A Thousand Ships

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes is a 2019 novel that retells ancient Greek and Roman Trojan War mythologies from the points of view of 25 mortal and immortal women. Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, frames the novel with commentary as she attempts to educate an old male bard on what a proper war epic should be about: disaster and destruction for all involved, from the warriors on the battlefield to their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.

Weaving back and forth through time, Haynes stitches together vignettes about women told in an array of ancient sources spanning hundreds of years, from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey of classical Greece to Augustan Roman poets Virgil and Ovid. This study guide refers to the 2019 hardcover edition published by Mantle Press.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with an old bard calling on the muse of epic poetry, Calliope, but she has grown weary of the same stories being told. She decides the bard will have to give up something he values if he wishes to receive an epic from her. The next vignette brings readers into the heart of war’s destruction, the fallen city of Troy in flames, through the point of view of Creusa, wife of Trojan war hero Aeneas, who has fled the city with their son. Her chapter concludes with her dying as she attempts to escape. This is followed by a narrative set in the Greek camp, where a group of captive Trojan women await to be distributed among the warriors as war prizes. As the novel unfolds, it returns to their perspectives, sometimes as a collective, and the narratives of Greek women whose lives have been irrevocably altered because of the war.

Collectively, the Trojan women discuss the events before, during, and after the fall of Troy: Paris bringing Helen (wife of Spartan king Menelaus) to Troy, Amazon warrior Penthesilea entering the battle for the Trojans and dying at the hands of Achilles (the Greeks’ best warrior), Achilles’s brutal slaughter of Hector and impious desecration of his corpse, and the women’s capture. A young Trojan who is caught when she ventures outside the city walls, Chryseis, becomes a source of strife in the Greek camp after Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition, refuses to return her to her father, a priest of Apollo. Shortly thereafter, plague decimates the Greek camp. Agamemnon relents, and Chryseis is sent back to her father. Captured in a raid after watching Achilles slaughter her family, Briseis is claimed by Achilles but refuses to allow the Greeks to see her grieve.

Hecabe travels to Thrace with Greek warrior Odysseus as his war prize. He assists her in avenging the death of her youngest son, who was promised protection, to ensure the death of the Thracian king who harbored a Greek enemy. Achilles’s son Neoptolemus claims Andromache. After she gives birth to their son, Neoptolemus is killed, and Andromache ends up married to Trojan Helenus. Agamemnon brings Cassandra with him to Mycenae, and both are killed at Clytemnestra’s hands. Polyxena is killed as a sacrifice to the deceased Achilles.

On the Greek side, Agamemnon orders his wife, Clytemnestra, to bring their daughter Iphigenia to Aulis, where the Greek forces have gathered to sail together to Troy, to marry Achilles. When they arrive, however, Iphigenia is sacrificed to Artemis in exchange for favorable sailing winds. She goes to her death without resistance. Clytemnestra spends the next 10 years, the duration of the war, planning her revenge. When Agamemnon returns home from the war, Clytemnestra murders him with Cassandra’s assistance, though both women know that this will in turn lead to Clytemnestra’s death at her son’s avenging hands.

Penelope and Laodamia provide narratives from the perspectives of Greek women left behind when their husbands, Odysseus and Protesilaus, leave for Troy. Laodamia begs her husband not to be the first off his ship, but he disregards her and is killed. In her grief, she eventually hangs herself. After the war is over, Penelope waits anxiously for Odysseus’s return. Years pass, but he does not arrive home. Stories reach Penelope, informing her of his reckless adventures and affairs with immortal women. A man claiming to be Odysseus does eventually return and take up his place beside her, but Penelope no longer cares whether he is who he claims to be. A chapter from the point of view of Oenone, a nymph and wife of Paris, also illuminates the trauma of abandonment.

Narratives from the perspectives of immortals explain the role of the gods in engineering the war. Gaia complains to Zeus that she is overburdened by the large population, and he consults with Themis, goddess of the divine order. They decide that a war would be the most effective way to cull the population. A golden apple addressed “to the most beautiful” is deposited at the feet of Athene, Hera, and Aphrodite, causing them to argue over who it is intended for. When Trojan prince Paris is brought in to decide, he chooses Aphrodite, who promises him Helen, the Spartan queen married to Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus, which sows the seeds for war.