So, today I'll be talking about my take on yet another traditional Greek mythological figure: Hermione, daughter of Helen and Menelaos of Sparta. Also her husband, her son and a bit about her mother. (Technically, I toyed with choosing Helen for today, but...the two most unique and interesting things I've done with her are in the unfinished reincarnation-and-giant-robots piece that I mentioned in talking about Grant, and some of the late spoilers in book six of The God Killers, which definitely won't be out for a couple years (possibly more than a couple at the rate I'm going) so...talking about those two would be awkward at best. Though it's still awkward since Hermione is also only in book six. But at least her material isn't a spoiler.)
Anyway. Hermione is probably not numbered among the best-known women in Greek myths. (More likely the opposite, in fact...) However, the antiquity of her character is undeniable: in the Odyssey, Telemachos arrives in Sparta just at the end of the wedding feast as Hermione is on her way to Phthia to marry Neoptolemos, son of Achilles, so she's mentioned in one of the oldest of the Greek texts.
Some basic backstory on Hermione in the original myths: she was just a small child when her mother was taken to Troy. (I've seen six and nine given as her exact age, but... 🤷🏻♀️) Like Sparta itself, she was left in the care of her not-actually-grandfather Tyndareos, the previous king of Sparta, during the war. (Since Helen's father was actually Zeus, not her mother's husband...) That much is always the case. As is that she had two husbands, one of whom is Neoptolemos, to whom she was promised in the final days of the war, to reward the boy for coming to finish the fight his father had started. But how that second marriage came about varies wildly in ancient sources, sometimes from the same author. (Euripides has some enormous variations in his plays touching on Hermione. Also those touching on Helen, for that matter...)
Her other husband, you see, is her double-cousin Orestes. (He being the son of her father's brother Agamemnon and her mother's sister Clytemnestra.) Why anyone would think that was a good pairing is beyond me. (In fact, I have Menelaos being rather put out that his grandson is technically also his grand-nephew.)
“We shall finally be able to proceed once my nephew arrives,” Menelaos said, nodding. Then he winced. “I mean, son-in-law….” He let out a wordless cry of aggravation. “This is why I wanted her to marry Neoptolemos!” the king shouted. “I don’t know what my brother was thinking, wanting his son to marry my daughter…”
In the ancient texts, there are two primary versions regarding how, when and why Hermione wound up marrying Orestes. Either she married him while her father was away at the war (either at the command of Tyndareos or because of a prior engagement her father had set up, or even at the will of one or both of the couple actually getting married (gasp!)) or she marries him after Neoptolemos' death (though even in the former scenario, she still ends up with Orestes even if she was with him before Neoptolemos). In fact, sometimes competition over her is the reason Neoptolemos is killed. You see, Orestes is usually said to be the one to have slain Neoptolemos, sometimes acting alone, sometimes acting with the aid of the people of Delphi, and sometimes acting as a vessel for Apollo (in just the way Apollo used Paris/Alexander to kill Achilles). Though sometimes Neoptolemos is killed without Orestes' involvement, either by Apollo acting alone or by the people of Delphi unaided, or by Apollo aiding the people of Delphi.
With so much variation in the ancient sources, I obviously had to make some decisions about which would be the case in my own novels!
And I went with the version that felt most...uh...hmm. Plausible? Sort of? Well, the version that gave Hermione the most agency and control over her own fate, anyway.
In other words, in my version, she actually chose to marry her cousin. 🤢 Yeah, not great, but they have a son and he's the one ruling in Sparta when the Heraclidae arrive in the actual myths, so I couldn't just pretend it didn't happen, could I? (If it's any consolation, I actually did lessen the incest quotient by changing up some stuff about Helen, Clytemnestra and Leda. Doesn't help the other stuff, but...there's already so much messed up stuff in the royal house of Atreus that it's...I mean...look up where Aegisthus came from, if you dare. It's way more messed up than anything I'd ever come up with.) That being said, as you can see from the quote above, while the marriage was Hermione's choice in my novel, it was also something that Agamemnon had arranged before the war. (Because he wanted his grandchildren ruling over both Mycenae and Sparta.)
As to Neoptolemos, I said Orestes had killed him in the process of sacking Delphi, and thus Apollo helped him to kill the more experienced and physically powerful man. (This is probably the most common version in the ancient texts. Though they wouldn't necessarily call it "sacking" Delphi so much as demanding the god pay him a blood price for his role in Achilles' death.)
