The Trojan War is the name given to a war described in an epic poem in Ancient Greek called the Iliad, attributed by the Ancient Greeks to a poet whom they called Homer. The Iliad describes an episode in this war, the siege of the city of Troy by the Greeks (called by Homer the Achaeans).
The Greeks had no doubt that Homer was describing historical events. They believed that this war took place in the 13th or 12th century BC, and that Troy was located in the vicinity of the Dardanelles in what is now north-western Turkey. In 1870 the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a site in this area which he believed to be the site of Troy.
It remains the fact, however, that there is no firm evidence that any such place as Troy ever existed, still less that any of the events described by Homer in the Iliad ever took place. Most historians now believe that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various stories of sieges and expeditions by the Greeks of the Bronze Age or Mycenean period, and do not describe actual events.
The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of Olympus to the forced wedding of Peleus and Thetis, who would become the parents of Achilles, but Eris (the goddess of strife) had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.
Eris therefore tossed into the party a golden apple inscribed "Kallisti" - "For the most beautiful one"- provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the most beautiful. Greek mythological morality being what it was, each of the three goddesses immediately attempted to bribe Paris to choose her. Hera offered political power and control of all of Asia, Athena skill in battle, wisdom and the abilities of the greatest warriors, and Aphrodite the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. Paris was a red-blooded young man, and while the length of time he meditated on this problem is not recorded, he did eventually award the apple to Aphrodite.
Since Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world, she had had many suitors. To keep the peace between them, Odysseus made them all promise to defend the marriage of Helen and whomever she chose. She chose Menelaus, and when Paris kidnapped her (according to some, she fell in love with Paris and left willingly), all of Greece attacked Troy - the Trojan War.
When the Greeks left for the Trojan War, they accidentally stopped in Mysia, ruled by King Telephus. In the battle, Achilles wounded Telephus, who killed Thersander. The wound would not heal and Telephus asked an oracle who claimed "he that wounded shall heal").
According to others' reports of Euripides' lost play about Telephus, he went to Aulis, pretending to be a beggar, and asked Achilles to help heal his wound. Achilles refused, claiming to have no medical knowledge. Alternatively, Telephus held Orestes for ransom, the ransom being Achilles' aid in healing the wound. Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound and the spear must be able to heal it. Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound, and Telephus was healed. This is an example of sympathetic magic.
Artemis punished Agamemnon after he killed a (sacred) deer in a (sacred) grove and boasted he was a better hunter than her. On his way to Troy to participate in the Trojan War, Agamemnon's ships were suddenly motionless as Artemis stopped the wind in Aulis. An oracle named Calchis told Agamemnon that the only way to appease Artemis was to sacrifice Iphigenia, his daughter. According to some versions, he did so, but others claim that he sacrificed a deer in her place and Iphigenia was taken to the Crimea to prepare others for sacrifice to Artemis. Still other sources claim he was prepared to sacrifice her, but Artemis whisked her to Taurus in the Crimea. Hesiod said she became the goddess Hecate.
See also "Achilles Joins The War" below
The Greeks captured Helenus, son of King Priam of Troy, a prophet, and tortured him until he told them under what circumstances they could take Troy. Helenus said they would win if they retrieved Heracles' arrows (which were in Philoctetes's possession); steal the Trojan Palladium (they accomplished this with the Trojan Horse; or Odysseus and Diomedes did so one night) and persuade Achilles' son (Neoptolemus) to join the war. Neoptolemus was hiding from the war at Scyros but the Greeks retrieved him. Alternatively, he told them that they could win if Troilius, Helenus' half-brother, son of Apollo and Hecuba, was killed before he turned twenty. Achilles ambushed Troilius.
The Greeks brought Pelops' bones to help them win the war. An oracle said they would be necessary to win.
An oracle had prophesied that the first Greek to walk on the land after stepping off a ship in the Trojan War would be the first to die. Protesilaus, leader of the Phylacians, fulfilled this prophesy. His wife, Laodamia, followed him to his death. Alternatively, Hector killed Protesilaus and Laodamia killed herself in grief.
After Protesilaus' death, his brother, Podarces, joined the war in his place.
Philoctetes was Heracles' friend and, because he lit Heracles' funeral pyre when no one else would, he received Heracles' bow and arrows.
He sailed with seven ships full of men to the Trojan War, where he was planning on fighting for the Greeks. They stopped on Chryse for supplies and Philoctetes was bitten by a snake. The wound festered and smelled horrible; Odysseus advised and the Atreidae ordered Philoctetes to stay on Lemnos. Medon took control Philoctetes' men. He was there on Lemnos, alone, for ten years.
Later, though, Helenus, son of King Priam of Troy, was tortured until he revealed that one of the conditions of the Greeks winning the Trojan War was that they had the bow and arrows of Heracles. Odysseus and Neoptolemus retrieved Philoctetes from Lemnos. Philoctetes' wound was healed by Machaon or Asclepius. Philoctetes then killed Paris.
An oracle, Calchas, stated that the Greeks would not win without Achilles but his mother, Thetis, knew he would die there. His mother thus hid him at the court of Lycomedes in Scyros, disguised as a woman. There he had an affair with Deidamea resulting in a child, Neoptolemus. He was found out, however, by Odysseus, Ajax the great and Phoenix, who arrived disguised as a peddler with trinkets and weaponry. Achilles was marked out from the other women by admiring the wrong goods. Alternatively, he was found out by a blast of the trumpet, whence instead of cowering he grabbed a spear to ward off the attackers. From there he needed little convincing to go to Troy, accompanied by his best friend Patroclus and his tutor, Phoenix (this is the same Phoenix that accompanied Odysseus to Scyros in a different, much later version).
