Page 57 - All About History - Issue 29-15

The Truth Behind the

Trojan

War

Thankstonewexcavationsandprogressinthestudy
ofancienttexts,scholarsaremoreconvincedthanever

that there is a kernel of truth in the myth

Written by Barry Strauss

he Greeks and Romans often retold the story the war came. For nine years the Greeks ravaged and
of the Trojan War, but the earliest and most looted the Trojan countryside and surrounding islands,
prestigious version is Homer’s. He was a Greek- but they made no progress against the city of Troy, an
speaking poet who probably lived in about impregnable fortress.
T 700 BCE in what is now western Turkey and Then, the Greek army nearly fell apart. A deadly
composed two epic poems, stories of heroes long gone epidemic was followed by a mutiny on the part of
by. They are the Iliad or Story of Ilion (that is, Troy) Greece’s greatest warrior, Achilles. The issue, once
and the Odyssey or Story of Odysseus. Their focus, the again, was a woman: this time, the beautiful Briseis,
Trojan War, took place about 500 years earlier. a prize of war unjustly grabbed from Achilles by
Homer enjoyed a long tradition of oral poetry Agamemnon. Achilles withdrew himself and his men
and even perhaps written sources going back to the from fighting. The Trojans, led by their hero Hector,
era of the Trojan War, and he could visit sites and nearly destroyed the Greeks, but after they killed
monuments beginning with the ruins of Troy. His Achilles’ friend and lieutenant Patroclus, Achilles
poems combine fact and myth. returned to battle. He killed Hector and saved the
According to myth, the Trojan War was a great Greek army.
conflict lasting ten years and pitting all Greece against But the war dragged on – most of the details come
the Trojans and their allies. Heroic champions fought from other epic poems besides Homer’s, now largely
on both sides. Even Amazons and Ethiopians got lost. Achilles himself is killed. Finally, the Greek
involved before the war was done. The Olympian gods hero Odysseus leads the Greeks to victory at Troy by
themselves played a major role. thinking up the brilliant trick of smuggling Greek
The cause of the war was a woman: Helen, the warriors into Troy in the Trojan Horse, an operation
beautiful queen of Sparta, known in English as Helen that he also led. Troy was sacked, and of the major
of Troy. Prince Paris (also known as Alexander) of Troy Trojan heroes, only Aeneas survived. The Romans later
seduced Helen while visiting Sparta. The two fled claimed that Aeneas and a group of Trojan refugees
to Troy, taking with them much of Sparta’s treasury. crossed the Mediterranean to Italy and founded what
Supported by the other Greek kings, Helen’s husband, eventually became Rome.
King Menelaus, and his brother, King Agamemnon of But how much of the Iliad stems from truth? Is it all
Mycenae, put together an armed Greek coalition to sail just myth, passed down from generation to generation,
to Troy with an ultimatum. or is there a more historical basis to the Trojan War?
The Greeks landed at Troy and demanded the return Thanks to new findings, we can finally begin to piece
of Helen and the treasure. The Trojans refused, and so together the mystery.
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