Petersen's Troy and the Causes of War

So much of our culture traces firm connecting lines back to ancient Greece, including warfare. It may explain why our fascination with the Greeks still goes on. Lately, this fascination, typically reserved among a few academics, has spilled on to the big Screen in Helen of Troy, Troy, and Alexander.

Wolfgang Petersen's Troy is truly worth seeing (or buying now that the DVD has been released). Homer's Iliad, which inspires the story in Troy, is not singularly about war but war is a central theme in it, and that comes through in Petersen's rendition of Homer (David Benioff is the screenplay writer). The topic of war itself is far too wide, so I'll limit myself to causes of war, or, to put in the lingo of our time, the root causes. Root causes typically refer to context, however, ignoring the inner motivations that propel men into war. In this sense, the modern expression is limited, and it does not sufficiently capture the subtleties of a reality that Homer captured in his text --and which are visible in Petersen's picture. Homer and Petersen's movie have something to remind us about.

Why do the characters in the story war? There are many reasons, but there is not a single line in the movie (nor in the book) that would ascribe the causes of the Trojan war to state economic policy, nor is there a single character that claims to be going to war to make more money or to get a greater market share of whatever. Business, and commerce are not among the motivations.

There is one set of events that leads to the Trojan war. Greeks declare war on the Trojans following an abortive peace attempt between the Trojans and the Spartans. At the end of the successful peace talks, the Trojan Prince Paris convinces the Spartan Queen, Helen, to leave her husband Menaleus for him. Menaleus resolves to go to war against Troy with the help of his brother, the Mycenean King Agamemnon. However, Homer's story is complex: each of the central characters wars for different reasons.

The Trojan Prince Paris goes into combat out of some guilt, because he has to but not because he prefers to fight for he is at the core a coward. He ultimately fights out of shame and in shame. Prince Hector, his brother, though a brave warrior, goes to war because he has to, but his motivations are noble. He wants to save his home, his city and his family. He could have avoided the war by handing his brother to the Spartans as soon as he discovered his brother's deceit. But he remained loyal to his brother. Conversely, Achilles, the mightiest of warriors, goes to war because he wants to, not because he has to. He is a warrior, it is his destiny to war. He loves war for its own sake, and for the glory that he believes it brings.

Odysseus, King of Ithaca and the narrator of the story, goes to war for prudential reasons. He knows that if he does not go to war he is likely to incur the wrath of Agamemnon, therefore putting his people and himself at risk. So he makes the wise decision of warring with Agamemnon and not against him. Odysseus is the example of the political leader that must make compromises in order to protect his people.

Helen's Husband Menaleus goes to war in wrath, consumed by the desire for revenge. He wants to kill Paris and Helen to regain, in his mind, his lost honor. Finally, there is Agamemnon, Helen's brother in law. He goes to war for the sake of power. He does not care about the stain on his brother's name. He sees an opportunity to increase his own personal power, to be rid of his Trojan opponents and to rule over Greece. He is a tyrant in the classical sense of the term, one who rules for himself.

In this sense, Petersen's picture is somewhat faithful to Homer's Iliad. In the poem, Homer shows that war may have different causes, depending on the individual's motivations and disposition. Not all men war for the same reasons, an insight that men of our age forget or refuse to understand.

The problem of why men war is therefore much more complex than the single materialistic explanation would allow, and to understand it requires an understanding of the complexity of the human experience in its fullness. To put it in different terms, the single answer reflex (it is all about money in the form of a "fill-in-the-blank" resource) is intellectually impoverishing and does not cover the range of human complexity. When the only tool we have is a hammer, as is the modern materialist understanding of much of our culture, all problems look like a nail.

So Petersen's film is not only entertaining and fun to watch. To the attentive eye, it also recovers and reminds us of some ancient Homeric insights regarding war.

• The reasons why men war are not always determined by material factors
• Men also war from internal motivations independent of material circumstances
• Different men war for different reasons.

We should keep these in mind when the Michael Moores of the world speak.