Download The Trojan War

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The Trojan War
Mr. Blaber
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How Do We Know about the Trojan War?
• Most of our information comes from The IIliad of Homer, which is the earliest surviving epic poem from Western
literature.
• Homer was a wandering bard, who recited his poems in eighth century B.C.E., over 2700 years ago.
• He memorized and chanted stories of Greek heroes and gods dating back to the Mycenaean era, some 500 years
before his time.
• He would recite for about 3 hours each night for a week, and then move on to another town.
• Greece had no written language then, so this oral tradition was the only way for stories to be passed on; nobody
knows who first wrote down his stories, or when—it may have been 200 years after his death.
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What is an Epic Poem?
• Since Homer’s day, epic poetry has been a genre, or type of literature, just like drama and fictional novels are.
• Epic poems share these characteristics:
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They are long, narrative poems (in verse).
The speaker is a narrator telling a story.
The setting is huge; it may be the whole world.
The main character is a hero, or is capable of becoming a hero.
The action of the plot includes extraordinary or superhuman deeds; typically there is a long quest and the hero battles obstacles such
as monsters that test his bravery.
– Gods often intervene in events.
– The purpose of the poem is both to entertain and to instruct / inspire people about how to strive and live an admirable, honorable life.
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Greek Armament
• After the incident of the the Golden Apple (a.k.a., the Judgment of Paris), Sparta’s King Menelaus is outraged to
find that Paris has taken his wife, the beautiful Helen, back to Troy. Menelaus then calls upon all of Helen's old
suitors, as all of the suitors had made an oath long ago that they would all back Helen's husband to defend her
honor.
• Many of the suitors do not wish to go to war. Among them are the Ithacan King, the clever Odysseus, who is now
happily married to Penelope and has a newborn son, Telemachus.
• He pretends to be insane by sowing salt into his fields. This trick is uncovered by Palamedes, who places
Telemachus in front of the plow.
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Greek Armament (cont.)
• The huge Greek fleet assembles under Mycenaean King Agamemnon's inspection; thus Helen’s beauty gets immortalized as “the face that
launched a thousand ships,” by Christopher Marlowe.
• However, Agamemnon either kills one of Artemis’ sacred stags or makes a careless boast. Either way, the goddess is outraged and she
calms the seas so that the fleet cannot take off.
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Sacrifice of Iphigenia
• The seer Calchas proclaims that Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, must be sacrificed before the fleet can set sail.
• The king sends for his 15-year-old daughter, telling her mother, Clytemnestra, that the girl is to wed the greatest of Greek warriors,
Achilles.
• When Iphigenia arrives dressed for her wedding, her father sacrifices her to appease Diana, and the Greek ships set off in search of Troy.
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The War
• During the first nine years of the war, many great battles are won on both sides, but the Greeks cannot penetrate
Troy’s famously high walls.
• The ninth year sees the loss of many famous heroes: Hector and Paris among the Trojans, Patroclus and Achilles
among the Greeks.
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Death of Patroclus
• Achilles refuses to fight; he’s angry with Agamemnon for making him surrender Briseis
(a Trojan prisoner).
• Patroclus (Achilles’ cousin) dons the hero’s armor to rally the failing Greek army.
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• Priam’s son, Hector (Paris’ older brother) mistakes Patroclus for Achilles and kills him
in 1-1 combat.
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The Wrath of Achilles
• As depicted in The Illiad of Homer, the guilt-ridden Achilles exacts revenge by killing Hector.
• Unsatisfied with merely slaying Patroclus’ killer, Achilles desecrates Hector’s corpse, dragging it
behind his horses around Troy’s walls in full view of Priam, and leaving it to decompose in the
elements outside his tent.
• Priam sneeks into the Greek camp and successfully begs Achilles to return his son’s body so
Hector can receive proper burial rites.
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The Gods Have Their Revenge
• As the battle resumes, Paris shoots a fatal arrow, which is guided by Apollo, into
Achilles’ one vulnerable spot: his heel.
