Trojan war
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was a war in which a coalition of Achaean armies faced off against the city of Troy, located in Asia Minor, and its allies. According to Homer, it would be a punitive expedition by the Achaeans, whose pretext would have been the kidnapping —or flight— of Helen of Sparta by Prince Paris of Troy.
This war is one of the central axes of the Greco-Roman epic and was narrated since archaic times in a cycle of epic poems of which only two have survived intact to the present day, the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer. The Iliad describes an episode of this war, and the Odyssey narrates the journey home of Odysseus, one of the Greek leaders. Many other later Greek and Roman writers produced different accounts of this war. Likewise, painters and sculptors represented multiple passages from the Trojan War in their works.
The ancient Greeks believed that the Trojan War really happened. The historian Herodotus was of the opinion that this war had been the original cause of the enmities between the Persians and the Greeks. Some of their customs were even related to this war, such as the virgins sent annually by the Locrians to the temple of Athena in Troy. On the other hand, the Romans considered themselves descendants of the Trojans who managed to survive the war. However, some ancient authors questioned the veracity of some of the reported events.
The excavations carried out by Heinrich Schliemann at the end of the XIX century, as well as the study of documents from the royal archives of the Hittite Empire began to feed a prolific debate on the existence of a historical foundation in the Trojan War. However, although the identity of Troy as a historical setting is agreed upon by most scholars, it has not been possible to prove that a war expedition led by Greek attackers was launched against the city.
The myth
Background. The Judgment of Paris
Zeus becomes king of the gods after dethroning his father Cronus; Crono in turn had dethroned his father Urano. Zeus hears a prophecy that he in turn will be dethroned by one of his sons. Another prophecy says that a son of the nymph Thetis would be greater than his father. Possibly for one of these reasons, Thetis married by order of Zeus with a mortal, King Peleus. Peleus and Thetis had a son named Achilles who, according to another prophecy, would die young in Troy.
All the gods were invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, except Eris. She is she showed up unexpectedly at the wedding and she left on the table a golden apple on which was inscribed the word kallisti ('for the most beautiful'). The apple was claimed by Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Zeus settled the matter by appointing Paris, a Trojan prince, arbitrator, who had been raised as a shepherd following a prophecy, according to which he would be the cause of the fall of Troy.
The goddesses wanted to bribe Paris by offering him gifts if they were chosen: Athena offered him victory in battle; Hera promised him political power and Aphrodite offered him the love of Helen of Sparta. Paris granted the apple to Aphrodite.
The Kidnapping of Helena
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Helen was the daughter of Leda, who was married to Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan; traditions differ as to which of Leda's four sons were by Zeus and which by Tyndareus, but Homer presents Helen as the daughter of Zeus.
Helen had many suitors, and Tyndareus was reluctant to choose one for fear the others would retaliate. Finally, one of the suitors, Odysseus of Ithaca (Ulysses in Roman mythology), came up with a plan. He made everyone promise to defend whoever was chosen as Helena's husband. Once the oath had been sworn, Tyndareus —or Helen herself, according to another tradition— chose Menelaus, and also gave him the throne of Sparta. On the other hand, his brother Agamemnon, married to Helen's sister, Clytemnestra, He held the throne of Mycenae.
Sent to make diplomatic deals in Sparta, Paris took advantage of the fact that Menelaus had to travel to Crete to pay funeral honors to his grandfather and, with the help of Aphrodite, kidnapped or seduced Helen. Together they embarked for Troy, where they arrived after a long journey in which they passed through Phoenicia and Cyprus. All the kings and princes of Greece were called upon to fulfill her oath and get her back.
Recruitment and leadership of troops
Most of the Greek kings were willing to go to war and provide ships and soldiers. This was not the case with Odysseus, who reigned in Ithaca, was married to Penelope and had a son, Telemachus. To avoid going to war, he pretended to be crazy and started plowing with a team of ox and horse. Palamedes outwitted him and put his son Telemachus before the plow. Odysseus sat up, unwilling to kill his son, revealing his sanity and being forced to go to war.
The soothsayer Calchas predicted that the city of Troy could never be conquered without Achilles participating in the battle. His mother Thetis, knowing that Achilles would die if he went to Troy, disguised him as a woman at the court of King Lycomedes in Scyrus. There he had a loving relationship with the king's daughter, Deidamía, from whom they had a son, Neoptolemus. Odysseus discovered Achilles among the women and thus got him to participate in the expedition.
