Trojan War - terms
Greeks = Achaians, Argives, Danaäns
Trojans = Dardanians
Troy = Ilion, Ilium
Rossetti’s Helen
Back-up - a few facts
• Son of Peleus and Thetis was Achilles, greatest
fighter of the Greeks
• Offspring of Leda & Swan, along with Helen and
Clytemnestra, were Polydeuces (Pollux) and
Castor, called the Dioscuroi, they were protectors
of sailors and shared immortality
• Leda, wife of Tyndareus and mother of Helen,was
the sister of Althea, Meleager’s mother
• Additional name for Paris, son of Priam, is
Alexander
• Aeneas, who fought with the Trojans, was the son
of Anchises and Aphrodite
Greek & Trojan marriages
• Agamemnon & Clytemnestra (she kills him
on return with her lover Aigisthus)
• Odysseus & Penelope
• Menelaus & Helen & Paris
• Hector & Andromache
• King Priam & Hecuba
Events of Iliad
• In 9th year of war, a quarrel between Agamemnon
and Achilles over a girl
• Achilles sits out of the war, planning to go home
• The Greeks are driven to their ships
• Patroclus, Achilles’ best friend, puts on Achilles’
armor in order to raise morale of Greeks
• Hector, best fighter of the Trojans, kills Patroclus
• Achilles reenters the war, eventually killing
Hector
• Priam goes in person to ask for the corpse of his
son
• Hector’s funeral
So Iliad ends, but war continued
• Amazon tribe joined the Trojans
• Achilles was killed by arrow of Paris, he was shot
in his heel, the only part of his body that could be
hurt.
• Competition for the armor of Achilles – Ajax, son
of Telemon, lost and went mad; Odysseus won
• Calchas the seer gave conditions for Troy’s fall –
1. Neoptolemus fighting 2. Palladium removed
from Troy 3. Bow of Heracles (held by
Philoctetes) on hand
All conditions fulfilled, then the
device of the wooden horse was
used.
Troy could not
be taken by
force, but
could be by
stealth.
Laocoon and
sons –
Laocoon,
Trojan priest of
Poseidon,
advised the
Trojans to burn
the wooden
horse. In
punishment, he
and his sons
were killed by
a giant sea
snake.
Wooden Horse
taken into the
city as
Laocoon and
his sons die in
foreground.
Aftermath
• Trojan men and boys killed
• Trojan women handed out as booty
• Cassandra went to Agamemnon; Hecuba to
Odysseus; Andromache to Neoptolemus,
son of Achilles
• All the Greeks had difficulties getting home
and staying home.
Homecomings, as with any war,
even the winners have difficulty.
• Ajax the Lessor was shipwrecked by Athena and
drowned by Poseidon for raping Cassandra in
Athena’s temple during the sack of Troy
• Agamemnon arrived home and was murdered by
his wife and her lover, Aegisthus.
• Menelaus was driven by a storm to Egypt where
he stayed for eight years before returning to
Sparta. He lost 55 of the 60 ships that sailed with
him.
Homecoming, continued…
• Diomedes returned home to an unfaithful wife.
He left and kept moving, finally landing in Italy.
• Idomeneus of Crete was rejected by his wife and
family. He also kept wandering until he came at
last to Italy.
• Neoptolemus went home by land and married
Helen’s daughter, Hermione. He was killed by her
fiancée, Orestes, son of Agamemnon.
And Odysseus – wandered for 10
more years before he could come
home to Ithaca.
This is the story of
the Odyssey – the
wanderings of
Odysseus, the
aftermath of war, and
Odysseus’
homecoming.