Trojan War- Greek EventEvent

Origins of the Conflict

The roots of the Trojan War reach back to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, where Eris, goddess of strife, uninvited and offended, cast a golden apple inscribed "for the fairest" among the assembled goddesses. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each claimed the prize, and Zeus appointed the Trojan prince Paris to judge their dispute. Each goddess offered a bribe: Hera promised dominion over Asia, Athena offered wisdom and martial glory, and Aphrodite pledged Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta, whose beauty had drawn every prince in Greece as a suitor. Paris chose Aphrodite, and with her aid sailed to Sparta as a guest of Menelaus, only to take Helen and carry her to Troy.

According to the Cypria, the war also served a deeper cosmic purpose. Zeus had resolved to reduce the overpopulation of the earth, and the Trojan War was his instrument for thinning the ranks of the heroic age.

The Gathering at Aulis

Menelaus invoked the Oath of Tyndareus, by which all of Helen's former suitors had sworn to defend her chosen husband. His brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, assumed command of the expedition. Over a thousand ships assembled at Aulis, carrying warriors from across the Greek world.

At Aulis the fleet was becalmed. The seer Calchas revealed that Agamemnon had offended Artemis by killing a deer in her sacred grove and boasting he was a better hunter than the goddess. Only the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia would appease her and release the winds. Agamemnon consented, and Iphigenia was brought to Aulis under the pretense of marriage to Achilles. Whether she was actually killed or spirited away by Artemis varies by tradition, but the fleet sailed for Troy.

The First Nine Years

The Greeks landed at Troy but could not breach the city's massive walls, said to have been built by Apollo and Poseidon during their servitude to King Laomedon. The war settled into a long siege punctuated by raids on Troy's allied cities throughout the Troad and the Aegean. Achilles led these campaigns, sacking Lyrnessus, Thebe-under-Placus (where he killed Andromache's father Eetion), and other towns. During these raids Achilles captured Briseis and Agamemnon took Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo — setting in motion the quarrel that would nearly cost them the war.

The Trojans, for their part, held firm behind their walls with allies drawn from across Asia Minor — Sarpedon of Lycia and Aeneas the Dardanian among them. Priam's eldest son Hector commanded the defense. Troy's position was formidable: its divine-built walls, its network of alliances, and the favor of Apollo made direct assault nearly impossible. The war became a grinding contest of attrition, each side waiting for the other to break.

The Wrath of Achilles

In the tenth year, Apollo sent a devastating plague upon the Greek camp after Agamemnon refused to ransom Chryseis. When Calchas identified the cause, Agamemnon returned Chryseis but seized Briseis from Achilles as compensation. Achilles, humiliated, withdrew from battle and appealed to his mother Thetis, who persuaded Zeus to turn the tide of war against the Greeks until Achilles' honor was restored.

Without Achilles, the Greeks suffered terribly. Hector drove them back to their ships. The gods themselves were divided — Hera, Athena, and Poseidon favoring the Greeks; Apollo, Ares, and Aphrodite supporting Troy — and intervened repeatedly, turning battles and protecting favorites.

Diomedes, empowered by Athena, wounded both Aphrodite and Ares on the battlefield. Ajax held the line against Hector's assault on the Greek ships in a desperate stand. But the Greeks continued to lose ground until the Trojan campfires burned within sight of their fleet.

The Death of Patroclus and the Return of Achilles

When the situation grew desperate, Patroclus, Achilles' closest companion, begged to enter battle wearing Achilles' armor. Achilles consented but warned him not to pursue the Trojans too far. Patroclus drove the Trojans back from the ships and killed Sarpedon, son of Zeus, but pressed on toward Troy's walls against Achilles' orders. Apollo struck his armor loose on the battlefield, Euphorbus wounded him from behind, and Hector delivered the killing blow.

Patroclus's death transformed the war. Achilles, consumed by grief and rage, reconciled with Agamemnon and received new armor forged by Hephaestus at Thetis's request — including a shield depicting the entire cosmos, from stars to cities to harvest fields. He returned to battle and routed the Trojans, fighting the river god Scamander himself, and finally confronted Hector before the gates of Troy. After a chase around the city walls, Athena tricked Hector into standing his ground, and Achilles killed him, then dragged his body behind his chariot for twelve days.

The Iliad ends with Priam's night journey to the Greek camp, guided by Hermes, to ransom his son's body. Achilles, moved by the old king's grief and reminded of his own father, returned Hector's corpse, and the Trojans mourned their champion.

The Fall of Achilles and the Prophecies

After Hector's funeral, the war raged on. Achilles killed the Amazon queen Penthesilea and the Ethiopian king Memnon, son of Eos, before Paris, guided by Apollo, shot him in his vulnerable heel with an arrow. Ajax and Odysseus fought to recover his body, and when Achilles' divine armor was awarded to Odysseus rather than Ajax, Ajax went mad, slaughtered a flock of sheep believing them to be Greek chieftains, and killed himself in shame.

Before Troy could fall, the Greeks needed Heracles' bow (held by Philoctetes, abandoned years earlier on Lemnos for a festering snakebite wound), the presence of Achilles' son Neoptolemus, and the theft of the Palladium, the sacred image of Athena that protected Troy. Odysseus and Diomedes retrieved the Palladium in a night raid. Philoctetes was brought from Lemnos and killed Paris with Heracles' poisoned arrows. Neoptolemus proved as fierce as his father.

The Wooden Horse and the Sack of Troy

When direct assault still could not take the city, Odysseus devised the stratagem of the Wooden Horse. The master craftsman Epeius built an enormous hollow horse from fir wood, and a select company of warriors — including Odysseus, Neoptolemus, Diomedes, and Menelaus — hid inside. The Greek fleet sailed to Tenedos, leaving behind Sinon, who convinced the Trojans the horse was a sacred offering to Athena.

The priest Laocoön warned against accepting the horse, hurling his spear at its side. But Athena sent two sea serpents that killed Laocoön and his sons, which the Trojans interpreted as divine punishment. Cassandra prophesied destruction, but her warnings went unheeded. The Trojans dragged the horse through their gates.

That night the Greeks emerged and opened the gates for the returning army. Troy was sacked. Neoptolemus killed the aged Priam at the altar of Zeus. Astyanax, Hector's infant son, was thrown from the walls to prevent a future avenger. The women of Troy — Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra — were divided among the victors as slaves. Aeneas, son of Aphrodite and Anchises, escaped the burning city with his father and son, eventually reaching Italy.

The Bitter Homecomings

The destruction of Troy brought no peace to its conquerors. The nostoi — the homeward journeys — proved as deadly as the war itself. Athena and Poseidon, angered by Ajax the Lesser's violation of Cassandra in Athena's temple during the sack, conspired to wreck the Greek fleet. Ajax drowned clinging to a rock after boasting that not even the gods could kill him. Agamemnon returned to Mycenae only to be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus — a crime avenged years later by his son Orestes, whose trial for matricide would establish Athens's court of the Areopagus. Odysseus wandered for ten years before reaching Ithaca, hounded across the seas by Poseidon's wrath. Diomedes found his wife unfaithful and settled in Italy. Menelaus was blown off course to Egypt for eight years before returning to Sparta with Helen.

Only Nestor, the aged king of Pylos, reached home without incident, his piety rewarded by the gods.