Download Study Notes for Trojan War Quiz Be sure you know:

Study Notes for Trojan War Quiz
Be sure you know:
- Primary source of information about the Trojan War
- Characteristics of Epic Poems
Names of people involved in the Trojan War:
•
Homer: is credited with the Iliad and the Odyssey; a traveling bard (poet) who
composed stories about Greek heroes and gods from the Mycenaean era (around
1300 B.C.E.) – recited them @ 3 hours each night, then moved on to new town
•
Odysseus: King of Ithaca, married to Penelope, doesn’t want to go to war,
pretends he is crazy. Tested by having his baby (Telemachus) put in front of
plow to see if he would plow over him. He doesn’t, so he has to go to war. He
comes up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. (Beware of Greeks bearing gifts)
•
Paris: betrays the nymph Oenone when he awards the Golden Apple to the
goddess Aphrodite in return for her promise of a beautiful wife; takes King
Menelaus’s wife, Helen, back to Troy, dies in Trojan War when Oenone refuses
to save his life after he is wounded in battle.
•
Priam and Hecuba: king and queen of Troy, parents of Hector, Paris, and
Cassandra; Priam is killed during the sacking of Troy
•
Helen: wife of Spartan King Menelaus, lover of Paris, abandons her husband to
be with Paris, very beautiful (the face that launched a thousand ships)
•
Menelaus: Spartan King, Helen’s husband, angry that Helen has left him to be
with Paris, declares war against the people of Troy, holds Greek warriors to their
promise to defend Helen’s honor should anyone steal Helen from her husband
•
Artemis (Roman name is Diana): Greek goddess, protector of wild animals,
offended by the Greeks when they kill a stag without making proper offerings to
her, so stops the winds and therefore the Greek fleet can’t take off; demands
Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter to appease her.
•
Calchas: a seer, says Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to
appease goddess Artemis. Agamemnon has his daughter sacrificed.
•
Agamemnon: brother of Menelaus, Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of
the Greeks during the Trojan War; he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to appease
Artemis (Diana) so the Greeks could sail to Troy; he is is killed by his vengeful
wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover when he returns home after the war.
•
Achilles: a Myrmidon (Greek city-state), responsible for the death of Hector
(from Troy); died himself as he was shot in his heel – his only vulnerable spot
•
Patroclus: a Greek killed by Hector after donning Achilles’ armour when
Achilles refuses to fight due to a dispute with Agamemnon
•
Sinon: Greek spy who tells Trojans that the Greeks have gone home and
persuades Trojan King Priam to accept the horse and take it inside the walls of
Troy
•
Laocoon: a Trojan seer who tries to warn the Trojans that Sinon is not telling the
truth about he Greeks going home; he and his two sons are killed by Poseidon’s
sea serpent
•
Poseidon: Greek god of the sea, offended by how the Greeks treated the Trojans
after he helps the Greeks win the war; brings about a violent storm so Greek fleet
can’t go home, causes Ajax to drown; torments Odysseus on his homeward
journey
•
Neoptolemus: son of Achilles, kills Trojan King Priam at the temple of Zeus to
avenge his dad’s death, thus committing one of the atrocities that offend the gods
•
Astyanax: Hector’s infant son, flung to his death by the Greeks from the walls of
Troy—another one of the atrocities
•
Cassandra: a Trojan seer, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, raped by Ajax at the
statue of goddess Athena—the third of the Greek’s atrocities
•
Athena: goddess of wisdom, angry at Greeks, especially Ajax for raping
Cassandra at the statue of Athena