3.19: The Challenge of Dionysus

Location: Larissa, Aeolia

Time Remaining: 1 Month, 12 Days

The next contests were the test of reasoning and ‘aesthetic sensibility’. The first of these was a puzzle designed by Athena and crafted by Hephaestus. It was a colorful cube made of six pyramids, each constructed from 18 numbered triangular tiles that came apart and spun around. The goal of the puzzle was to rearrange the pieces so that each side of each pyramid had only one color of tile, with the numbers adding up to the same value on each side. Each contestant was given one of these contraptions, and one night to solve it.


Ares grew frustrated with his, and threw the heavy metal object into the woods (accidentally killing a deer, much to his horror). Apollo solved it correctly three times in the time he had it, but in the end returned it the judges scrambled, arguing that it was preposterous to consider the ordered form of the solved cube its ‘natural state’ and that he had discovered a combination that represented flawless chaos. Dionysus had the bright idea to simply repaint the surfaces of the triangles to provide the appropriate solution, and did a beautiful job, but had knowingly elected not to use the colors or fonts Hephaestus had chosen when he crafted the original, making it obvious to all that he had cheated.

Odysseus had stayed up late chatting with Penelope, and they had invited Menelaus and Helen to join them. Odysseus had carefully and deliberately solved the puzzle once, shuffled it again, and then solved it again more slowly as Menelaus sat across the table with his own puzzle. Not surprisingly, Menelaus was able to solve his own soon afterward.

Ajax broke his – not in frustration, but simply in confusion – and when Teucer saw the shattered remains of the puzzle, he had the bright idea to pry his own apart, disassembling it into its smallest component pieces, before rebuilding it in its correct configuration. Diomedes and Achilles managed to get the colors in the right place, but not the numbers, giving them each a ‘partial win’. Paris stayed up clear through the night moving the pieces essentially at random while thinking about Helen, and near morning noticed that, at some point, the pieces had all fallen into place by chance. The other suitors returned their puzzles the next morning with no real progress.

The aesthetic competition had proven more vexing to the contenders, and ultimately, all of the gods participating recused themselves from the contests, despite Aphrodite’s protests, so that they could execute the challenge. Dionysus presented each of the contestants with two matched items, one of mundane origin, created by master craftsmen, and the other of divine origin, created that morning, and asked contestants to discern which was the better work. Who was asked to judge which pairs of items was made random, to avoid handing any of the contestants an easy win.

Odysseus was required to judge between two pieces of music – one composed by Apollo and one created by a master composer from the far east. He sat attentively as one of Peleus’s performers played the two pieces on his lyre. Odysseus had no ear for music (not the delicate chords of the lyre, anyway) but he could tell which of the pieces the musician struggled with, and correctly guessed that the more difficult piece was Apollo’s.

Teucer was asked to judge between two soups, one created by Aeolia’s best cook, using the finest Thessalian vegetables, and the other created by Hestia, with ingredients grown from Demeter’s garden. He admitted he had no idea which one was the better one, but asked for seconds either way. Ajax had to judge between two wines. One was a fine Malagousia from the best winery in Macedonia, and the other was a vintage of Dionysus’s creation. Ajax didn’t know which one was which, but after indulging in it himself, Dionysus forgot which one was the right one. Diomedes was required to judge an interpretive dance choreographed by Apollo, but he was run out of the room by the dance’s creator after using an especially offensive word to describe its performer. Achilles was asked to judge two swords – one forged in Sparta by Tyndareus’s best blacksmith, and the other by Hephaestus himself. Achilles studied the two swords for a moment, and then struck them against each other with the most force he could muster. The Spartan sword snapped, and Achilles correctly determined that the surviving weapon must be the one forged by Hephaestus.

And then there were Menelaus and Paris, the two most ardent suitors.

Paris was presented with two bulls, and asked to determine which of the bulls was – in fact – Ares in disguise. Paris genuinely had no idea, despite the mortal bull being from his own father’s stock, and so he quietly flipped the coin Odysseus gave him – it was 50/50 chance after all – and got lucky.

Menelaus was presented with two sculptures – one a beautiful piece created in Troy, and the other crafted by Apollo. Odysseus despaired at his inability to help the man with this task, but after sitting quietly, studying them for a full forty-five minutes, Menelaus gave his answer. Both statues represented a slightly older style that was popular among artists during the reconstruction of Troy, but only one conveyed the “nuanced lugubriousness" of an artist who’d survived Heracles’s sack of Troy – the other, which he rightly inferred to be Apollo’s – had clearly been created with steadier hands and finer tools, but lacking the gravitas of personal loss, he felt that it did not personally speak to him in the same way. Dionysus wept, and Odysseus decided he did need to reevaluate his assessment of Menelaus.