The others roared their approval and drew swords with which they beat their shields.

“But what does that mean?” Nestor asked.

“Why, it means that we are strong and courageous and we will return with our shields or upon them!” Diomedes declared to an encore of cheers from the men.

“And clever!” Odysseus added. “Men are clever!”

“Not always,” Akhilleus grumbled, defensively.

Nestor raised a hand to silence them. “But women can be courageous, too, can’t they? And strong, and willing to die to protect those they love? And they are certainly clever.”

The company was quiet for a moment, looking somewhat perplexed. Swords returned to scabbards. Finally, Lord  Agamémnon said, “It’s true. We all know it,” and the assembled Argives grudgingly nodded.

“I’m confused,” Idomeneus confessed. “So, women are toxic, too?”

“No, because they can be strong when they need to be, but they are also willing to show their emotions. They are not ashamed to cry, for example, or to admit that at times they are fearful. They are not trying to do ill-advised things to show they are tough all the time.”

“The Amazons are tough all the time,” Odysseus countered.

“Well, let’s say most women.”

“Wait, I thought women liked manly men,” Teucer said. “For Athena’s sake, that’s the only reason I wanted to be a hero!”

“Well, at the Academy, they’ve done research that shows that there is too much pressure on boys and men to be tough and to bury their emotions and never to cry. You Spartans, for example, Meneláos, take your boys away from their mothers at the age of five, and raise them to endure cold and pain and use weapons. They grow up to be very hard men!”

“And none of the other city states mess with us, do they?” Meneláos responded. “Imagine if I sent a lot of crying soldiers to face the spearmen of Ilium? You must be joking!”

“The bottom line is that it seems, according to the research, that the more manly men are, the more miserable women are.”

“Who cares?” Diomedes asked.

“See that right there?” Nestor shouted. “That’s an example of one of the worst toxic traits of your so-called masculine man! I hope my daughter never marries the likes of you!”

“Oh, stop it!” Diomedes cried. “We Danaans are warriors. It’s our job to be toxic, especially to Trojans!”

“Of course we are all sons of the war god, Arȇs,” Lord Agamémnon opined. “But still, Nestor has a point. I’ll confess I’m more guilty of toxicity than anyone. I’ve really messed things up with Clytemnestra by sacrificing our daughter Iphigenia to get a favorable wind to sail to Troy. It was a good stiff breeze mind you, but still…she doesn’t understand. I will need to stop at Delphi on the way home. Ask the oracle what I need to do to make it right.”

“Good luck with that,” Nestor said.

“With all due respect,” Diomedes reminded them, “the sun is rising and my men really are anxious to kill some Trojans.”

“Wait, I’m still confused.” Idomeneus said. “So, once we conquer Ilium, and rescue Helen and burn the city, we are not supposed to kill all the men and enslave the women and children? That’s bad?”

Lord Agamémnon stroked his beard. His head swung slightly from side to side like an inverted pendulum. He seemed puzzled. “What do you think, Nestor? All your words are fitting and just.”

“Thank you, Excellency. Let’s remember, men, these goals for our gender roles are aspirational. That means one day…” he pointed vaguely out over the sea toward the future, “we hope to fulfill those goals and be more vulnerable, more expressive, more sensitive, and less gratuitously violent.”

Odysseus, the wily master mariner, asked, “But…today?”

Lord Agamémnon  stood, and raising his arms, petitioned Olympus in a clarion voice: “O Zeus, Lord of the storm cloud, dwelling in high air, let not the sun go down upon this day into the western gloom, before I tumble Priam’s blackened rooftree down, exploding fire through his portals! Let me rip with my bronze point the shirt that clings on Hektor and slash his ribs! May throngs around him lie—his friends, head down in dust, biting dry ground!”

A toxic cheer of animal bloodlust was audible across the broad plain and up to the parapets of Troy, so that no one heard Ajax the Lesser ask, “Wait—what’s a gender role?”

Note: Agamémnon’s prayer is taken from Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of The Iliad, Book Two, Lines 381-389.