Troy, also called Ilium, was an ancient city in Asia Minor (now part of Turkey). The city was made famous in the legends of early Greece. The Iliad and the Odyssey, long poems credited to the Greek poet Homer, tell a story about Troy that is probably only partly true. The Aeneid, written by the Roman poet Virgil, also tells this story. The city’s two names come from Ilus, its legendary founder, and Tros, the father of Ilus.
The legendary Troy
was a mighty city ruled by King Priam. The king’s son Paris judged a beauty contest between the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. He chose Aphrodite as the winner because she promised to give him the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. Soon after the contest, Paris visited Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Paris fell in love with Menelaus’s wife, Helen, who was known as the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris took Helen to Troy, and thereby angered Menelaus.
The people of mainland Greece, called Achaeans by Homer, swore revenge on Paris and the people of Troy. The Greeks sent a great naval expedition to Troy. The expedition was led by Agamemnon, Menelaus’s brother. It included Achilles, Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin), and many other Greek heroes.
The Greeks attacked Troy for 10 years. But they could not capture the city, which was protected by high stone walls. Finally, Odysseus ordered workers to build a huge wooden horse, in which some Greek soldiers hid. The rest of the Greeks then pretended to sail away. They left the horse standing outside the city walls.
The curious Trojans dragged the wooden horse inside the city, though Laocoon, a Trojan priest, warned them not to do so. That night, the Greek soldiers crept out of the horse, opened the city gates, and let the rest of the Greek forces into Troy. The Greeks massacred the people of Troy and looted and burned the city. Only Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid, and a few other Trojans escaped. Paris was killed in the war, and Helen returned to Menelaus.
The real Troy.
Archaeologists have learned that Troy was founded in the early Bronze Age, which began about 3000 B.C. in Asia Minor. The city stood on a high point of a fertile plain in what is now northwestern Turkey. It was near the southern end of the Hellespont, a strait now called the Dardanelles. Archaeologists have discovered that nine cities were built on the site of Troy. Each city was built on the ruins of the one before it.
The second Troy and the sixth one were especially wealthy cities. The Trojans farmed, bred and raised horses, herded sheep, and produced woolen goods. They traded with the Mycenaeans, who lived in Greece, and with other people who lived along the Aegean coast of Asia Minor.
Scholars know little about the actual Trojan War. Archaeologists have found evidence that the Greeks may have attacked and destroyed Troy in a great expedition like the one described in the Iliad. However, no one knows the cause of the war. Ancient Greek scholars believed that Troy fell about 1184 B.C. Many archaeologists think that the seventh city on the site of Troy was the one written about in ancient Greek literature. These scholars believe that the city was destroyed about 1200 B.C.
The archaeological Troy.
The first archaeologist to conduct a major study of Troy was a German named Heinrich Schliemann. Other persons had noted that a small mound about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the Dardanelles seemed to fit the geographical location of Troy described in the Iliad. The mound was called Hissarlik. Schliemann began digging there in 1870. He found evidence that several cities had been built on the site over a long period. Near the bottom of the excavation, he discovered the ruins of an ancient city with massive walls, well-built houses, and hidden treasures of gold and silver. Schliemann mistakenly believed this city, which he called Troy II, was the Troy described by Homer.
The German archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld, who had assisted Schliemann, conducted further excavations at Troy in the 1890’s. He was the first researcher to recognize that nine cities had stood on the site. Dorpfeld believed the sixth was the city of Homer’s Iliad. This city, called Troy VI, was larger than the earlier ones and was protected by high walls. The houses were large and rectangular. They contained much pottery imported from Greece.
In 1932, Carl Blegen, an American scholar from the University of Cincinnati, began a new research expedition at Troy. His study lasted seven years. It confirmed the findings of Dorpfeld. However, Blegen believed the seventh city was the legendary Troy. According to Blegen, Troy VI represented a major stage in the development of the city, even though it was not the Troy of Greek legends. This stage was marked by the arrival of immigrants who shared many cultural characteristics with the Mycenaeans in Greece. Blegen believed that Troy VI was destroyed by an earthquake about 1270 B.C. The next city, which archaeologists called Troy VIIa, had small, crude houses that were crowded together. The city was less prosperous than the earlier Troys. Around 1200 B.C., Troy VIIa was burned with great violence. Although Blegen believed that Troy VIIa was the legendary city, archaeologists have not been able to prove that it was.
From about 1100 B.C. to 700 B.C., only small numbers of people lived at Troy. There was a small village there about 700 B.C. The last city on the site, Troy IX, was called Ilium by the Greeks and Romans. Ilium declined in the A.D. 600’s. It was abandoned about A.D. 1500. It then remained undisturbed until Schliemann discovered it.