Thus, Hermione and Orestes have a happy(?) marriage and a cute little son...who sulks all the time except when his grandmother is around. 😰 Okay, so it's all still pretty messed up. But in my version it's Hermione who wears the pants in the relationship. (Well, no, technically neither of them wear pants because they're Greeks, not Scythians. But you get the idea. 😅)
A quick glance at all the men who were present there—not only Eurysakes and King Orestes, but even the servants and slaves—told Ariadne that there was no point in further argument. Apparently, it was the queen who truly ruled in Mycenae.
Anyway, the plot of book six--or rather its inciting incident--is that Atalanta, Ariadne and Eurysakes are on their way back to Delphi, seeking some answers about the events of the previous book, and they stop for the night in Mycenae. Just inside the Lion Gate, they stop to look at a stela with a depiction of a gorgon on it. They're informed by a man who arrives as they're looking at it that the grave beneath that stela is that of Perseus himself, a grave which the speaker's father had wanted to bring inside the walls of the city for many years, and that thanks to an earthquake (which had collapsed part of the outer walls of the city) he was able to fulfill that design of his father's. Because yes, they just happened to run into Orestes, King of Mycenae, while they're just standing there inside the city's walls. And, of course, the grave they're standing beside is the grave circle wherein the so-called "Funeral Mask of Agamemnon" was found, only it's actually Perseus, not Agamemnon...
...wait, that means in the version of the world in my novels that Schliemann desecrated the grave of Perseus?!
😭😭😭 Nooooooo!!!!!!!!😭😭😭
Ahem.
Yes, maybe I'll be changing that in the final draft. That would be an awful thing to do to poor Harry Hamlin Perseus.
Anyway.
Back to what I was trying to talk about.
Anyway, Orestes asks Eurysakes to come with him to Lacedaimon (aka Sparta) to act as a judge in a "minor" succession dispute. As Orestes explains it, Menelaos is preparing for the inevitable, and wishes to name the heir to his throne, but he prefers to leave it to his illegitimate son rather than to his legitimate daughter, and so Orestes is going to go to Lacedaimon to argue his wife's case. But there are to be three judges in the case: one chosen by Orestes, one chosen by Menelaos, and one a priest in service to an oracular god, in the hopes that the gods will make their will known on the matter. (If you know anything about the Trojan War, you can probably guess who Menelaos selects as his judge...)
For a lot of reasons, some of them having to do with guest-friendship and some of them more personal, and most of them because Hermione laid down the law that of course Eurysakes was going to agree to do it, the trio is therefore dragged down to Laconia (the region around Sparta, and technically the name of the kingdom, since this is the Bronze Age and city-states weren't a thing yet) to take part in the somewhat farcical debate over who will inherit Menelaos' throne. (Farcical because, as the third judge thinks grimly as the debate begins, Orestes is already ruling in Mycenae, and if he really wants the throne of Laconia, he can just take it by force, especially since the Spartan army is unlikely to want to follow a half-Trojan like Nikostratos (who is Menelaos' son by his Trojan concubine).)
At first, Hermione is largely portrayed as being fairly frivolous, just using her power over her husband to enjoy herself. (The following quote is while they're all on the road from Mycenae to Sparta, on the morning of the second day of travel.)
Once everything was finally ready for them to depart, they were suddenly halted again by the queen’s voice. “Wait!” she called, then hurried towards the chariot. “I’d like to ride in the chariot today,” she informed them. “You two looked like you were having so much fun yesterday, and it’s terribly dull in the wagon.”
“Ah…won’t your son object to being left alone?” Atalanta asked uncomfortably. She wasn’t at all sure that her horses would accept Hermione as a passenger—as the woman who had spurned Neoptolemos and all—but she didn’t think it would be terribly prudent to mention that.
“He’ll fall asleep whether or not I’m there,” the queen assured her with an unconcerned smile, even as she stepped up into the chariot. Though Atalanta had braced herself for the worst, neither Xanthos nor Balios reacted in the slightest. Either they hadn’t realized that their late master’s unwilling wife had been so unwilling, or they didn’t care about that the way they cared about Orestes having been Apollo’s mortal pawn in slaying him.
“I suppose it will be all right,” Ariadne said, somewhat hesitantly. “But perhaps your majesty should ride in front of us, so that if you get tired, you can’t fall out of the chariot and hurt yourself.”