Achilles abducted a woman named Briseis to keep as a concubine. After an oracle forced Agamemnon to give up a woman he had captured, Chryseis, Agamemnon took Briseis to compensate himself. Apollo forced Agamemnon to do this because he had taunted Chryseis' father, Chryses, when he tried to buy his daughter back. Achilles pouted and refused to fight.
Achilles and Agamemnon argued and Achilles refused to fight any longer; Patroclus donned his armor and took his place and was killed by Hector (who also took Achilles' armor). Enraged, Achilles killed Hector (after his mother acquired new armor from Hephaestus and Hector was injured by Ajax) and dragged his body around Troy three times before allowing Priam (Hector's father and king of Troy) to bury it.
During the Trojan War, Xanthus, a magical horse, was rebuked by Achilles for allowing Patroclus to be killed. Xanthus responded by saying that a god had killed Patroclus and a god would soon kill Achilles too. The Erinyes struck the horse dumb.
Shortly after the death of Hector, Achilles defeated Memnon of Ethiopia, Cycnus of Colonae and the Amazonian warrior Penthesilia (with whom Achilles also had an affair in some versions). He was very soon after killed by Paris- either by an arrow to the heel, or in an older version by a knife to the back (or heel) while visiting a Trojan princess, Polyxena, during a truce. Both versions conspicuously deny the killer any sort of valor, and Achilles remains undefeated on the battlefield. His bones are mingled with those of Patroclus, and funeral games are held. Like Ajax; he is represented as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the Danube.
Achilles' armor was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Ajax. They competed for it and Odysseus won. Ajax went mad with grief and vowed to kill his comrades; he started killing cattle (thinking they were Greek soldiers), and then himself.
Diomedes almost killed Aeneas in battle but Aphrodite, Aeneas' mother, saved him. Diomedes wounded Aphrodite and she dropped her son, fleeing to Mt. Olympus. Aeneas was then eneveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who took him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy. Artemis healed Aeneas there.
Later in the war, Diomedes fought with Hector and saw Ares, the war-god, fighting on the Trojans' side. Diomedes called for his soldiers to fall back slowly. Hera, Ares' mother, saw Ares' interference and asked Zeus, Ares' father, for permission to drive Ares away from the battlefield. Hera encouraged Diomedes to attack Ares and he threw his spear at the god. Athena drove the spear into Ares' body and he bellowed in pain and fled to Mt. Olympus, forcing the Trojans to fall back.
The Greek siege of Troy had lasted for ten years. The Greeks devised a new ruse - a giant hollow wooden horse. It was built by Epeius and filled with Greek warriors led by Odysseus. The rest of the Greek army appeared to leave and the Trojans accepted the horse as a peace offering. A Greek spy, Sinon, convinced the Trojans the horse was a gift despite the warnings of Laocoon and Cassandra. The Trojans celebrated hugely and when the Greeks emerged from the horse the city was in a drunken stupor. The Greek warriors opened the city gates to allow the rest of the army access and the city was ruthlessly pillaged.
Odysseus never forgave Palamedes for sending him to the Trojan War (Palamedes exposed Odysseus as a fake when he pretended to be insane). When Palamedes advised the Trojans to return home, Odysseus accused him of being a traitor and forged false evidence and found a fake witness to testify against him. Palamedes was stoned to death.
The ghost of Achilles appeared to the survivors of the war, demanding Polyxena, the Trojan princess, be sacrificed before anybody could leave. Neoptolemus did so.
According to one story, Menelaus' couldn't sail because the wind was calm. He had to catch Proteus, a shape-shifting sea god to find out what sacrifices to which gods he would have to make to guarantee safe passage. Proteus also told Menelaus that he was destined for Elysium (Heaven) after his death. Menelaus returned to Sparta with Helen.
Hecuba was enslaved by the Achaeans.
Lycaon was enslaved by Achilles. He was later killed trying to escape.
After the war, Idomeneus' ship hit a horrible storm. Idomeneus promised Poseidon that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw when he returned home if Poseidon would save his ship and crew. The first living thing was his son, whom Idomeneus duly sacrificed. The gods were angry at his murder of his own son and they sent him in exile to Calabria in Italy. (Virgil III, 400)
In an alternate version, his own subjects on Crete sent him in exile because he brought a plague with him from Troy. He fled to Calabria, and then Colophon, Asia Minor, where he died.
Since Antenor, Priam's brother-in-law, had supported giving Helen back to the Greeks, he was spared.
Cassandra was raped by Ajax the lesser, then taken as a concubine by Agamemnon.
Neoptolemus took Andromache and Helenus as slaves and married Andromache.
Creusa was killed escaping Troy. Her husband, Aeneas, with his trumpeter Misenus, father Anchises, healer Iapyx, wife Creusa, son Anchises, all the Lares and Penates and Mimas as a guide, escaped to Italy. Aeneas went on to found Rome, making this one of the most important events of the Trojan War.
The story of the siege of Troy provided inspiration for many pieces of art, most famously Homer's Iliad, set in the last year of the siege.
Some of the others include Troades by Euripides, Troilus & Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer and Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz (1855-1858).
The Trojan War as described by Homer
The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
The War
Telephus
Agamemnon and Iphigenia
The Role of Helenus and Other Oracles
Philoctetes
Achilles Joins The War
The Death of Patroclus
Chryseis/Briseis
Achilles and Patroclus
Xanthus
The Death Of Achilles
Achilles' Armor/Death of Ajax
Diomedes
The Trojan Horse
The Death of Palamedes
The Aftermath
The Trojan War In Art
Participants
Participants on the Greek Side
Participants on the Trojan Side
Armies on the Greek Side
Armies on the Trojan Side
Participant/Killer
Unknown Side (Someone help?)
External link