The real reason for the Trojan War. Troy and the Trojan War. Golden funeral mask of Agamemnon

Many works of Greek literature and art are devoted to the description of the siege of Troy. At the same time, there is no single authoritative source describing all the events of that war. History is scattered across the works of many authors, sometimes contradicting each other. The most important literary sources telling about the events are the two epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey", the authorship of which is traditionally attributed to Homer. Each poem tells only about a part of the war: the Iliad covers the short period preceding the siege of Troy and the war itself, while the Odyssey tells about the return of one of the heroes of the epic to his native Ithaca, after the capture of the city.

Other events of the Trojan War are reported by the so-called "Cyclic Epos" - a whole group of poems, the authorship of which at first was also attributed to Homer. However, later it turned out that their authors were the followers of Homer, who used his language and style. Most of the works chronologically complete the Homeric epic: The Ethiopian, The Little Iliad, The Returns, Telegonia and others describe the fate of the Homeric heroes after the siege of Troy. The only exception is "Cyprius", which tells about the pre-war period and the events that caused the conflict. Most of these works have survived to this day only partially.

Preconditions for war

It is believed that the cause of the conflict was the abduction by the Trojan prince Paris of the beautiful Helen, who was the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Elena was so beautiful that her father, King Tyndareus, could not decide to marry her, fearing the revenge of the rejected suitors. Then an unheard-of decision was made at that time, to allow the girl to choose her betrothed herself. In order to avoid a possible conflict, all potential suitors bound themselves with an oath not to pursue the lucky one, on whom the choice of the princess falls, and subsequently to help him in every possible way if necessary. Elena chose Menelaus and became his wife.

However, even earlier, the three most powerful goddesses of Olympus - Hera, Athena and Aphrodite - argued over a golden apple thrown by the goddess of discord, Eris. There was only one word on the apple - “the most beautiful”, but it was it that caused further events. Each goddess believed that the apple rightfully belonged to her and did not want to give in to her rivals. The male gods refused to get involved in the female strife, but the man did not have enough wisdom. The goddesses turned to Paris, the son of King Priam, who ruled Troy, to judge them. Each promised something in return: Hera - power, Athena - military glory, and Aphrodite - the love of any woman he desires. Paris chose Aphrodite, thus making himself and the people of Troy two most powerful enemies.

The Trojan prince arrived in Sparta, where, in the absence of Menelaus, he persuaded Helen to flee with him (according to other sources, he abducted). Perhaps the matter did not come to such a large-scale conflict if the fugitives had not taken the treasures of Menelaus with them. The offended husband could no longer endure this and threw a cry to all the former suitors of Elena, who had once bound themselves with an oath.

Siege of Troy

The Greek army with a total number of 100 thousand people boarded ships and went to Troy. The Achaeans were headed by Menelaus and the Mycenaean king Agamemnon, who was his brother. After the Greeks encamped under the walls of the city, it was decided to try to solve the matter peacefully, for which purpose send truce envoys to Troy. However, the Trojans did not agree to the terms of the Greeks, relying on the strength of the fortress walls and their army. The siege of the city began.

Quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon

According to the prediction, the war was to last 9 years, and only in the 10th year was the fall of Troy promised. All these years, the Achaeans were engaged in petty robbery and raids on nearby cities. During one of the campaigns, Chryseis, the daughter of the priest Chrys, and Briseis, the daughter of King Briseus, became the prey of the Greeks. The first went to the king of Mycenae Agamemnon, and the second to Achilles, the famous Greek hero.

Soon a pestilence broke out in the Greek camp, which was interpreted by the soothsayer Calchas as the wrath of the god Apollo, to whom the saddened father of Chryseis turned. The Greeks demanded that Agamemnon return the captive to his father, and he reluctantly agreed, but in return began to demand for himself Briseis, the lawful captive of Achilles. A verbal skirmish ensued, in which Achilles accused Agamemnon of greed, and he, in turn, called the great hero a coward. As a result, the offended Achilles refused to participate in the further siege of the city, and besides, he asked his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, to beg Zeus to grant victory to the Trojans in order to punish the presumptuous Agamemnon.

