Trojan War was a conflict in which ancient Greece defeated the city of Troy. The legend of the war inspired many leading works of classical literature. Some of the events that occurred during and after the Trojan War became the subject of three great epic poems—the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to the Greek poet Homer, and the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil. The heroes and victims of the war were portrayed in such Greek tragedies as Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Ajax by Sophocles, and The Trojan Women by Euripides.
Scholars do not agree about the truth behind the legend of the Trojan War. Some of them believe it distorts and exaggerates small conflicts involving the Greeks from about 1500 to 1200 B.C. Others think the legend is based on one great war, which most say probably took place about 1200 B.C. The Homeric epics combine historical material of different times with fictional material. As a result, the works are not reliable historical documents. But archaeologists have found historical evidence in the ruins of Troy and other places that confirms certain events described in the epics.
The beginning of the war.
According to ancient Greek myths, the Trojan War resulted from an incident at the wedding feast of Peleus, the king of Phthia, and Thetis, a sea goddess. All the gods and goddesses had been invited except Eris, the goddess of discord. Eris was offended and tried to stir up trouble. She sent a golden apple inscribed “For the most beautiful.” Three goddesses—Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite—each claimed the apple, and a quarrel began. Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, judged the dispute. He awarded the apple to Aphrodite because she promised him Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.
Helen was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. But when Paris visited her, she fled with him to Troy. Menelaus and his brother, Agamemnon, organized a large Greek expedition against Troy to win Helen back. The Greek army included such heroes as Achilles, Ajax the Greater, Nestor, and Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin).
The siege of Troy.
The Greek army laid siege to Troy for 10 years but could not conquer the city. The Iliad describes some of the events that occurred during the last year of the struggle. The war began to go badly for the Greeks after Achilles, their bravest warrior, left the battlefield. Achilles refused to fight because Agamemnon, the Greek commander, had insulted him. The Trojans, led by Hector, drove the Greeks back to their ships. Achilles finally returned to combat after his best friend, Patroclus, had been slain by Hector. Achilles killed Hector to avenge Patroclus’ death.
The Iliad ends with Hector’s funeral, and Greek legends relate events that followed. The Trojans received help from their allies, the Ethiopians and an army of women warriors called Amazons. But Achilles enabled the Greeks to defeat their enemies by killing Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons, and Memnon, the king of the Ethiopians. Paris, aided by the god Apollo, later shot Achilles in the heel with an arrow and killed him.
The fall of Troy
is described in the Aeneid. The Greeks built a huge wooden horse, which has become known as the Trojan horse, and placed it outside the walls of Troy. Odysseus and other warriors hid inside the horse while the rest of the Greek army sailed away.
The prophetess Cassandra and the priest Laocoon warned the Trojans against taking the horse into their city. But Sinon, a Greek prisoner, persuaded them that the horse was sacred and would bring the protection of the gods. The Trojans then pulled the horse into Troy. That night they fell asleep after celebrating their apparent victory. Odysseus and his companions then crept out of the horse and opened the city gates for the rest of their warriors, who had returned from a nearby island.
The Greeks took back Helen, killed almost all the Trojans, and burned Troy. According to the Aeneid, the few Trojan survivors included the warrior Aeneas, whose descendants founded Rome.
