The Trojan War

The Trojan War is a legendary conflict from Greek mythology, believed by the ancient Greeks to have occurred near the Dardanelles in the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was fought between the Achaeans, or Greeks, and the city of Troy. It began when Paris, a Trojan prince, took Helen, the wife of Menelaus, the Spartan king, from her home. This event is central to Greek mythology and is told in many literary works, most famously in Homer’s *Iliad* and *Odyssey*. The *Iliad* covers just four days and two nights in the tenth year of the ten-year siege, while the *Odyssey* follows the hero Odysseus on his journey home after the war. Other parts of the story come from a cycle of epic poems, though only fragments of these survive. The war also inspired Greek tragedies, other literature, and Roman poets like Virgil and Ovid.

By the mid-nineteenth century, both Troy and the war were widely considered non-historical. In 1868, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann met Frank Calvert, who convinced him that Troy was located at Hisarlık in modern-day Turkey. Excavations by Schliemann and others have led most scholars to accept this site. Whether the Trojan War actually happened is still debated. Many scholars think the Homeric tales may have a historical core, possibly combining stories of various Mycenaean Greek sieges and expeditions from the Bronze Age. Those who believe in a specific historical conflict often date it to the twelfth or eleventh century BC, with some favoring the dates given by Eratosthenes—1194 to 1184 BC—which roughly match archaeological evidence of a catastrophic fire at Troy VII and the Late Bronze Age collapse.

The events of the war come from many Greek literary and artistic sources, with no single authoritative text telling the whole story. The *Iliad* and *Odyssey*, composed between the ninth and sixth centuries BC, are the most important, but each covers only part of the war. Other parts are found in the Epic Cycle, including the *Cypria*, *Aethiopis*, *Little Iliad*, *Iliou Persis*, *Nostoi*, and *Telegony*, which survive only in fragments but are known from a summary in Proclus’s *Chrestomathy*. These poems were likely written down in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, based on earlier oral traditions. Even after these works were composed, the myths were passed on orally through poetry and storytelling. Details found only in later authors may come from this oral tradition. Visual art, like vase paintings, also spread the stories. Later, playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote dramas about the war, and the Roman poet Virgil, in Book 2 of his *Aeneid*, has Aeneas describe the sack of Troy.

The legend traditionally begins with a quarrel among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, sparked by Eris, the goddess of discord. Not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris threw a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest.” Each goddess claimed it, and they asked a shepherd—actually Paris, a Trojan prince raised in the countryside—to judge. Each promised him a reward: power, wisdom, or love. Paris chose love, awarding the apple to Aphrodite. This angered Hera and Athena but earned him Aphrodite’s blessing, causing Helen, the most beautiful woman and queen of Sparta, to fall in love with him. When Helen left her family for Paris, her husband Menelaus called on all the Greek kings and princes to wage war on Troy. Menelaus’s brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, led the Achaean expedition, besieging Troy for ten years. After many heroes died—including the Achaeans Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojans Hector and Paris—the city fell through the trick of the Trojan Horse. The Achaeans slaughtered most Trojans, keeping or enslaving some women and children, and desecrated temples, earning the gods’ wrath. Few Achaeans returned home safely; many founded colonies abroad. The Romans later traced their origins to Aeneas.