The Legend of Troy
The legend of Troy has been passed down to us from over three thousand years ago. The story of Achilles, Troy and the Wooden Horse is one of the most famous in the world. But what is the legend, really? And is it anything more than just a myth?
The Legend
Most of what we know about the story of the Trojan War comes from a two and a half thousand year old epic composed by a poet, Homer, called the Iliad. But it actually only tells the story of the very last year of the war - which lasted ten years, by the way! So what can we piece together about the rest of the war on Troy?
The story begins with a competition between three goddesses: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Each of them wants to win the prize: a golden apple, inscribed with the words "for the most beautiful". When their judge, a young Trojan prince by the name of Paris, awards the apple to Aphrodite, she promises in return that he can marry Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of the Greek lord, Menelaus. Paris steals Helen away to Troy, Menelaus is enraged and gathers a force of ships to attack Troy and bring her back... and the Trojan War begins.
The legend says that the fighting around Troy lasted for ten years. We know of some of the battles that were supposed to take place, as well as some legendary duels between the heroes. At last, however, Odysseus has an idea. He tells the Greeks to build a wooden horse, big enough to fit some soldiers inside. Once the horse is finished, a few of the Greeks climb inside and hide; the rest leave Troy on their ships, pretending to retreat. Only the wooden horse is left on the seashore. The Trojans are overjoyed, thinking that the Greek forces have left, and they drag the horse into the city of Troy, believing it to be a sacred offering to the goddess Athena. When night falls, however, the Greeks jump out of the horse's belly and open the gates of Troy from the inside to the rest of the army - and Troy is burnt to ashes.
The Facts
So much for the story - but what about the facts? Was Helen a real woman? Did Troy really exist? Well, for a long time Troy was thought to be nothing more than a myth – a story made up by poets to entertain their audiences. But in 1884, the German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, determined to prove the authenticity of Homer’s Iliad, published an astonishing finding. “I have proved,” he wrote, “that in a remote antiquity there was in the plain of Troy a large city, destroyed of old by a fearful catastrophe, which had on the hill of Hisarlık only its Acropolis, with its temples and a few other large edifices, whilst its lower city extended in an easterly, southerly, and westerly direction, on the site of the later Ilium; and that, consequently, this city answers perfectly to the Homeric description of the site of sacred Ilios."
In other words, he had discovered Troy.
This was a sensational find. The ancient city of Troy had long been thought – if it existed at all – to be located somewhere on the plain in the north-western corner of Turkey, on the eastern coast of the Dardanelles (the ancient Greek Hellespont – the narrow strip of water that separates Europe from Asia and connects the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara). But no-one had known exactly where to place it, and all attempts to find the ancient city had been fruitless. Following a tip-off from another amateur archaeologist by the name of Frank Calvert, however, Schliemann started excavating in 1871 on the hill of Hisarlık, near modern Çanakkale. And what he discovered there was more than even he could have ever hoped for. The site of Troy had, in fact, it transpired, been settled for over two thousand years before the city of Troy mentioned in Homer, and had been continually built over and lived in until the 6th century CE, when it fell out of use. The site was preserved as a complex layering of different cities, one over the other, with the most recent settlement at Troy – a Roman city called Ilium – on top of layers of other, older cities. But it was the layer we now label as Troy VI (Troy X being the most recent layer, Troy I the earliest) that is the most interesting: because this seems in every respect to match up with the ancient Bronze Age city of Troy – and the city of Homer’s Iliad.
What archaelogists have discovered since has changed our picture of the Homeric poems forever. Not only has Troy been found to have been a large city for its time, capable of maintaining a population of between five and ten thousand people, with defensive fortifications with a perimeter wall and towers, and an upper city with houses and palaces; but it was also clearly a powerful trading centre in the Aegean Bronze Age, situated between the civilisations of Ancient Greece and Anatolia, and directly on the shipping route from the Aegean to the Black Sea. Set on a hill overlooking the coast, with its defensive walls and natural harbour, Troy must have been one of the best-placed trading centres of the Bronze Age world.
