The Violence of June: Remembrance of the Fall

The beginning of June marks several important military anniversaries, among them the Roman breaching of the middle wall of Jerusalem on the 5th of June in 70 AD, and, by Eratosthenes of Cyrene’s reckoning, the burning of Troy, which would have fallen on June 11th, 1184 BC.

As such, it invites reflection on conflict.

We may consider the month’s name, taken from goddess Juno. So much the scourge of heroes like Heracles and Aeneas at the beginning of their quests, she came to embrace them in victory.

The old myths present divine femininity, and nature herself, as opposing the seeker, which we may understand as analogous to the natural inertia of the body before exercise, the resistance external circumstances exert against a grand undertaking. This forces us to prove our worth until, finally, nature ‘switches sides,’ so to speak, the wind catches our sails, and hard-to-inculcate good habits become normal for us.

As for that which sets us on the path to begin with, this can be the realization that the old way of being will no longer serve, can no longer stand.

Such was the case of Troy. The fall of this city, grown fat and lavish, came by way of the likewise flawed Greeks. Homer does not pretend Achilles is without blemish, and ditto for Agamemnon. Counter-wise, the Greek Diomedes is not presented as being of inferior virtue to his enemies by the poet Virgil, who wants to celebrate his Trojan enemy. 

The same is true in the Bible, where John’s Apocalypse (whose surface meaning, I would argue, is clearly about the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem), does not pretend that the agent of conquest is virtuous, even if it presents that conquest as necessary. In the Apocalypse, the Roman Empire, the beast of the sea, is demon-possessed, acting as the sinister entity ‘Abaddon.’

The parallels between Troy and Israel are numerous and striking. Like Israel, Troy is described as consisting of twelve tribes by Homer, and both face a long exile (in the case of Israel, this already occurs long before 70 AD). 

According to Virgil, the Trojans eventually make it to their ancestral homeland, Italy, and found what will become the Roman empire. 

For our part, we may highlight the medieval inheritance of the Roman theme of Trojan descent, with many nations, including the British (through Geoffrey of Monmouth), claiming to be Trojan remnants. Icelandic tradition even came to view the lineages of Odin and Thor as going back to Troy. Europe, therefore, came to be understood as something like a Trojan Commonwealth. This medieval translation of Trojan glory by many polities transcends the imperialist meaning the myth received under Augustus (I would argue Virgil’s politics, however, are more subtle and closer to the Christian, medieval sensibility).

Through the story of Troy, acknowledging past defeat and embracing the exilic journey of homeward return as a purgative path to righteousness becomes central to European self-understanding, as does the idea that Biblical patterns manifest in ancient ‘secular’ history and so must be understood archetypically.

We may imagine a Europe whose memory is long enough to mark the date set by Eratosthenes and, in any case, consider the violent history of early June and the road to return it sets before us.