The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer

by Jonathan Gottschall

Homer's epics reflect an eighth-century BCE world of warrior tribes that were fractured by constant strife; aside from its fantastic scale, nothing is exceptional about Troy's conquest by the Greeks. Using a fascinating and innovative approach, Professor Gottschall analyses Homeric conflict from the perspective of modern evolutionary biology, attributing its intensity to a shortage of available young women. The warrior practice of taking enemy women as slaves and concubines meant that women were concentrated in the households of powerful men. In turn, this shortage drove men to compete fiercely over women: almost all the main conflicts of the Iliad and Odyssey can be traced back to disputes over women. The Rape of Troy integrates biological and humanistic understanding - biological theory is used to explore the ultimate sources of pitched Homeric conflict, and Homeric society is the subject of a bio-anthropological case study of why men fight.

Genres: Nonfiction, Evolution, Classical Studies, History

236 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Jonathan Gottschall is an American literary scholar, the leading younger figure in literature and evolution. He teaches at Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. He completed graduate work in English at State University of New York at Binghamton, where he worked under David Sloan Wilson.

His work The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer describes the Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odyssey in terms of evolutionary psychology, with the central violent conflicts in these works driven by the lack of young women to marry and the resulting evolutionary legacy, as opposed to the violent conflicts being driven by honor or wealth.

Literature, Science and a New Humanities advocates that the humanities, and literary studies in particular, need to avail themselves of quantitative and objective methods of inquiry as well as the traditional qualitative and subjective, if they are to produce cumulative, progressive knowledge, and provides a number of case studies that apply quantitative methods to fairy and folk tale around the world to answer questions about human universals and differences.

Gottschall was profiled by the New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His work was featured in an article in Science describing literature and evolution.

Reviews

[Madly Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this book just ruined me in a good way. I loved it, I loved it for all the reasons I usually love good nonfiction, it raises questions, it's thought provoking, it requires I buy at least 5 books to compliment it so that I can get a bigger view of what this author is talking about. It makes my life better and gets me breathing in a way I like. This is the best book I have read all year, like Smil's book on The Way The World Works, I will never not read Homer and think of this book. I will never look at violence in the same way though I have read dozens of books on violence. I might not even think of Shakespeare the same way and certainly, I won't slip into sentimentality which has never been my nature anyway.

First, there is more going on here than simply talking about the possibility that pre-state tribes fought for women as one of their greatest resources. One doesn't have to rely on this book for that news. Pre-state tribes required women to survive and not become extinct, especially in harsh environments. Even now in modernity, in many countries, male babies are preferred over female, and good wives are considered primary (with extending gifts or wealth, beauty, etc.) goals.

This book touches on that and gives it new meaning.

However, that said, this is one of the best books I've read on violence and evolution as presented through Homeric literature. I devoured this book. I folded pages after pages. I reread pages. The attention to details of Homer's stories and that world is totally impressive and it is footnoted and sourced so well. The connections of evolution to violence to how people in the Homeric world probably lived is brought to life in such a way that I could envision it and often made notes on books I wanted to look at that might expand on Gottschall's themes. This is a great companion book to read while reading Homer.

Basically this book is as brutal as the Iliad, a heroic tragedy, ironically started by women, both mortal and immortal in which men are in a zero sum game, but there are no true winners, to the death. While Troy loses the war and the Greeks make off with the spoils, and yes raping and claiming the women, the outcome is really pyrrhic. Ultimately people die and it's brutal and tragic and sad, because war is unending in these pre-state societies. War is on-going, forever, a human condition that one must accept even while trying to end it. It is Achilles' awareness and his famous talk with Priam that gives any of this mess meaning.

And much of this is about evolution and millions of years of it. I am not a cynic nor am I a utopian. I am human and placed in my life by things I did not choose. I did not choose my parents, I did not choose my geography, nor much until I was old enough to be aware that actions had consequences and that the world was full of wonder and beauty and also great terror. Along my journey would be messes. Life is messy. But understanding and awareness and the ability to make ourselves better is what this book is really about. We can be better, but we will NOT make this place a paradise. That is because we are part of nature and we are animals.

Highly recommended to those who study evolution or will read Homer's great epics. Or to those who wonder why men are more violent than women and why. More books will be required, I hope.

[Curt Bobbitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gottschall stretches one primary point through the book: male violence in the Homeric world primarily results from an evolutionary drive for reproduction when women are in short supply. His examples from Iliad and Odyssey interpret dozens of speeches and conflicts as mostly the characters' attempts to lure, capture, or own women to spread their seed and prevent other men from doing the same. He does not claim that the attempts are always conscious. Gottschall refers to more than 300 sources about the texts of the Homeric epics and studies (theories) of anthropology and evolutionary biology. The argument had a 6 of 10 persuasiveness score for me.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think there are some fundamental flaws with the evolutionary biological/psychological approach to studying rape - I will save the elaboration of that for the thesis - but this book is probably the best application of that flawed theory to Homeric epic that you’ll find. It’s thorough, very easy to read, and in some places the writing is surprisingly beautiful & lyrical. Three stars because as I said, there are some big holes in evolutionary theories of sexual violence, and in places the Homeric evidence itself undermines Gottschall’s argument.