On the other hand, when the Greeks tried to get King Cinyras of Cyprus to join the alliance, he sent a cuirass as a gift to Agamemnon and also promised to send fifty ships. However, he only sent one real ship, while the other forty-nine were simply clay models.
Eventually, a fleet of more than a thousand ships was assembled under the command of Agamemnon.
Journey to Troy
When the Greeks left for the Trojan War, they took the wrong course and ended up in Mysia, ruled by Telephus. In a battle Achilles wounded Telephus. Since his wound did not heal, Telephus asked the oracle and he predicted that the same one who injured him should heal him. Telephus pretended to be a beggar and asked Achilles to help heal his wound. Achilles refused, claiming he had no medical knowledge. Odysseus said that the spear had caused the wound and the spear could heal it. Small pieces of the spear were placed on the wound and it healed. Telephus showed them the way to Troy grateful for his cure.
When the expedition prepared to set sail again from Áulide, the winds ceased. Calchas predicted that the goddess Artemis was punishing Agamemnon for killing a sacred stag (or killing a stag in a sacred grove) and bragging that he was a better hunter than she was. The only way to appease Artemis was to sacrifice Agamemnon's most beautiful daughter, Iphigenia. Iphigenia was transferred from Mycenae to Áulis under the false pretext that she was going to become the wife of Achilles. When she arrived, Agamemnon prepared to sacrifice her, but at the last moment Artemis replaced the young woman with a deer and took her to Taurica, where she was a priestess of her cult. There she was in charge of sacrificing all foreigners who came to the place, in honor of Artemis. Hesiod says that she became the goddess Hecate.
Philoctetes had in his possession the bow and arrows that Heracles had given him, since he lit the hero's funeral pyre when no one else wanted to. He sailed with seven ships full of men to the Trojan War, where he planned to fight on the side of the Greeks. They stopped at an island and there Philoctetes was bitten by a snake. The wound became infected and gave off a great stench; then Odysseus, by order of Agamemnon, left him abandoned on Lemnos. Medonte, son of Oileus, took command of the men from Philoctetes, who remained alone on Lemnos for ten years.
Start of the war
Before the bulk of the Greek army reached Troy, an embassy was sent to the city in which Odysseus and Menelaus petitioned the assembly of the Trojans for the return of Helen along with all her belongings. The Trojans refused and even tried to kill the envoys, who were saved thanks to the mediation of the Trojan Antenor. After this event, the Greeks reached the beaches of Troy, where they engaged in a first battle against the Trojans who tried to prevent the landing.
The oracle prophesied that the first Greek to set foot on land would be the first to die in the Trojan War. Protesilaus, captain of the Philaceans, fulfilled this prophecy. Hector killed Protesilaus, and Laodamia, his wife, committed suicide in grief.After Protesilaus's death, his brother Podarces went to war in his place.
After a battle on the beach, the Achaeans prevailed. Among others, Achilles killed a son of Poseidon, Cycnus, who was fighting on the Trojan side. Cynus was invulnerable to weapons and Achilles killed him by strangling him or hitting him with a stone.
The Greeks besieged Troy for nine years. During that time, they sacked many towns in the area. Achilles slew Troilus in the temple of Apollo Timbreus, and on another occasion, when Achilles was able to enter the city by night, he took Lycaon as a prisoner, Dissensions also sometimes arose among the Greeks themselves. On one of these occasions, Odysseus, who wanted to take revenge on Palamedes, hatched a ruse that consisted of forcing a Phrygian prisoner to write a letter that supposedly was sent by the Trojan king Priam and buried a certain amount of gold under the Palamedes store. When the Greeks read the letter and discovered the gold, they believed that Palamedes was a traitor and stoned him to death.
In dividing up the spoils of looting, Agamemnon took Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo, as a slave. When Chryses tried to ransom him, he was mistreated, so he asked Apollo to punish the Greeks, and the army was struck by a plague.
