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Sandstone relief from Mathura , Uttara Pradesh, Kushan period, 2nd century. I just came across this sculpture of a man seizing or restraining a woman by both arms; another woman at right appears shocked. Abduction scene? dunno. One source suggested she was a drunken courtesan, but then why restrain her? My first thought was Draupadi being taken by Duryodhan, but no sari-pulling or hair-pulling. Maybe someone knows. In that instance, war resulted, culminating in the battle of Kurukshetra as recounted in the Mahabharata.

But this got me thinking about rape in epic literature (originally a contradiction in terms, since epics were sung, but no matter). It’s all over the Iliad and Odysseus, and Greek myth in general (I wrote a book documenting that, see Comments.) There are the foundational stories about the Rape of the Sabine women in the establishment of Rome, and the rape of Lucretia which led to the overthrow of the monarchy and founding of the Roman Republic. Other stories refer to rape as triggering wars.

Biblical stories refer to Shechem abducting and raping Dinah, daughter of Jacob (Genesis 34:1–31). In another chapter, the men of Sodom tried to rape two visitors to the house of Lot; he refused and offered them his virgin daughters instead. (Genesis 19:4–9). [Demerits to all the scholars who tried to explain this as a manifestation of traditional hospitality, not the utter devaluation of women; how was protection of family against violence not traditional?]

A similar dynamic plays out in the story of the Benjaminite men who demand that a traveler be surrendered up to them to be raped. He puts his concubine out the door instead. (I’ll tell this horrific story in Comments, but trigger warrning, and same goes for what follows.) This rape-murder leads to the other Israelite tribes making war on the Benjaminites, who refused to surrender the rapists. A bloody civil war follows, with much slaughter.

Then, having killed off most of the tribe, they felt sorry for nearly wiping out one of the Twelve Tribes. Having slain the people of Jabesh Gilead, including women, all except for virgins they had taken captive, the other tribes gave the teenager survivors over to the Benjaminites. But more female chattel were needed for wives (they must have killed a lot of women), so a plan was concocted for the Benjaminites to abduct the maidens of Shiloh at a festival dance.

Judges 21:20: “Look, there is the annual festival of the Lord in Shiloh, Go and hide in the vineyards and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin.”

“When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Do us the favor of helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war. You will not be guilty of breaking your oath because you did not give your daughters to them’.” (New International Version)

This mass abduction followed by serial rapes resembles the Roman story of the Sabine women, also seized at a festival. Actually, now that I think of it, Greek stories have this same theme, especially around the capture of maidens dancing at festivals of Artemis. And even an elaboration in which Spartan men dress up as maidens for a dance, either to ambush the neighboring Messenians, or to use as a pretext for invading western Greece.

Readers may be able to name other instances of this theme of rape triggering war, in ancient literature, in epic traditions of whatever nationality, or in historical legends. It is not a subject much discussed, as far as I can see, and deserves more attention. Reply in Comments.