“I’m not a child, you know,” the queen replied peevishly. “I won’t get tired. And I’ll take a side position, thank you. If I’m in the middle, all I’ll get to see is the back end of the horses! I could see that sight from the wagon.”
Atalanta laughed. “That’s a good point,” she agreed. “You can stand in the middle, Ariadne.”
Ariadne sighed. “I couldn’t care less,” she replied, shaking her head. “My neck works; I can look to either side of me easily enough.”
Once positions had been adjusted, everyone set off again. Once again, the men on the horses were leading, with the chariot in the middle, and the wagon taking up the rear. They hadn’t been moving for long before the queen let out a long, deep breath of irritation.
“Can’t this chariot go any faster?” she asked.
“Of course it can!” Atalanta assured her. “My horses are the finest horses in all the world! It’s been agony on me, making them walk this slowly. I’m sure it’s just as unpleasant for them, too.”
“So let’s go faster!”
“If we do that, we’ll leave the wagon behind,” Ariadne pointed out. “You wouldn’t want to leave your son unprotected, would you?”
“Orestes can look after him,” Hermione giggled. “How do I make them go faster?” she asked, trying to take the reins from Ariadne.
“You ask one of us to do it,” Atalanta said, “that’s how.”
“I’m not at all sure this is a good idea,” Ariadne added.
“It’s got to be less boring than just plodding along like this,” Atalanta countered. “This is like that caravan to Babylon, only without the exotic scenery!”
“You’ve been to Babylon?” Hermione asked, wide-eyed.
“We have,” Ariadne told her. “Instead of going faster, why don’t we tell you about it? That should pass the hours nicely.”
“There’s a lovely glade with a nice spring ahead,” the queen told them. “We could go there and sit in the shade and listen to the cool, clear water while you tell me about it. And then when the men catch up, we can rejoin them!”
“Sounds good to me,” Atalanta admitted.
Ariadne sighed deeply, and didn’t do anything. After a moment’s hesitation, Atalanta took the reins away from her, and urged the horses to the side, increasing their speed. The queen laughed, and started telling her how to get to the glade in question.
***
When the king had finally caught up to them, about halfway through her partially re-invented story of their trip to Babylon—no point in telling anyone else about the [overarching villain], after all—he was practically foaming at the mouth in his fury, and accused them of having abducted his wife. Why he thought two women would want to make off with another woman was beyond Ariadne, but she didn’t really want to know what—if anything—was passing through his mind.
Queen Hermione was able to calm her husband down ridiculously easily, but as soon as Eurysakes and the wagon caught up, the queen was ordered to get back in the wagon, and absolutely forbidden from riding in the chariot again. Ariadne had to fight against the urge to tell both Atalanta and Hermione that she had known from the start that it was a terrible idea for the three of them to ride off on their own, especially without so much as letting anyone else know in advance. Atalanta usually took ‘I told you so’s much too hard, and Ariadne imagined that the queen probably became quite angered by such things.
But eventually I get around to showing what she's actually thinking, and it's anything but light and frivolous. (Some names to explain: Callileia is Menelaos' Trojan concubine, mother of his son Nikostratos. Aithra was the mother of Theseus and spent decades as Helen's slave, following Theseus' abduction of Helen and her brothers subsequently conquering all of Attica to get her back again. Oh, and the tapestry that Hermione is referencing is the one Helen was weaving during the Iliad, which was depicting the war itself, and which she spent some time showing to the trio earlier in the book. Neoptolemos' Trojan concubine was, btw, Andromache, widow of Hector. (In the Euripides play Andromache, Hermione was basically the villain of the piece, trying to get Andromache and her son by Neoptolemos killed. The entire mention of her here was to make it very clear that I was not following that particular version of the story.)) Warning: very long quote incoming (it's the whole scene, in fact) because it does so much to explain how I characterized Hermione. Also because it's gonna be years before this book is ready for release, and things will likely change by then. Also warning: this being an earlier draft, some things would be better in a more polished version, like it wouldn't always say "her father" in the narration and would be more likely to just say "Father." And so on.
Hermione paced the length of her parents’ bedchamber for what felt like the thousandth time that day. It infuriated her that her mother had chosen just the time when she wanted to talk to disappear into the ether. It did not, however, surprise her in the least. She couldn’t even take advantage of her mother’s absence to burn that horrible, horrible tapestry, because Tisamenos was with her, and he would surely tattle on her to his beloved grandmother.