Facts from the Iliad
The oracle issued by Calchas said that the plague would only cease if Agamemnon returned Chryseis to her father. Angry at this, and with Achilles (who guaranteed the oracle's fulfillment), Agamemnon agreed to return Chryseis, but instead took Achilles' concubine, Briseis. For this reason Achilles refused to continue fighting in the war and asked his mother Thetis to intercede so that Zeus favored the Trojans and caused harm to the Achaeans. The following days the Greeks were severely punished in battle and the main warriors, except for Ajax, were seriously wounded. The Trojans, led by Hector, advanced non-stop on the Greek positions, even reaching the ships, which began to set fire; They would have succeeded but for the resistance of Ajax and the arrival of Patroclus.
In view of the danger, Achilles had let his companion Patroclus wear his armor and lead the troops into battle. The arrival of Patroclus gave the Greeks new encouragement and they managed to drive the Trojans from the ships. However, Hector killed Patroclus and kept Achilles' armor after an arduous battle that had broken out over Patroclus's lifeless body. When the news of what had happened reached him, Achilles swore revenge, killed Hector and dragged his body tied to his chariot around the walls of Troy three times. After holding funeral games in honor of Patroclus, Achilles was still grieving and continued to circle Hector's body three times a day around Patroclus's funeral pyre. Finally Priam, accompanied by Hermes, went one night in person to beg him to return the body of his son, whereupon he relented and accepted a twelve-day truce while Hector's funeral lasted.
Death of Achilles
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Shortly after Hector's death, new allies came to the aid of the Trojans. Achilles defeated the Amazon Penthesilea (with whom he fell in love after he had already killed her) and Memnon of Ethiopia. After these events, the death of Achilles occurred; either from an arrow in his heel shot by Paris and directed by Apollo, or in another version, directly by the god Apollo Funeral games were held in his honor.
In another version quite different from the previous ones, Achilles was assassinated in an ambush by Paris with the help of his brother Deiphobo in the temple of Apollo Timbreo, where he arrived with the intention of arranging his marriage with one of the daughters of Priam, Polyxena.
Death of Ajax and oracles about the outcome of the war
Achilles' armor was a matter of dispute between Odysseus and Ajax. They competed for it, with Odysseus winning. Ajax, enraged, swore to kill his companions but, because of a fit of madness that Athena had instilled in him, he began to kill cattle, thinking they were Greek soldiers. Later, after regaining his sanity, he committed suicide.
Chalkas prophesied that Troy could only be taken if they recovered Heracles' arrows, which were in the possession of Philoctetes; Odysseus and Diomedes brought Philoctetes from Lemnos. His wound was healed by Podalirio. Philoctetes killed Paris with his arrows, thus avenging Achilles.
After Paris' death, Priam's two other sons, Deiphobus and Helenus, quarreled over being Helen's new husband. Deiphobus was chosen and Hellenus, outraged, withdrew from Troy and settled on Mount Ida.
Later, Calchas assured that Hélenus, who was also a fortune teller, knew the oracles that protected the city. So the Greeks captured him and forced him to say under what circumstances they could take Troy. Helenus predicted that for Troy to be taken it was necessary for them to bring back the bones of Pelops, to steal the Trojan statue of Pallas Athena (called Palladius) and for Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, to participate in the war. The Greeks managed to fulfill all three conditions. Neoptolemus was on the island of Scyros, but the Greeks tracked him down.
The Trojan Horse
The siege of Troy lasted ten years. The Greeks devised a new ruse, a large hollow wooden horse. It was built by Epeo and occupied by Greek soldiers led by Odysseus. The rest of the Greek army pretended to leave and a Greek spy, Sinon, convinced the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athena. Despite the warnings of Laocoon and Cassandra, the Trojans brought the horse into the city and made a great celebration, and when the Greeks got off the horse, the whole city was in a drunken sleep. The Greek warriors opened the gates of the city to allow entry to the rest of the troops and it was mercilessly looted.
Plunder of Troy
During the sack, the Greeks slaughtered most of the Trojans and set the city on fire. Cassandra was outraged by Ajax the Less or dragged by him while she was clinging to the statue of Athena. Menelaus killed Deiphobus and recovered Helen. King Priam was slain by Neoptolemus on the altar of Zeus Herceus. Hector's son Astyanax was also killed by the Achaeans, who threw him from the top of a tower.
After the sack, the Greeks made sacrifices to the gods. Some of the surviving Trojan women were enslaved: Neoptolemus obtained Hector's wife, Andromache; Agamemnon got Cassandra; Queen Hecuba was part of the booty given to Odysseus. However, Laodice was swallowed up by the earth. On the other hand, Polyxena was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles.