Going to meet the request of Thetis, Zeus sent the Mycenaean king a deceptive dream that promised victory. Encouraged by their leader, the Greeks rushed into battle. The Trojan army was led by Hector, the eldest son of King Priam. The king himself was already too old to participate in the battle. Before starting the battle, Hector offered to have a duel between Menelaus and his brother Paris. The winner will get the beautiful Helena and the stolen treasures, and the Greeks and Trojans will take a sacred oath that after the duel peace will be concluded.

The beginning of the battle

Both sides happily agreed - many people were tired of the protracted war. Menelaus won the duel, and Paris remained alive only thanks to the intercession of the goddess Aphrodite. It seemed that the war should now end, but this was not part of the plans of Hera and Athena, who held a grudge against Paris. Hera vowed to destroy Troy and was not going to retreat. Athena sent by her took the form of a warrior and turned to the skilled archer Pandarus, offering to shoot Menelaus. Pandarus did not kill the Spartan king only because Athena herself slightly deflected his arrow. The wounded Menelaus was carried away from the field, and the Greeks, outraged by the treachery of the Trojans, rushed into battle.

In a terrible battle, people came together, but the gods did not stand aside - Aphrodite, Apollo and the god of war Ares, supported the Trojans, and Hera and Athena Pallas of the Greeks. Many people died on both sides, Aphrodite herself was wounded in the arm by one of the Greeks and was forced to return to Olympus to heal the wound. Neither the Trojans nor the Achaeans could take up, and on the advice of the wise Greek elder Nestor, it was decided to interrupt the battle for one day in order to bury the dead.

A day later, remembering the promise given to Thetis, Zeus forbade any of the gods to interfere in the course of the battle. Feeling the support of the supreme deity, the Trojans began to push the Greeks, causing great damage to their army. To all the reproaches of Hera, Zeus replied that the extermination of the Achaeans would last until Achilles returned to the battlefield.

Saddened by the defeat, the Greek leaders gathered for a council, where, on the advice of the wise Nestor, it was decided to send ambassadors to Achilles with a request to return. The ambassadors, among whom was Odysseus, the great hero, persuaded for a long time, but he remained deaf to their requests - the offense against Agamemnon was too great.

The death of Patroclus and the return of Achilles

The Greeks had to continue to fight the Trojans without the support of Achilles. In a terrible battle, the Trojans exterminated many Achaeans, but they themselves suffered heavy losses. The Greeks had not only to move away from the walls of the city, but also to protect their ships - so strong was the onslaught of the enemy. Achilles' friend Patroclus, who followed the course of the battle, could not hold back his tears, watching how his fellow tribesmen were dying. Turning to Achilles, Patroclus asked to be released to help the Greek army, since the great hero does not want to fight himself. Having received permission, together with his soldiers, Patroclus went to the battlefield, where he was destined to die at the hands of Hector.

Saddened by the death of his closest friend, Achilles mourned his body, promising to destroy Hector. After reconciliation with Agamemnon, the hero entered the battle with the Trojans, mercilessly exterminating them. The battle began to boil with renewed vigor. Achilles drove the Trojan warriors to the very gates of the city, who barely managed to hide behind the walls. Only Hector remained on the battlefield, waiting for an opportunity to fight the Greek hero. Achilles killed Hector, tied his body to a chariot and set the horses to gallop. And only a few days later the body of the fallen Trojan prince was returned to King Priam for a large ransom. Taking pity on the unfortunate father, Achilles agreed to interrupt the battle for 11 days so that Troy could mourn and bury their leader.

