Trojan War

The reality

• In 1275 BCE a city named ‘Illium’ on the northwest coast of modern Turkey is attacked and destroyed by a group of Greeks
• In 850 BCE, a blind poet from the area named Homer composes the epic poem the Iliad
• We know that Homer knew the area and that ruins were still uncovered in his time because his descriptions in poem match the archeology and topography
• Through the poem and other works, the Trojan War, the heroes in it and their journeys home take on the significance as the end of the golden age of heroes
• By why?
• Two possibilities
• Iron trade through the Hellespont from the Caucasus Mountains
• The Greeks were allies of the Hittite Empire and were given the territory to conquer because Troy and some other cities had broken away

Births and beginnings

• It’s Zeus’ fault (as usual)
• He rapes a woman named Leda…  Who happens to be the queen of Sparta
• Since Zeus was in the form of a swan at the time, she lays three eggs
• Helen
• Clytemnestra
• Castor and Pollex
• Sparta has a dual throne (two kings) so Castor and Pollex are perfect as successors
• Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world and EVERYONE wants to marry her
• All the suitors gather, all the kings and/or princes of Greece and there are threats, etc until Odysseus, king of Ithaca (who doesn’t want to be there anyway) proposes an oath:
• All the suitors must swear to defend Helen’s marriage and abide by her choice
• In exchange, Odysseus gets off the hook to marry Penelope and Helen chooses the one suitor not there, Menelaus—The younger brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae
• Menelaus sent Agamemnon as his representative because Agamemnon was going to marry Helen’s sister Clytemnestra
• Menelaus swore to sacrifice 100 oxen to Aphrodite…  He forgets… 

Eris and Paris

• Zeus (again) has discovered the identity of the woman who will bear the son to overthrow him, the sea nymph Thetis
• He arranges a marriage to Peleus, a minor king and all the gods are invited to the wedding
• At the wedding, the goddess Eris (discord) throws an apple into the crowd with “to the fairest” written on it—Aphrodite, Hera and Athena all claim it
• To solve the problem, Zeus sends them to ask a mortal—Paris
• Paris is a prince of Troy who is living in exile (and unaware of his heritage) because of a prophecy he would destroy Troy

·         Helen and Paris run off

o    After the judgment, Paris discovers his heritage after he beats everyone (including another prince of Troy)

o    Paris is sent to Sparta on a diplomatic mission

·         Helen sees him and… 

o    When Menelaus leaves for Crete, Helen and Paris set sail for Troy

o    When he gets home Menelaus immediately travels to Ithaca, picks up Odysseus and the two sail to Troy to try and solve the problem diplomatically…  They fail

·         The treaty Odysseus created then kicks into effect and Menelaus goes to Agamemnon to enforce the oath

o    Agamemnon begins to gather the Greek forces

·         Two holdouts: Odysseus and Achilles

o    Odysseus didn't want to marry Helen in the first place, so he tries to get out of it by pretending to go mad

·         When Agamemnon's men show up to collect him and his soldiers, he starts to plow the fields and sow salt

§  One of Agamemnon's men throws Odysseus’ infant son in front of the plow and Odysseus proves he is sane by stopping

• Achilles
• Agamemnon sends Achilles’ old tutor to get him but Achilles’ mother hides him by dressing him up as a woman
• Discovered and chooses to go
• He’s 15!!!
• Everyone makes for Aulis, a port city
• Buuut everyone is delayed in getting there…  By eight years!  Winds keep pushing them back
• Artimis was mad at Agamemnon for some reason and said that the only way he would leave for Troy was if he sacrificed his daughter
• His wife tells him no, but he then takes his daughter in the middle of the night, sacrifices her on the beach at dawn before his wife is awake and sets off
• According to Homer, the Greek forces consist of some 70-130k men in some 1200 ships
• The Trojans have been preparing—Hector, the oldest son, has been gathering an equal number of allies
• Finally, the Greeks reach Tenedos, an island off the Trojen coast
• Try again to get Helen back diplomatically—Fail again

Ten years of war

• Most of the war is unwritten
• The Iliad only details the last year of the war
• What we do know is that it was not just a siege of Troy
• The Greeks, under their various commanders, ranged around Asia Minor, etc, wreaking havoc on the Trojan’s allies (and others)
• When the Greeks first land, the Trojans are waiting for them
• Achilles kills one of the Trojan commanders, Cycnus, who just happens to be a son of Poseidon… 
• We also get the first mention of a new and later important player
• A young soldier named Aeneas kills one of the Greek commanders
• Ajax—King of Salamis and good friend of Achilles
• At one point he and Achilles are playing a board game, petteia, and are so absorbed in their game that they do not notice that the Trojans have attacked and there is a battle around them!
• Right before the events chronicled in the Iliad, there is a mutiny among the Greeks
• The men have gotten tired of nine years of wandering around, fighting various peoples, etc.
• Achilles makes them all stay
• The Iliad
• Starts with Agamemnon taking the daughter of the chief priest of Apollo as a slave
• Apollo sends a plague on the Greeks and Agamemnon sends Odysseus to return her
• He then takes Achilles’ slave-girl
• Achilles gets mad and goes into his tent, refuses to come out
• There are a lot of battles back and forth, the gods begin to get involved (and wounded!) but without Achilles, Hector begins to drive the Greeks back
• Eventually, morale among the Greeks is so bad that Achilles sends his cousin Patroculus out in his armor to boost the troops
• Patroclus gets killed by Hector—Takes the armor and weapons
• Achilles swears revenge and sends to his mother for help
• She arrives with new armor and weapons forged by Hephaestus
• Achilles wades into a huuuge battle which eventually involves all the gods too and drives the Trojans back to the walls of their city
• Hector is tricked into staying outside the walls by Athena and is killed by Achilles
• Achilles ties the body of Hector to his chariot and starts to ride around the walls of Troy
• He refuses to give the Trojans the body to bury
• Eventually, Hermes takes the king of Troy, Priam, to Achilles and Achilles gives Priam Hector’s body in exchange for a truce to bury the dead
• While the truce holds, Priam sends for his stepbrother Memnon who has fresh reinforcements
• Memnon also has armor and weapons made by Hephestus and he fights Achilles
• At this point, Zeus finally chooses a side and tells Apollo to guide Paris’ hand as Paris shoots an arrow into Achilles’ heel
• While Odysseus takes command of the Greeks, Ajax carries the body of his friend away
• Agamemnon awards Achilles’ armor to Odysseus
• Ajax is driven mad by this and plans to kills his own men but Athena makes him believe that some shepherds he comes across are his target
• In the morning, he realizes what he has done and kills himself
• There is a prophecy that Troy will never fall unless the bow of Hercules is brought—Philoctetes, the friend of Hercules who has it, was injured on the way out from Greece and is recovering on the island of Lemnos
• He is brought and kills Paris with the bow of Hercules
• Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar and sneaks into Troy
• Helen spots him and she reveals she is homesick
• That, and Paris two dumb brothers are fighting over her
• The two plan the horse
• The Trojan Horse
• Horse was the symbol of Posidon, and the Trojans loved Posidon and Apollo
• Cassandra warns against keeping the horse, but, as usual, no one believes her
• The sack of Troy
• The Greeks massacre the Trojans
• Even though some of the gods helped the Greeks, the Greeks commit heinous acts of desecration in or to all the temples in Troy
• Only two, Nestor and Odysseus, refuse and tries to stem the violence 
• Cassandra is taken prisoner by Agamemnon