Download THE CONFLICT THAT LEADS TO THE TROJAN WAR

Use the following websites to locate your answers:
www.timelessmyths.com/classical/trojanwar.html
www.stanford.edu/~plomio/history.html
www.faculty-staff.ou.edu/m/Erika.D.Mitchell-Deluca-1/PeleusandThetis.html
BACKGROUND TO THE ILIAD; THE CAUSE OF THE TROJAN WAR
THE WEDDING
A. __________, the fleet-footed nymph of the sea (goddess) was forced by __________ to marry
a mortal named ___________.
B. All the gods and goddesses and many mortals were invited except for _______, the goddess
of ____________.
C. In her anger for not being invited, she decided to wreak some havoc, and from above the
wedding, she dropped a _________________ that had the words ______________________
inscribed on it.
D. The three goddesses who found it were Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena.
E. They began to argue over who was the true winner of the gift.
F. They decided to have a beauty contest.
G. They asked ____________ to be the judge, but he refused to be a part of this ridiculous feud.
THE PROPHECY
A. A prophet told ____________ and ______________, the King and Queen of _________ that
their son __________ would be the downfall of ____________.
B. Fearful of this prophecy coming true, the king and queen gave their son to a soldier to take
to a mountain to kill, as one version states.
C. In one version, the soldier felt guilty and left the baby to die on the side of the mountain, but
a shepherd finds him, takes the infant home with the shepherd, and raises the baby as a
shepherd’s son. In another version, the soldier didn’t have the heart to kill a baby and took
him far off to a shepherd and his barren wife to be raised as their own son.
D. Knowing his true identity, the goddesses, by Aphrodite’s influence (in one version) and
Zeus’s influence (in another version), ask him to be the judge of their beauty pageant.
THE BEAUTY PAGEANT
A. Each of the goddesses offer Paris gifts in exchange for him selecting one of them as the most
beautiful goddess.
B. Hera, the goddess of ____________________ and wife to __________, offers
_____________________________ to Paris if he chooses her. Answers vary based on
different versions of the story.
C. Athena, the goddess of ______________ and _____________, offers
_________________________ if he chooses her. Answers may vary based on different
versions.
D. Aphrodite, the goddess of __________, offers the most beautiful woman, __________, if he
chooses her.
E. In one version, Aphrodite also tells him who he really is and tells him she will get his rightful
place as ______________ of Troy restored to him if he chooses her.
F. Paris chooses _________________.
Use the following websites to locate your answers:
http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/heroes2.html
www.pantheon.org
www.2020site.org/trojanwar
THE CONFLICT THAT LEADS TO THE TROJAN WAR
A. Paris and his parents mend everything, and Paris is returned to Troy to be with the other
prince, his brother __________, the mighty __________ of Troy.
B. With the assistance of Aphrodite, Paris is sent to ____________ to establish peace between
__________ and ___________. He meets with King _________________.
C. One version of the story is that while the king was on a hunting exhibition, Aphrodite places
a spell on _______________, the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, and she runs away
with him to _______.
D. Another more popular version is their fated romance led them to find one another, and they
fell madly in love upon first sight, and when King ______________ was away from Sparta,
they escaped to Troy.
E. One version is that Helen was the daughter of a beautiful mortal, Leda and the most
powerful god Zeus, who took her mother by force. Leda was devastated by this and her
husband, King ___________ disappeared for most of her pregnancy. Once Helen was born,
Leda threw herself off the top of the castle, and Helen’s step-father, King __________
blamed Helen for all of this.
F. Helen was so beautiful that many warriors and princes fought for her hand in marriage. Her
step-father was worried that a war could be started because of her beauty (foreshadowing).
Odysseus, ruler of Ithaca, came up with an idea. Odysseus said for the king to force all the
___________ to make an oath: whoever was ___________ by the king to be ___________
husband, the others would support him. And if anyone tried to break up the new marriage,
the other suitors and warriors of Greece would come to the couple’s rescue. The suitors and
other warriors took the oath, and Menalaus was chosen as Helen’s husband.
G. When King ____________ returns home to find his bride missing and figures out what
happened, he furiously contacts his brother _________________, the ruthless and more
powerful king of Mycenae as well as commander of the entire Greek forces.
H. Under the rule of ___________, an army is put together. They needed many good warriors,
but they especially needed two of the best warriors, who took an oath to be under their
command whenever the marriage between __________ and __________ was jeopardized.
They had to go whether they wanted to or not.
I.
When the two kings went to seek _____________, one of the mightiest and smartest warriors,
this man pretended to be _______________ because he did not want to leave his wife
_____________, his home ____________, and his newborn son _______________.
J.
King Agamemnon’s lieutenant Palamedes decides to test this supposed madness by placing
__________________ son in front of a wheat slicing contraption and if
____________________ was ____________ then he would allow
_____________________________________________ because he was ________. However,
just as the boy was about to be killed by the apparatus, the warrior desperately rushes to
save his son, causing his ruse to be uncovered. He was then forced to set sail to __________
to help retrieve ___________ and Odysseus never forgave Palamedes. He even implicated
Palamedes in being a __________ for supposedly accepting gold from the Trojans. The gold
was even found near Palamedes’ tent. For this treason, ______________ was ________ to
death.
K. Both warriors gathered their dearest comrades, necessities, and ships and traveled across
the ___________ Sea and towards ______.
BACKGROUND ON ACHILLES
A. Thetis, the mother of _____________, was forced to marry a mortal. When she had her son,
many gods and goddesses were angered by this birth because they hated half-gods or halfbloods.
B. While Achilles was an infant, one account says that she anointed Achilles in ________ before
____________________, burning away the ________ parts of his body, making him
invulnerable from ordinary weapons. When Ahcilles’ father _______discovered she held
their son over a fire, he cried out in alarm, and snatched him out of the flames, leaving
Achilles ____________ except for his heels. Annoyed with her husband's interferences,
Thetis left her husband and son and returned home to the sea.
C. Another more popular version is in fear for her infant’s life, holding him by the
____________, Thetis dipped him in the _________________ in order to make him
invincible. Only one spot was not protected. This is where we get the term
_________________________.
D. When the kings chose to find ________, they were told he was in Scyros in a disguise.
E. His mother was told of a prophecy that the ________ or Acheans could not defeat _____
without _________. When he was a _______, she hid him on the island of Scyrus, disguised
as a girl to be one of the young girls in the court of King Lycomedes . While there, one of the
princesses Deidaemeia fell in love with Achilles and bore him a son Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus).
F. _________ was sent by Agamemnon and Menelaus to uncover the disguised Achilles and
bring him to Troy to fight. In order to figure out which one was the great warrior ________,
they offered all of the women gifts.
G. They offered _____________, _________________, and ______________.
H. Odysseus knew which young girl was actually Achilles in disguise because _________ was
the only “woman” to be fascinated with armor and ___________ and when the Greeks blew
their trumpets as if the island were being attack, Achilles snatched the_______, thereby
revealing his ________. Once discovered however, Achilles willingly joined the Greeks.
I.
When Achilles is about to depart for Troy, his mother begs him to reconsider. She tells him
that he has a choice of how his fate will be decided. If he stays and doesn’t go to ________, he
will live a happy life with a wonderful woman who will give him many sons and daughters.
However, once his family line dies out, his _________ and ___________ will also
____________. If he goes to Troy, he will receive _______________ fame and __________
and will be talked about for the rest of __________; but, he will not return from Troy. He
will die there.
J.
Achilles chooses fame and glory and because of this, he actually chooses ________.