The death of Achilles and the capture of Troy

But with the death of Hector, the war did not end. Soon Achilles himself died, struck by the arrow of Paris, which was directed by the god Apollo. In childhood, the mother of Achilles, the goddess Thetis, bathed her son in the waters of the river Styx, which separates the world of the living dead, after which the body of the future hero became invulnerable. And only the heel, by which his mother was holding, remained the only unprotected place - it was in it that Paris hit. However, he himself soon found death, dying from a poisonous arrow fired by one of the Greeks.

Many Trojan and Greek heroes died before the cunning Odysseus figured out how to get into the city. The Greeks built a huge wooden horse, and they themselves pretended to sail home. A scout sent to the Trojans convinced them that the marvelous building was a gift from the Achaeans to the gods. The intrigued residents of Troy dragged the horse into the city, despite the warnings of the priest Laocoont and Cassandra's belongings. Inspired by the imaginary departure of the Achaeans, the Trojans rejoiced until late at night, and when everyone fell asleep, Greek soldiers got out of the belly of a wooden horse, who opened the city gates to a huge army.

This night was the last in the history of Troy. The Achaeans destroyed all the men, not sparing even the babies. Only Aeneas, whose descendants were destined to found Rome, with a small detachment was able to escape from the captured city. The women of Troy were destined for the bitter fate of slaves. Menelaus sought out the unfaithful wife, wanting to take her life, but struck by the beauty of Elena, he forgave the betrayal. Troy was sacked for several days, and the ruins of the city were set on fire.

Trojan war in historical facts

For a long time it was believed that Trojan War it's just a beautiful legend with no real basis. However, in the second half of the 19th century, an ancient city was discovered by amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann on the Hissarlik hill in western Anatolia. Schliemann announced that he had found the ruins of Troy. However, later it turned out that the ruins of the found city are much older than Troy, described in Homer's Iliad.

Although the exact date of the Trojan War is unknown, most researchers believe that it took place in the XIII-XII century BC. The ruins that Schliemann managed to discover turned out to be at least a thousand years older. Nevertheless, excavations at this place continued by many scientists for many years. As a result, 12 cultural layers were discovered, one of which is quite consistent with the period of the Trojan War.

However, logically speaking, Troy was not an isolated city. Even earlier, a number of states with a highly developed level of culture arose in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East: Babylon, the Hittite Empire, Phoenicia, Egypt and others. Events of this magnitude, as described by Homer, could not but leave traces in the legends of the peoples who inhabited these states, but this is exactly the case. No evidence of the confrontation between the Achaeans and Troy has been found in the legends and myths of these countries.

Apparently, Homer retold the history of several military conflicts and campaigns of conquest that occurred at different time intervals, generously seasoning them with his imagination. Reality and fiction are intertwined so bizarrely that it is not always possible to distinguish one from the other.

For example, some researchers tend to consider the Trojan horse episode quite real. According to the assumptions of some historians, this structure should be understood as a battering ram or battering ram, with the help of which the besiegers destroyed the fortress walls.

The debate about the reality of the Trojan War is likely to continue for a long time to come. However, it is not so important what the real events were, because it was they who inspired Homer to create the greatest literary monument in the history of human civilization.

The fantasy of the Greek people has widely developed the cycle of legends about the Trojan War. Their subsequent popularity was explained by a close connection with the centuries-old enmity of the Hellenes and Asians.

The arena of the Trojan War - an area on the northwestern coast of Asia Minor, stretching as a plain to the Hellespont (Dardanelles), further from the sea rising in ridges of hills to Mount Ida, irrigated by Scamander, Simois and other rivers - is already mentioned in ancient myths about the gods. The Greeks called its population Trojans, Dardanians, Tevkras. The mythical son of Zeus, Dardanus, founded Dardania on the slope of Mount Ida. His son, rich Erichthonius, owned vast fields, countless herds of cattle and horses. After Erichthonius, the Dardanian king was Tros, the ancestor of the Trojans, whose youngest son, the handsome Ganymede, was taken to Olympus to serve the king of the gods at feasts, and his eldest son, Il (Ilos), founded Troy (Ilion). Another descendant of Erichthonius, the handsome Anchises, fell in love with the goddess Aphrodite, who gave birth to a son from him, Aeneas, who, according to myths, fled west to Italy after the Trojan War. The offspring of Aeneas was the only branch of the Trojan royal family that survived after the capture of Troy.

