The Iliad is a poem about market laws. The Trojan War is a war against decay and waste (Troy means gnawing). Peleus is the clay. Thetis (or Metis) means mixing. Achilles is the trowel. Achilles’ heel is the joint between the blade and the handle of the trowel; the point where the tool usually breaks. Patroclus is the plaster; sticking matter (denoted by the -clos ending) inserted between building stones. Agamemnon is the metallurgist (class). Catreus is the hidden resources/stocks; the character represents the behavior of some merchants leading to artificial inflation of the market price. The English word cat is a cognate of Catreus; the animal is named after its characteristic behavior to hide its excrements.
Paris is the price
stick, the price in general. Helen of Sparta is the timing of public water
supply restrictions; the idea of timing was ‘stolen’ by the workers and the
merchants; hence, Helen of Sparta became Helen of Troy (work and market timing).
Helen of Troy is the work-hours, the market opening times; it represents a
standardization of the work value, the salary; this concept should provide for
just pricing of products.
Atreus is the rasp.
Mycenae means small particles such as sparkles of fire, raspings, or sawdust. Achaeans
means noise-makers and represents the knocking artisans such as the smiths and
carpenters. Danaans are the public transport and distribution networks and the
related workers. Argives are the stockers, wholesalers; they have deposits of
goods. In Homer, the word ship is frequently, if not always, used for
container.
Hellas, the Greek
name of Greece, means brush, and Hellenes are the painters. Myrmidons are the
masons. The Trojan horse is the barrel. Skyros is the concrete. Lemnos is
economic inactivity, stagnation, financial sanctions. Neoptolemus is the theft.
Calchas is the weather cone (the ancient meteorologist and his weather
predictions). Priam means purchase; he was killed by Neoptolemus, the theft. Hecuba
is the storing (she never died). Philoctetes is the irrational consumer,
over-consumption. The couple Hector and Andromache stands for measures and
weights. Cassandra and Helenus stand for the pan-balance and the standard
counterweight, respectively. Astyanax is an evolved type of portable balance. Scamander
is the mixing bowl, the balance pan or similar wide-lipped container.
Deiphobus
represents the market-price inflation, the cut-downs, and the austerity
policies imposed as consequences of over-consumption (Philoctetes).
The myth of the
Apple of Discord refers to ‘gold standards’, and how to fix them; these are the
just levels in terms of market economy.