Admittedly, the boy had fallen asleep waiting, so maybe she could still manage it…? If she was very quiet, perhaps she could burn the thing without waking him. She might even be able to plant some kind of evidence to place the blame on that awful Callileia…
Hermione had only just reached the chest where her mother stored the tapestry and all her other remnants of Troy when her mother finally returned to the room, accompanied by Callileia, who was fussing over her hair. What was her mother thinking, keeping that woman in Aithra’s place? If Orestes had ever had the gall to take a concubine, Hermione would never have allowed the wench to rest under the same roof with her, let alone take care of her personal appearance! That was the only good thing she could say about her thankfully brief ‘marriage’ to Neoptolemos: at least he had shown the decency to leave his Trojan concubine behind in Epeiros before he came to force himself on Hermione.
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear, were you waiting to see me?” her mother asked as she noticed Hermione. At the sound of her voice, Tisamenos woke up, and immediately hopped out of bed to go hug her. Hermione refused even to attempt to understand why her son preferred her mother to her. Maybe it was some sort of defect in Orestes’ blood…
“Of course I was,” Hermione said, somewhat more coldly than she had intended. It was hard not to sound full of hate with that Trojan bitch around! “But I would like to talk to you alone.”
“Then why did you bring Tisamenos with you?”
“I don’t mind him hearing,” Hermione assured her.
Her mother frowned, then sighed. “Perhaps you should go for now, Callileia,” she said gently.
“Of course, my lady. I’ll be with my son if you need me,” the slave replied, before departing. The sheer gall! To call attention to the fact that she, a mere slave, had given Menelaos a son, when Helen had only given him a daughter? If it had been in Hermione’s power, she would have had the woman beaten soundly…and then had her tongue cut out! But her mother didn’t allow slaves to receive corporal punishment. No doubt because she feared receiving it herself for all her own flagrant violations of society’s rules.
“What is it, Hermione?”
She sighed. “You ought to know that, Mother.” But her mother just looked at her, appearing blissfully ignorant. “Why are you letting Father try to prevent me from receiving my inheritance?” Hermione demanded. “You don’t actually want to see that woman’s son inheriting your father’s kingdom, do you?!” she added, pointing at the door by which Callileia had departed.
Her mother smiled sadly. “Hermione, you know very well that Tyndareos was not my father. And if the old bloodline is to be severed, then why not let Nikostratos inherit? He is a good boy, smart and kind, like his father.”
“But the old bloodline won’t be severed if I inherit!” Hermione pointed out. “Because Orestes has that blood!”
Her mother looked down at Tisamenos, stroking his hair gently. “No, dear, he doesn’t. Tyndareos had no children of his own. And I’m glad of that. I want the old bloodline cut. I don’t want to see anyone truly descended from Tyndareos on the throne of Lacedaemon.”
“What…? Why would you say something like that?” Hermione couldn’t imagine it. “Did you…didn’t you love him as a father, even though he wasn’t really your father? Surely you didn’t disdain him for being lesser than Zeus?”
For some reason, her mother laughed coldly. There was something about that laugh that made Hermione shudder. It didn’t seem like her mother. It seemed like a cold and vengeful goddess, as if Hera had stepped into the room and taken her place. “My dear, I could never explain my reasons to you,” she said. “And even if I could, I wonder if you would even believe them.”
“You’re not making any sense, Mother.”
“I know,” she admitted, with a pained smile. Anyone else would fall under the spell of torment in that smile, and lay off, cursing themselves for having caused her mental anguish. But Hermione was immune to her mother’s wiles, and was not going to allow herself to be swayed by anything!
However, before she could press further, her father also returned to the room. “Hermione? Did you need something?” he asked.
She grimaced. “Yes, I suppose I did!” Hermione snapped. “I need to know why you want to deny me my birthright!”
Her father scowled at her. “I have no desire to deny you your birthright. I just don’t want to hand my throne over to my brother’s son!”
“But, Father, that’s the same—”
“You want to be Queen of Lacedaimon? Then divorce Orestes and marry someone who isn’t your cousin!” her father snapped at her.
“But I love him!”
He shuddered. “How can you love him? Hermione, he’s practically your brother! There’s no fresh blood anywhere! I’m amazed the Furies haven’t taken after the two of you for your marriage.”