Excavations of ancient Troy

Under the son of Il, Laomedont, the gods Poseidon and Apollo built the fortress of Troy, Pergamon. The son and successor of Laomedont was Priam, who was famous for wealth throughout the world. He had fifty sons, of whom the brave Hector and the handsome Paris are especially famous. Of the fifty, nineteen of his sons were born by his second wife Hecuba, the daughter of the Phrygian king.

Cause of the Trojan War - the abduction of Helen by Paris

The cause of the Trojan War was the abduction by Paris of Helen, the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus. When Hecuba was pregnant with Paris, she saw in a dream that she gave birth to a flaming brand and that all of Troy burned down from this brand. Therefore, after his birth, Paris was thrown into the forest on Mount Ida. He was found as a shepherd, grew up strong and dexterous, handsome, a skilled musician and singer. He pastured the herds on Ida, and was the favorite of her nymphs. When three goddesses, who were arguing over which of them was the fairest, over a bone of contention, gave him a decision, and each promised him a reward for deciding in her favor, he chose not the victories and glory that Athena promised him, not dominion over Asia, promised by the Hero, but the love of the most beautiful of all women, promised by Aphrodite.

Judgment of Paris. Painting by E. Simone, 1904

Paris was strong and brave, but the predominant traits of his character were sensuality and Asian effeminacy. Aphrodite soon directed his path to Sparta, whose king Menelaus was married to the beautiful Helen. The patroness of Paris, Aphrodite, aroused love for him in the beautiful Elena. Paris took her away at night, taking with him many treasures of Menelaus. It was a great crime against hospitality and marriage law. The wicked man and his relatives, who received him and Helen in Troy, incurred the punishment of the gods. Hera, an avenger for adultery, aroused the heroes of Greece to stand up for Menelaus, starting the Trojan War. When Elena became an adult girl, and many young heroes gathered to woo her, Elena's father, Tyndareus, took an oath from them that they would all protect the marital rights of the one who would be elected. They were now to fulfill that promise. Others joined them out of love for military adventure, or out of a desire to avenge an offense done to all of Greece.

Elena's kidnapping. Red-figure Attic amphora, late 6th c. BC

Beginning of the Trojan War. Greeks in Aulis

The death of Achilles

Later poets continued the story of the Trojan War. Arktin of Miletus wrote a poem about the exploits accomplished by Achilles after the victory over Hector. The most important of them was the battle with Memnon, the radiant son of distant Ethiopia; therefore Arktin's poem was called "Ethiopida".

The Trojans, discouraged after the death of Hector - it was told in the "Ethiopian" - were animated with new hopes when the queen of the Amazons, Penthesilea, came from Thrace to help them, with regiments of her warriors. The Achaeans were again driven back to their camp. But Achilles rushed into battle and killed Penthesilea. When he removed the helmet from the opponent who fell to the ground, he was deeply moved to see what a beauty he had killed. Thersites scathingly reproached him for this; Achilles killed the offender with a blow of his fist.

Then, from the far east, the king of the Ethiopians, the son of Aurora, the most beautiful of men, came with an army to help the Trojans. Achilles evaded the fight with him, knowing from Thetis that soon after the death of Memnon, he himself would die. But Antilochus, the son of Nestor, the friend of Achilles, covering his father persecuted by Memnon, died a victim of his filial love; the desire to avenge him drowned out in Achilles concern for himself. The fight between the sons of the goddesses, Achilles and Memnon, was terrible; Themis and Aurora looked at him. Memnon fell, and his mournful mother, Aurora, wept, carried his body home. According to an Eastern legend, every morning she waters her dear son again and again with tears falling in the form of dew.