Which makes it fairly easy to imagine why an expedition might have set out from Ancient Greece to take it for their own. Who knows - perhaps Achilles really did once walk over the plain of Troy...
The Legend
Most of what we know about the story of the Trojan War comes from a two and a half thousand year old epic composed by a poet, Homer, called the Iliad. But it actually only tells the story of the very last year of the war - which lasted ten years, by the way! So what can we piece together about the rest of the war on Troy?
The story begins with a competition between three goddesses: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Each of them wants to win the prize: a golden apple, inscribed with the words "for the most beautiful". When their judge, a young Trojan prince by the name of Paris, awards the apple to Aphrodite, she promises in return that he can marry Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of the Greek lord, Menelaus. Paris steals Helen away to Troy, Menelaus is enraged and gathers a force of ships to attack Troy and bring her back... and the Trojan War begins.
The legend says that the fighting around Troy lasted for ten years. We know of some of the battles that were supposed to take place, as well as some legendary duels between the heroes. At last, however, Odysseus has an idea. He tells the Greeks to build a wooden horse, big enough to fit some soldiers inside. Once the horse is finished, a few of the Greeks climb inside and hide; the rest leave Troy on their ships, pretending to retreat. Only the wooden horse is left on the seashore. The Trojans are overjoyed, thinking that the Greek forces have left, and they drag the horse into the city of Troy, believing it to be a sacred offering to the goddess Athena. When night falls, however, the Greeks jump out of the horse's belly and open the gates of Troy from the inside to the rest of the army - and Troy is burnt to ashes.
The Facts
So much for the story - but what about the facts? Was Helen a real woman? Did Troy really exist? Well, for a long time Troy was thought to be nothing more than a myth – a story made up by poets to entertain their audiences. But in 1884, the German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, determined to prove the authenticity of Homer’s Iliad, published an astonishing finding. “I have proved,” he wrote, “that in a remote antiquity there was in the plain of Troy a large city, destroyed of old by a fearful catastrophe, which had on the hill of Hisarlık only its Acropolis, with its temples and a few other large edifices, whilst its lower city extended in an easterly, southerly, and westerly direction, on the site of the later Ilium; and that, consequently, this city answers perfectly to the Homeric description of the site of sacred Ilios."
In other words, he had discovered Troy.
This was a sensational find. The ancient city of Troy had long been thought – if it existed at all – to be located somewhere on the plain in the north-western corner of Turkey, on the eastern coast of the Dardanelles (the ancient Greek Hellespont – the narrow strip of water that separates Europe from Asia and connects the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara). But no-one had known exactly where to place it, and all attempts to find the ancient city had been fruitless. Following a tip-off from another amateur archaeologist by the name of Frank Calvert, however, Schliemann started excavating in 1871 on the hill of Hisarlık, near modern Çanakkale. And what he discovered there was more than even he could have ever hoped for. The site of Troy had, in fact, it transpired, been settled for over two thousand years before the city of Troy mentioned in Homer, and had been continually built over and lived in until the 6th century CE, when it fell out of use. The site was preserved as a complex layering of different cities, one over the other, with the most recent settlement at Troy – a Roman city called Ilium – on top of layers of other, older cities. But it was the layer we now label as Troy VI (Troy X being the most recent layer, Troy I the earliest) that is the most interesting: because this seems in every respect to match up with the ancient Bronze Age city of Troy – and the city of Homer’s Iliad.
What archaelogists have discovered since has changed our picture of the Homeric poems forever. Not only has Troy been found to have been a large city for its time, capable of maintaining a population of between five and ten thousand people, with defensive fortifications with a perimeter wall and towers, and an upper city with houses and palaces; but it was also clearly a powerful trading centre in the Aegean Bronze Age, situated between the civilisations of Ancient Greece and Anatolia, and directly on the shipping route from the Aegean to the Black Sea. Set on a hill overlooking the coast, with its defensive walls and natural harbour, Troy must have been one of the best-placed trading centres of the Bronze Age world.
Which makes it fairly easy to imagine why an expedition might have set out from Ancient Greece to take it for their own. Who knows - perhaps Achilles really did once walk over the plain of Troy...