The Trojan War

The Trojan War is one of the most legendary stories of warfare of all time. The cause of the war was said to be when the Trojan Price named Paris went to Greece and kidnaped the beautiful Greek princess Helen. It is also believed the sea trading Mycenae were a cause of the war. The Troy's controlled the straits, small water passageways, the connected to the Mediterranean which may have been another reason the war was started. But Greek tradition still suggests the romantic cause of the kidnaping of the princess as the cause of the war. So the Greeks sailed to Troy in order to rescue the princess Helen. Under their leader Agamemnon, the Greeks attacked Troy for nine years. All the fighting took place outside of Troy because of the massive wall surrounding the city, which totally prevented the Greeks from invading the city. This turned out to be a great disadvantage for the Greeks. The battles featured great heros from both sides. The Greek heros were Achilles , Patroclus , Odysseus , and Nestor. The Trojan heros included Hector , Aeneas , Memnon , Pethesilea. Each side had a strong belief in Gods and Goddesses and believed they aided them in the war. For the Greeks, the gods were Hera , Poseidon , and Athena who aided them. For the Trojans, the gods were Aphrodite , and Ares who aided them.

After the nine years of war, the Greeks knew they could never win if the war continued the way it did. So they decided to trick the Trojans by constructing a giant wooden horse. They sent this to the gates of the Troy wall and offered it as a gift and a sign of peace. Cassandra and Laocoon of Troy warned the Trojans not to trust the gift and to proceed with caution. The Trojans did not listen and took the gift into the gates. That night when all of Troy was asleep, some Greek warriors emerged from the wooden horse and opened the gates of Troy for the other Greek soldiers. The Greeks slaughtered the Trojans and burnt down the entire city.

After the gift of the Trojan horse massacre by the Greeks, the only record or myth of war after that takes place in the legendary poems of Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey. These stories talk about the famous warrior Achilles and the journey of Odysseus as he makes his way back home.

Whether there was a Trojan War or not is not certain, and perhaps will never be known for sure. The poet Homer would have lived about 500 years after the supposed date of the war so his records can not be counted as completely accurate. Many scholars say the reliability of the ships and Trojan allies at the end of the second book of the ILIAD may be a true listing of ships and people from the Mycenaean Age, but the evidence is not accepted by everyone.