A Freshman at the University of Southern California, the informant is majoring in archeology. The informant is very interested in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology. He shares some Greek mythology.

Kevin: “Okay, so there’s two Greek Kingdoms. There’s Menelaus who’s king of Sparta, and then Agamemnon was king of Mycenae which were the two great powerful kingdoms. So, in Menelaus’s kingdom in Sparta, uh Paris and Hector of Troy were visiting and having dinner and coming to make peace with the Greek nations after all this war between the, and so Eris comes in and gives them an apple. She makes it a competition between three- Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite. Aphrodite drives them to fall in love, so then Paris leaves with Helen of Troy, and Menelaus gets really angry and goes to his brother Agamemnon. He’s very concerned about power. Agamemnon’s very powerful, arrogant guy and wants to take over Troy already, so he’s down with the plan…so all the Greek ships embark to Troy to go get Helen back, and they leave there, and they’re not doing so well in the beginning…So they retreated from the beach and they created this huge Trojan horse and they thought it was like a sacrifice to Poseidon for safe voyage during the time, but when they brought it into the city. They were all hidden inside and they started to sack and burn the city, but then what happened was Aeneas was able to go through these secret tunnels and get out of Troy with some of the Trojan people…So Aeneas travels and he makes it across to like the part in Italy where Rome is and then he finds the city of Rome and then after that that’s where from him his burst like Romulus and Remus, and then they become, like they become the first Roman heroes and they’re trained by Lupa and Lupa becomes like the trainer of humans and the Romans have like the birth of their own civilization.

So I guess what this story’s kind of saying is that a lot of it like talks about renewal and the driving power of love subtly behind everything, so like love drove this corrupt war to happen, but even though it happened, there was a renewal and there was a whole new society that was birthed out of that society being destroyed I guess.”

Me: “Okay, so do you think there’s a moral to the story?”

Kevin: “It talks about invincibility. It’s saying that nothing lasts forever, and like nobody’s invincible because first thing, Achillis who’s born from a goddess and Demigod, he’s shot in the heel and killed like during the war, so like this very, like powerful figure dies. Then Troy had walls around it and it was known as a city that couldn’t be penetrated and couldn’t be destroyed but it was destroyed. So, like invincibility but then also from chaos is births order because like from the war was birthed a whole new civilization that became  one of the biggest like, in all there ever was, so even though Troy wasn’t invincible and wasn’t able to last forever, like the thoughts and the beliefs and everything behind Troy were able to last for forever.”

I’m taking an Athenian Drama class, so I’ve read many of the Greek plays inclusive of characters Menelaus, Athena, and Hera. There are a few new characters in this version, and it’s interesting to note how Greek mythological characters are connected and related to multiple stories. Before hearing this story, it had never occurred to me that the thoughts and beliefs of Troy still live to this day. Although people can’t be, culture, beliefs, and things such as these can be everlasting.