The actual remains of a great citadel that existed on the Western shore of Asia Minor, the traditional location of "Troy", was discovered by Heinrich Schliemann toward the end of the 19th century, putting an end to the "legend" of the Trojan War ... apparently it really happened ... a great war around the year 1250 B.C.E., a time which is compatible with the traditional story of the Trojan War.
After I started this webpage, I found out that Wolfgang Peterson is coming out with Troy, The Movie next year and I'm ecstatic. Brad Pitt will play Achilles and Peter O'Toole, King Priam.
l
to r
Heroes of the Trojan War
Menelaus | Paris | Diomedes
| Uysses | Nestor | Achilles
| Agamemnon
Agamemnon was chosen commander-in-chief; next to him the most prominent Greek heroes are his brother Menelaus, Achilles and Patroclus, two unrelated men named Ajax, Teucer, Nestor and his son Antilochus, Odysseus, Diomedes, Idomeneus, and Philoctetes, who, however, at the very outset of the expedition had to be left behind, and does not appear on the scene of action until just before the fall of Troy. The entire host of 100,000 men and 1,186 ships assembled in the harbor of Aulis. The Trojan War lasted nine years.
The number of the Trojans is scarcely one tenth that of the besiegers; and although they possess many brave heroes, such as Aeneas, Sarpedon, Glaucus, and especially Hector, in their fear of Achilles they dare not risk a general engagement, and remain holed up behind their walls.
The Iliad confines itself to the space of fifty-one days in the tenth and last year of the war.
Paris and Menelaus are going to fight it out personally at the beginning. In the general fighting that follows, Diomedes outshines everyone, even wounding Aphrodite and Ares... . The Iliad concludes with the burial of Patroclus and the funeral games established in his honor, the restoration of Hector's corpse to Priam, and the burial of Hector, for which Achilles allows an armistice of eleven days.
Click here for a very nice summary of The Trojan War by Peter T. Struck of the University of Pennsylvania. Click here to visit the site of Troy, the Movie.
|
It was on his way home from the Trogan War that Ulysses' adventures began ...
It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known - cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honoured of them all - And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains; but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard mysell, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle - Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil. Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are - One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To
strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
It is Ulysses' old dog, Argos, who recognizes him when he shows up at the palace disguised as a beggar. The nature of Our Best Friend hasn't changed in all these years.
|
The curse on the house of Atreus ...
Menelaus : Son of Atreus and brother of Agamemnon, Menelaus was married to Helen, and became the ruler of Helen's homeland, Lacedaemon.
Paris : Helen's abduction by Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, was the cause of the Trojan War.
Diomedes
: The King of Argus, who fell madly in love with Briseis. Briseis was
the daughter of the priest Calchas. Calchas managed to get Agamemnon to
ask King Priam for Briseis, and the Trojan king had her escorted to the
Greek camp by several of his sons. Diomedes fell in love with her to such
an extent that he tried to kill her betrothed Troilus every time they
met on the battlefield.
Nestor : Nestor advised that an embassy should be sent to Achilles to persuade him to return to the field; that Agamemnon should yield the maiden, the cause of the dispute, with ample gifts to atone for the wrong he had done. Agamemnon consented, and Ulysses (Odysseus), Ajax and Phoenix were sent to carry to Achilles the penitent message. They performed that duty, but Achilles was deaf to their entreaties. He positively refused to return to the field, and persisted in his resolution to embark for Greece without delay.
Modern Day ACHILLES (Brad Pitt)
Achilles : The war continued without decisive results for nine years. Then an event occurred which seemed likely to be fatal to the cause of the Greeks, and that was a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. It is at this point that the great poem of Homer begins.
Agamemnon : King of Argos and commander of the allied Greeks at the siege of Troy. [Outside the Homeric tradition, he sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to gain favor with the gods.]
Aeneas led his followers to Italy after the war.
Priam is the King of Troy who ransomed Hector's body from Achilles.
The Palladium of Athena kept Troy safe. It was stolen by Ulysses. Another name for Troy by Homer was Ilium.
The blending of the Minoan and Mycenean civilizations produced the great civilizations described by Homer. Heinrich Schliemann is the archaeologist who was in charge of the excavations at the actual city of Troy.
Test
your knowledge of the Trojan War.
Click here for a quiz.
The Trojan War
from Homer's perspective.
Menelaus fought bravely at Troy, although he did not occupy as important a position as his brother Agamemnon, who was the commander-in-chief of the Greek forces. At one point he agreed to settle the conflict by single combat with Paris, but Aphrodite interfered to prevent the duel from being decisive. Athena prompted a resumption of hostilities.
During his return from Troy, Menelaus, too, had many adventures, but, as the story goes, he eventually returned to Helen and lived happily thereafter, being taken to the Elysium Fields at the end of his mortal life.
King Priam's
treasure at Troy
Ruins at Troy (excavaction by Heinrich Schliemann)
Schliemann's excavations at Hissarlik resulted in much golden treasure about which he repeatedly lied. He also falsified dates to the Ottoman authorities. He took King Priam's gold out of the country and later donated it to a museum in Berlin from which it was stolen by the Russians. King Priam's gold is contested by Turkey, Germany, Russian, Greece and the descendants of another achaeologist on whose land it was probably discovered. This also corrupts some of Schliemann's findings over the twenty years he excavated since his data is not reliable.
For more information, see Wellington King's Heinrich Schliemann.