Surviving Trojans
When Hecuba was held captive by the Greeks, she learned that her youngest son, Polydorus, had been killed by King Polylimnestor of Thrace. There are three versions of her death: the first, that she committed suicide out of despair; the second, that the Greeks murdered her; and the third, that the gods turned her into a dog when they heard her howl for the death of her children.
Three of Priam's sisters who were also captives—Etila, Astioque, and Medesicaste—set fire to the ships they were in with the Greeks while they were near a river in Italy, since then called Naveto.
Since Antenor, Priam's brother-in-law, had been in favor of returning Helen to the Greeks, he and his family were spared. Later, he led a group of Trojans who settled on the Adriatic coast creating a new Troy. He is credited with the mythical foundation of Padua.
Helenus accompanied Neoptolemus and they marched on foot to the country of the Molossians. There he would have married Deidamia, mother of Neoptolemus or, when he died, Andromache. They ruled over a territory called Caonia.
Aeneas led a group of survivors, including his son Ascanius, Misenus the trumpeter, his father Anchises, and the physician Yapige. His wife, Creúsa, disappeared during the sacking of the city. They fled Troy in several ships, seeking to settle in a new home. They arrived in several nearby countries that were not hospitable, and finally it was prophesied that they should return to the land of their ancestors. First they tried it in Crete, which Dárdano had colonized, but they found it devastated by the same plague that had expelled Idomeneo. They found the colony led by Hellenus and Andromache, but they refused to stay there. After seven years they reached Carthage, where Aeneas had an affair with Dido. Finally the gods ordered them to continue (Dido committed suicide), and they arrived in Italy.
Here a prophetess took him to the underworld and predicted the greatness of Rome, which would be founded by her people. He negotiated a settlement with the local Latin king, and married his daughter Lavinia. This triggered a war with other local tribes, but the settlement of Lavinio was eventually founded. His son Ascanio (son of Aeneas or Creúsa or Aeneas and Lavinia) founded Alba Longa. Three hundred years later, according to Roman myth, his descendants Romulus and Remus founded Rome.
Return of the Achaean survivors
Before leaving Troy there was a confrontation between Agamemnon and Menelaus because the former wanted to make sacrifices to Athena before leaving and the latter wanted to set sail immediately. Menelaus, Nestor, and Diomedes were among those who immediately started back.
Only a few of the Achaeans reached their homeland happily; some suffered great hardships or were expelled from their realms upon arrival; others were shipwrecked and others wandered for a time to different places in the Mediterranean such as southern Anatolia, Libya, Thrace, Italy, Sicily, Cyprus and other islands, where they settled and founded cities.
According to the Odyssey, Menelaus' fleet was pushed by storms towards Crete and Egypt, from where they could not continue sailing due to the lack of winds. Menelaus had to catch Proteus, a marine deity, to find out what sacrifices to the gods they had to make to ensure a safe passage. Proteus also told Menelaus that he was destined for Elysium after his death. After wandering for several years, Menelaus was able to return to Sparta with Helen.
Odysseus, after ten years of travel (narrated in the Odyssey), arrived in Ithaca after twenty years (the ten of the war and the ten of return). During his journey he was in the country of the Cycones, in the country of the lotus eaters, on the island of the Cyclops, the island of Aeolus, the country of the Laestrygonians, on the island of Circe, in the country of the Cimmerians, in the island of Calipso and finally in the country of the Phaeacians. When he arrived in Ithaca, many pretenders to the throne who believed him dead engaged in battle against Odysseus. This, helped by Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philetio was able to kill the suitors and recovered the kingdom from him.
Ajax the Lesser died while making his return journey to Locris: Athena fired lightning at his ship and Poseidon sank the rock on which Ajax had managed to cling.
Some of the Achaeans fell victim to Nauplius' revenge: after failing to get compensation for the death of his son Palamedes, he had toured Greece inciting the wives of the Achaean warlords to commit adultery. Furthermore, when he learned of the return of the Greeks, Nauplius waved a torch that guided many ships to the cliffs of Cape Cafereus (in Euboea), where they crashed and were shipwrecked.