“That’s not true,” Hermione said coldly. How dare he mention the Furies after all the years Orestes had to spend running from them?! “After all, only his mother was a daughter of Tyndareos, since grandmother had an affair with Zeus.”
“Don’t make it sound so improper,” her father replied, looking at her with dismay. “The king of the gods has the right to do whatever he wants with mortal women.”
“I doubt if Grandfather saw it that way,” Hermione replied, shrugging.
“He always made it sound like his wife receiving the favors of Zeus had been the greatest thing that had ever happened to him,” her father assured her. It didn’t make any sense to Hermione. Why would her grandfather have wanted to be cuckolded? Even when the other man was a god, that was still a horrible insult to his virility!
“It was the best thing that ever happened to him,” her mother suddenly said. Her voice was filled with an icy venom that made no sense. Did she actually resent the circumstances of her own birth? That made even less sense…
Hermione and Orestes had probably spent quite a while discussing the matter of how to obtain her inheritance of the Laconian throne, as they had actually chosen Eurysakes as a judge for a very specific reason, related to what she has to say in the scene above. (Icarios was the brother of Tyndareos, and thus part of the traditional Spartan bloodline. And Mantides is the name of the third judge. He's original to the novels.) The following line of dialog is prompted by Eurysakes pointing out that neither of Menelaos' children actually have the blood of the original Spartan king and queen, and that if they truly want to follow the tradition, therefore neither of them should inherit. When he's asked who should inhert, then...
“One with that blood,” Eurysakes answered, his voice calm and slow, just as his father’s always had been. The boy really was disturbingly like a repetition of his father in almost every respect. Mantides found that quite unsettling, really. “The sons and grandsons of Icarios. The children of Agamemnon. They have that blood. Your children do not.”
Orestes let out a slight smirk before hiding it behind his hand. So that had been his game. He brought Eurysakes because he knew that the young man would have the nerve required to tell Menelaos to his face that neither of his children should inherit…but that Orestes should. If he wasn’t so disgusted by it, Mantides would have been impressed by the young king’s cunning.
[snipped discussion of why the sons and grandsons of Icarios are not actually available as options.]
“If that is the decision reached by this council of judges, I will be willing to accept it,” Orestes announced.
“Oh, you’d be willing to inherit directly instead of inheriting through your wife,” Menelaos snarled at him. “How very big of you!”
Ah, I really enjoyed this debate. Poor Menelaos. Everything just goes so badly for him.
Though there's one thing that doesn't go badly for him in this novel, and that's Helen herself. Or rather, what I establish in this novel is that in the particular variant on the Greek mythic world in these novels, Helen went to Troy unwillingly, and never stopped loving Menelaos. (Given that the most common version of their final post-war fate was that they end up together in the Elysian Fields for all time, that seems important to establish...) And yes, I actually do explain that in a way that makes logical sense. Only it's a very late part of the plot, and I don't want to put it out there on the internet where other people can see it before the novel's released. (I honestly think it's a wrinkle no one else has given the story before. One of the aspects of it probably has been, maybe a few of the other parts, but never all of them together in this exact manner.)
Speaking of Helen and Menelaos, though! Okay, so the Odyssey establishes that the big storm that wrecked most of the other ships of the Greek fleet sent their ship hurtling off course and landing in Egypt, right? (Wait, was that where it was established? Hmm. Well, if it wasn't mention there, it must have been in the summaries of one of the lost poems from the Epic Cycle.) And then they spent eight years there as the guest of the king...because. (There's reasons, but they're the type of reasons that only really work in a loosely told myth.) Anyway, in book five of The God Killers, Atalanta, Ariadne and Eurysakes find themselves in Egypt, right? And they see a temple being built. It's explained to them that it's a temple to Astarte, a goddess of love. But it's specifically being called the temple of the "Foreign Astarte," and that it's in honor of the years she and her husband Set spent dwelling among them at the court of the Pharaoh. After a few more details are shared, the trio suddenly realize that who the Egyptian people are describing as Set was actually Menelaos, so this temple they're building is actually dedicated to Helen!
Though almost all of my version of Trojan War-related events differs from his, this is a detail that came from Herodotos. (Though he, of course, said the temple was dedicated to the "Foreign Aphrodite" because he always translated the names of foreign gods to whatever Greek god he felt most closely approximated them. 😰)
Hmm.
I feel like there's probably more to say, but I can't think what.
Drat.
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