By Any Other Name

I’ve always wondered the same thing about why USC’s team is so-named. I guessed the thought was that in some sense the Trojans morphed into the Romans and they eventually overthrew the Greeks so eventually the Trojans win it all. But it does seem strange. (I’m not touching the condoms.)

Finally, some wit and wisdom on this pompous site.

But ever was it thus for the Trojan Woman.

The Trojans were proud warriors. Should be enough for a football team, or one’s erection.

For reasons I’ve never fathomed, the phrase “working like a Trojan” was at point a popular euphemism for versions that had become politically unacceptable.

We now have “working like a dog” which doesn’t make much sense to me – although there are plenty of working dogs in Australia, their life is scarcely one of unremitting toil. Most working dogs spend a lot of time lying around the yard.

Google provides me with this:

WORK LIKE A TROJAN – “Trojan originally referred to the inhabitants of Troy, the ancient city besieged by the Greeks in their efforts to retrieve their queen, Helen, who had been abducted by the son of the King of Troy. According to legend, as recorded in both Vergil’s ‘Aeneid’ and Homer’s ‘Illiad,’ the Trojans were a hard-working, determined, industrious people. Hence: ‘He worked like a Trojan.” From “Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins” by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988).

but I can’t remember any particular reference to industriousness in the versions and extracts I’ve read.

Anyway, maybe these supposed virtues are being invoked, though I decline to develop the metaphor.

Uh, ogre–Belle is ABD in Classics at Berkeley, so it’s a bit rich to suggest that her classics education is lacking, or to assume that she’s unaware of the facts that you cite.

Yeah, I hear they make you read the Aeneid before they give you the PhD. But seriously, if that was what people had in mind, you figure they’d just call their team the Romans.

in the summer of 1993, i handled consumer complaints for carter-Wallace pharmaceuticals, the manufacturers of Trojan condoms. One day I came upon an internal document which described the results of a quality control test. In terms of durability and general reliability, the Trojans ranked near the bottom. On the document someone had scrawled: “Oh well, back to the drawing board!”

Also while I was there, I learned that the company was planning to release a condom for the smaller-than-average man. It’s name: the Napoleon.

The Trojan Horse reference evokes images of a rubber succesfully getting insides the walls, then releasing many tiny soldiers once inside.

Disgusting. You gave me foul imagery. I shall report you to the CFC.

If I could spell it.

Who but Odysseus, the sneakiest Greek, would deploy in Troy the ultimate woody? Still we call it the Trojan Horse.

Traditionally, Anglo-Americans tend to prefer gallant losers to winners. That is why Mons and the Somme are much better-remembered than the battles that won the First World War, why New York has an avenue named for Lexington but not for Yorktown, etc. My sense, based on my own 7 years of higher education, is that modern academics are total power worshippers who do not share this tradition, but I could be wrong.

“Traditionally, Anglo-Americans tend to prefer gallant losers to winners. That is why Mons and the Somme are much better-remembered than the battles that won the First World War”

And why Scott is a hero.

But the Trojans are often the more sympathetic side, aren’t they? Even in the Iliad, in a way. And certainly in ‘Troylus and Criseyde’, and ‘Troilus and Cressida.’ The Greeks were – ruthless domineering bastards like Agamemnon, or whiny also-rans like Menelaus, or sneaky bastards like Odysseus, or selfish egomaniacs like Achilles.

Actually, I think ophelia has pointed us to the real answer, which is that history is written by the winners, and in the Classical world, the Romans were, ultimately, the winners. And so their ancestor-worship of the Trojans led to a lot of pro-Troy literature (and the sickening disparagement of the character of that wiliest – not sneakiest – of the Achaeans).

The second key is that Roman lit was a bigger early influence on the Christian tradition than Greek – remember, the works of Homer were unknown in the west until, what, 15something? Post-Roman Western culture developed its view of the Trojans under the prejudices of the Romans.

So in a sense, the guesses above about Troy being the ultimate victor were right, but not because people take the long view. A future civilization would take very different views of Native Americans depending on which era’s literature on the topic survived….

the U. Idaho team is called the Vandals

I always thought it was because, after they lose a big game, they sneak out to the parking lot and spray-paint dirty words on the visiting team’s bus while the winners are still showering.

I’ve been saying that about the condoms for at least 20 years. Besides, they’re nasty galoshlike things.

Would red-blooded American males put on a condom called “Greek?”

I can hear the ad slogans now: “There’s no love like Greekâ„¢ love!”

> Achilles, though, is a big puffed-up prima donna.

Which is why he is played by Brad Pitt.

“The Hellenistic and Roman periods produced almost exclusively “Trojans were good, Achaeans were bad” versions of the Trojan War even before the Roman “New Troy” meme became dominant”

And even before that. Look at Euripides – one anti-Achaean play after another. The Greeks aren’t exactly the good guys in ‘The Trojan Women’ for example.

“And even before that. Look at Euripides – one anti-Achaean play after another. The Greeks aren’t exactly the good guys in ‘The Trojan Women’ for example.”

Ipthigenia at Aulis is similarly down on the Greek side. Although Euripides was writing, IIRC, when Athens and Sparta were at war.

Ah the things one thinks about when the newest love of one’s life happens to require hourly food/cuddle time. Fortunately it’s a pleasure, although the mind-altering effects and unexpected links between thoughts continue regardless.

Next would you care to interpret the equation two beers equals sex: 2 * Dos Equis = Fourex condoms ?

I attended USC for 5 1/2 years, and must have taught 300+ students there as a TA. Classics 101 (or whatever) was a popular way of fulfilling some GE requirement (because it had lots of sex, unlike Philosophy). I asked numerous undergraduates what happened when they got to the story of the Trojan Wars. They couldn’t tell me. Really — at that time at least (second half of the 80’s) USC undergraduates were, I suspect, almost uniformly ignorant of the fate of their forebears.

I also thought for my first several months that USC had its own brand of condom; having observed that it produced official semi-ponrographic calenders I did not find this surprising.

FWIW, Trojan condoms got the name because of Priam’s remarkable virility — he fathered 50 sons and an indeterminate number of daughters. (Similarly, Ramses condoms are named for a pharaoh who’s supposed to have kept a couple of hundred wives and concubines and fathered over 150 children.)