• Mortally wounded, Paris begs to be returned to Oenone, and pleads with her to save
him.
• Oenone—remembering Paris’ betrayal—refuses; Paris dies, and Oenone throws
herself on Paris’s funeral pyre.
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The Trojan Horse
• The Greeks realize they will only be able to capture the city if they can get some forces within Troy.
• Odysseus devises the strategy of winning the war by building a gigantic wooden horse, and leaving it on the beach.
• The wooden horse will have some selected men, led by Odysseus, hidden inside its belly. The main force of the Greeks will leave their
camp and sail their ships away, hiding behind the nearest island.
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The Trojan Horse (cont.)
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A Greek spy, Sinon, is deliberately left behind. Posing as a traitor, Sinon has the job of convincing the Trojans that the Greeks have sailed home, and that
the Trojans should bring the horse inside their walls.
The Trojan seer, Laocoön tries to warn them not to listen to Sinon, but a sea-monster sent by Poseidon, kills Laocoön and his two sons.
The sea god's intervention convinces the Trojans that they have won the war, so they bring the wooden horse within Troy's walls.
The Fall of Troy
• The Trojans celebrate their apparent victory before going to bed. The Greek warriors
inside the wooden horse climb out of the hidden compartment, and open the gate to
allow the Greek army entrance into the sleeping city.
• Agamemnon returns with the main body of the Greek army, and enters the city.
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Fall of Troy
• Fighting erupts during the night inside Troy.
• Although the Trojans fight well in their city, too many of the Trojans are killed in the first hour of attack.
• Troy is utterly destroyed and nearly every living soul inside the city is slaughtered by a Greek force bent on revenge
for 10 years of bitter warfare.
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Greek Atrocities
• The Greeks are merciless in victory, and during the sacking of Troy commit a series of barbarous crimes, which greatly offend Poseidon
and other gods who had aided them.
• First, Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, commits a great sacrilege when he butchers the helpless, aged Trojan King Priam, who is in the act of
praying to the gods for mercy at the temple of Zeus.
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Greek Atrocities (cont.)
• Next, Astyanax, Hector's infant son, is flung to his death from the top of Troy's wall.
• Finally, the seer Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, clings for protection to the statue of the goddess
Athena, but Ajax rapes her, yet another sacrilege.
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Aftermath
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Athena and Poseidon had been two of the most powerful allies of the Greek forces throughout the war. However, the failure of most of the Greek leaders
to punish Ajax for the sacrilege of her (Athena's) altar, results in the destruction of most of the Greek fleet.
Athena calls upon Poseidon to bring a violent storm upon the Greek fleet. While many ships are destroyed by the sudden storm, Ajax swims to a rock and
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boasts that not even a god can kill him.
Poseidon hurls a thunderbolt and splits the rock that Ajax clings to. Ajax falls into the sea and drowns.
Aftermath (cont.)
• Few leaders escape the storm and return safely to Greece, while others are either exiled from their home or migrate
to other lands after the war, founding cities in various part of Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
• Agamemnon’s fate is typical of these cursed Greeks. He manages to return home only to be murdered by his
vengeful wife’s new lover.
• Odysseus’s 10-year struggle to regain his homeland of Ithaca provides the basis for Homer’s epic poem The
Odyssey. Throughout this journey, Odysseus is plagued by Poseidon, who is unwilling to forgive the Greeks’
atrocities at Troy.
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Did the Trojan War Really Happen?
• “There is nothing in the archaeological record to contradict the assertion that Troy and the surrounding countryside
formed the setting for Homer's Iliad in 700 B.C. ”
• “If someone came up to me at the excavation one day and expressed his or her belief that the Trojan War did
indeed happen here, my response as an archaeologist working at Troy would be: Why not?”
– Manfred Korfmann is director of excavations at Troy and a professor of archaeology at the University of Tübingen. These quotes are
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