The City Burned Anyway

I am the most beautiful woman in the world. This is not a boast. I don’t mean it in a vain way, nor in the hyperbolic way the poets do. It is simply tragically and completely true. It is what was decided. A thousand ships were sent for me once, or so they say. Yes—I know, I know—but we must begin with the ships. Always the ships. Although, it was more like a hundred or so. I counted each one as they arrived on the shores from my tower. Not all were warships. Some were merchant ships that had clearly been recently repurposed. One still had a broken mast and the old trade marks half painted over. They say I launched a thousand ships. How could I have done so? I was not even in the country, let alone the council chamber where such decisions would be made.

Otherwise who am I but a pretty face and a burning city, ending with a wooden horse at the gates? That version is easier to stomach. It is also not particularly accurate and somehow conveniently absolves everyone involved but me.

I have found that men prefer that version.

It is certainly easier to imagine and more compelling to tell: a young prince undone by witnessing a single face from a balcony. A man so overcome, that a fleet of ships was assembled by devotion itself. It makes for a much cleaner cause; I will give them that. One man. One look. One desire. One woman. Me. It is also far more dramatic and easier to put into stories and songs.

Wars are rarely so efficient and straightforward.

Long before Paris—the young prince of Troy and brother of Hector—crossed my path, the kingdoms had been circling each other like falcons and dogs too proud and hungry to admit they were already on the hunt. The trade routes had grown strained. The alliances had grown brittle. The words had grown more bitter behind backs. The pride had accumulated so thick that no man wanted to admit they were in the wrong or had started the war. The men who rule kingdoms and order entire commands do not suddenly wake transformed by Eros. They wake up restless, agitated, and impatient.

Sparta had been restless. Although that is hardly a statement on its own—we almost always are. Mycenae had also been growing restless. So had Troy. All sound familiar? It is truly astounding how quickly one single marriage can become geopolitical once enough men are watching and waiting.

They say Paris stole me. They all seem to prefer that word. Stole. Like it. Choose it. It suggests a lack of agency, a passion so wild and overwhelming that the decision was inevitable and could only be followed by war and being chased after with ships. Stolen like a horse or some pretty silks at a market. It masks any attempts of negotiation that failed. It covers the insults that had been thrown in the room and across oceans. It disguises the inescapable fact that kings are rarely surprised by such events and the onset of war as they appear and claim to be. How can they be with spies and messengers in every city?

And then there is the apple.

The single most well-known piece of fruit—naturally being golden, because subtlety has never been a strong suit of a “good” story—that was supposedly passed in between quarreling petty goddesses as if a kingdom hinged on orchard disputes. As if a pretty little apple could have been the straw that broke the mule’s back. I have heard that the war began when Paris chose beauty over wisdom or power—when he chose me, the single undisputable prize that tipped the cosmic scales.

I can assure that I have found that no piece of produce—no matter how shiny or juicy—has ever been worth the cost of war nor could it persuade me to abandon all reason. Paris did not set sail because of an apple. He set sail because he wanted to be remembered in the songs and history books.

If the war had truly been based upon me, the war would have ceased the moment I left. It did not. Surely, if the war was supposed to be for me, somebody among the thousands on both sides would have noticed me aboard a ship ready to set sail.

You see in the beginning, it was games and glory. By the second year, a sense of irritation had grown. By the third, anger. The fourth year, it became habits and repetition. Nobody sings about those. There were still six more after that. I was still the symbol they used when they wanted an excuse to keep going because their honor and pride demanded it. Somehow, I was both the prize to be sought and the problem to be vexed. I discovered in their war rooms and battle discussions that I was not as essential as advertised. Not even close.

I met Odysseus once, before it all began. He told me, in all frank forwardness, that I looked absolutely divine in the morning light. He returned to Penelope all the same afterwards.

You will forgive me if I find it difficult to believe that an entire fleet of men could not manage to accomplish the same restraint.

If we had been in Sparta, the whole matter might have been settled before noon.

It was no great scene when I finally left. This was not written in the history books. Perhaps for convenience or perhaps because then they would have to admit that the war did not require my face at all. I left on a small merchant ship that promised to go anywhere but here. That, more than anything, should settle the matter.

But the war did not stop. The men continued to fight. The blood continued to spill. They found the reasons they needed to go on. I imagine, for some, it was much easier now and far more convenient. Wars are much simpler to plan without having to consider a woman. They are quite the complication, I have heard.

From a distance as I watched, I saw the fires begin to rise. The flames looked much smaller and burned less bright than the stories would later say. I watched as the city burned. As my reputation burned. Both can be done in stages, until nobody can tell where it truly ended or began. By the time Troy fell, consumed by flames and steel, I was nowhere near the fated city. That detail is often cut. Historians like the image of me in my tower as the smoke rose, waiting for my daring rescue, the whole purpose of the carnage.

I have said it from the beginning. I did not do it. I did not launch them. They were already looking for an excuse.

I was not in Troy when it fell; I had long boarded a ship in the fourth year. I headed East, I did not care where. Nobody noticed. Nobody cared to record it or take note.

The city burned anyway.