La Trobe Classics In the City: I fear Greeks bearing gifts

Held in the Melbourne City Library, this public lecture is part of the La Trobe Classics in the City series.

This title comes from the most famous scam in the ‘pre-truth’ world of Greek myth: the story of the wooden horse.

After endless fighting, it was not warrior prowess, but trickery that brought the divine city of Troy to its knees.

We encounter deceit at every turn in the Greek stories: the poet Hesiod tells us that deceit existed in the primordial time before the gods were born; the goddess Athene wholeheartedly congratulates the hero Odysseus on his devious qualities of wit, sharpness and trickery; Hermes is a trickster god who on the very day he was born stole Apollo’s cattle and disguised their route by having them walk backwards.

Deception was Zeus’ primary means of sexual conquest – no surprise that sex is the arena in Greek myth where trickery is most in evidence and the stock-in-trade and lethal power of the goddess Aphrodite.