Idomeneo's ship was hit by a terrible storm. Idomeneus promised Poseidon that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw when he returned home if he would save his ship and its crew. The first living thing he saw was his son, so he sacrificed it. This act triggered a plague and his own subjects drove him out. He went to Salento in Italy, where he settled.According to another version, he was expelled from Crete by Leuco, who ruled part of Crete after having murdered the wife and daughter of Idomeneo.
Agamemnon returned home to Mycenae. His wife Clytemnestra had a relationship with Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, cousin of Agamemnon. Possibly as revenge for the death of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra conspired with her lover to kill Agamemnon. Cassandra predicted this murder and warned Agamemnon, but he ignored her. He was killed at a banquet or in his bathroom, according to different versions. Cassandra was also killed. Agamemnon's son Orestes, who had been away, returned and conspired with his sister Electra to avenge his father. They killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Orestes married Hermione and retook Mycenae, becoming king of all the Peloponnese.
Debate on the historical background
In Antiquity
The ancient Greeks believed that the facts Homer related were true. They believed this war to have taken place in the 13th century BC. C. or in the XII century B.C. C.., in addition to stating that Troy was located near the Dardanelles Strait in the northwest of the Anatolian peninsula. Herodotus mentions the Persian version of the story, where the abduction of Helen by Paris (also called Alexander) leads to the Greek invasion being the first European interruption in Asia and the defeat of King Priam, before the Asians invaded Europe; that is to say, not only did he consider the war safe, but, according to the Persians, this was the original cause of the enmities between that people and the Greeks; Thucydides considered that Agamemnon led the Greeks due to his power as king of Mycenae. However, some ancient authors questioned the veracity of some of the events reported. Thucydides, in particular, considered the figures of the Achaean combatants given by Homer to be exaggerated, and Dion of Prusa made a speech in which he even argued that the winners of the war had actually been the Trojans.
In modern times
Starting in 1870, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated the hill of Hisarlik, where they found the remains of a city that coincides with the position that Troy was considered to occupy since antiquity. Since then, archaeological investigations have been carried out to try to prove the historicity of the war. Some historians believe that, of the ten stratigraphic layers of the city, Troy VI or Troy VII may have suffered a war that would be the historical core of the Trojan War epic. The main arguments that have been put forward in this regard are its chronology —the end of Troy VI took place around 1300-1250 BC. C., which would coincide with the apogee of the Mycenaean world, and the end of Troy VII-A around 1200-1180 BC. C.—, its size and importance —from 1988 the lower city of Troy VI was found, protected by a defensive system— and the interpretation of some particular archaeological findings. Other historical arguments have been added to the archaeological arguments, such as the presence of Troy in contemporary documents of the Hittite Empire, under the name of Wilusa.
However, while there is general agreement to identify Hittite Wilusa with Troy, the interpretation of Hittite documents that mention the city has been the subject of debate. It has been argued that these documents are not easily interpretable, neither with respect to their chronology nor for the understanding of the content and that, therefore, each author interprets them according to what is best for him to support his postulates. On the other hand, regarding the archaeological data, the indications show that the cause of the destruction of Troy VI is more likely to be an earthquake, while the problem of identifying the war with the destruction of Troy VII-A is that it would coincide. with the period of great instability in the Mycenaean world that led to the destruction of its palaces. Another controversial aspect is the comparison between the world shown in the Homeric poems and the historical panorama of the Mycenaean world that has been drawn from Linear B texts and Mycenaean archaeology.
Among the advocates of a historic Trojan War are the leading archaeologists who have conducted excavations at Troy—Schliemann, Dörpfeld, Blegen, and Korfmann. Against them is a current of skeptical opinion headed by Moses Finley that denies the presence of Mycenaean elements in the Homeric poems and points out the absence of archaeological evidence about the historicity of the myth. Other prominent scholars belonging to this skeptical current are the historian Frank Kolb and archaeologist Dieter Hertel. Joachim Latacz, in a study in which he relates archaeological sources, Hittite historical sources and Homeric passages such as the Catalogue of the ships of book II of the Iliad, considers the origin proven. Mycenaean origin of the legend but, regarding the historicity of the war, he has been cautious, only conceding that a historical substratum is likely.
Another view—advocated, among others, by Trevor Bryce—is that the Trojan War may have had a small historical core through a fusion of various attacks on Troy by the Bronze Age Greeks rather than a great siege.
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