Eos carries off the body of his son Memnon. Greek vase, early 5th century BC

Achilles furiously chased the fleeing Trojans to the Skean gates of Troy and was already breaking into them, but at that moment an arrow fired by Paris and directed by the god Apollo himself killed him. She hit him in the heel, which was the only vulnerable spot of his body (Achilles' mother, Thetis, made her son invulnerable by immersing him as a baby in the waters of the underground river Styx, but the heel, for which she held him, remained vulnerable). All day long the Achaeans and the Trojans fought in order to take possession of the body and weapons of Achilles. Finally, the Greeks managed to carry away the body of the greatest hero of the Trojan War and his weapons to the camp. Ajax Telamonides, a mighty giant, carried the body, and Odysseus held back the onslaught of the Trojans.

Ajax takes out the body of Achilles from the battle. Attic vase, ca. 510 BC

For seventeen days and nights, Thetis, with the Muses and Nereids, mourned her son with such touching songs of sorrow that both gods and people shed tears. On the eighteenth day, the Greeks lit a magnificent fire on which the body was laid; Achilles' mother, Thetis, carried the body out of the flames, and transferred it to the island of Levka (Snake Island, lying in front of the mouths of the Danube). There, rejuvenated, he lives, forever young, and enjoys war games. According to other legends, Thetis carried her son to underworld or the Isles of the Blessed. There are also legends saying that Thetis and her sisters collected the bones of her son from the ashes and placed them in a golden urn near the ashes of Patroclus under those artificial hills near the Hellespont, which are still considered to be the tombs of Achilles and Patroclus left after the Trojan War.

Philoctetes and Neoptolemus

After the brilliant tomb games in honor of Achilles, it was to be decided who was worthy of receiving his weapon: it was to be given to the bravest of the Greeks. This honor was claimed by Ajax Telamonides and Odysseus. Trojan prisoners were chosen as judges. They decided in favor of Odysseus. Ajax found this unfair and was so annoyed that he wanted to kill Odysseus and Menelaus, whom he also considered his enemy. On a dark night, he secretly went out of his tent to kill them. But Athena struck him with a cloud of reason. Ajax killed the herds of cattle that were with the army, and the shepherds of these cattle, imagining that he was killing his enemies. When the darkness passed, and Ajax saw how wrong he was, he was seized with such shame that he threw himself on his sword with his chest. The whole army was saddened by the death of Ajax, who was stronger than all Greek heroes after Achilles.

Meanwhile, the Trojan soothsayer, Helen, who was captured by the Achaeans, told them that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Hercules. The owner of these arrows was the wounded Philoctetes, abandoned by the Achaeans on Lemnos. He was brought from Lesbos to the camp near Troy. The son of the god of healing, Asclepius, Machaon healed the wound of Philoctetes, and he killed Paris. Menelaus desecrated the body of his offender. The second condition necessary for the victory of the Greeks in the Trojan War was the participation in the siege of Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus), the son of Achilles and one of the daughters of Lycomedes. He lived with his mother, on Skyros. Odysseus brought Neoptolemus, gave him his father's weapons, and he killed the beautiful Mysian hero Eurypylus, who was the son of Heraclid Telephus and Priam's sister, and was sent to help the Trojans by his mother. The Achaeans now defeated the Trojans on the battlefield. But Troy could not be taken as long as it remained in its acropolis, Pergamum, the shrine given to the former Trojan king Dardanus by Zeus - palladium (an image of Pallas Athena). To look out for the location, palladium, Odysseus went to the city, disguised as a beggar, and was not recognized in Troy by anyone except Helen, who did not betray him because she wanted to return to her homeland. Then, Odysseus and Diomedes sneaked into the Trojan temple and stole the palladium.

Trojan horse

The hour of the final victory of the Greeks in the Trojan War was already close. According to a legend already known to Homer and told in detail by later epic poets, the master Epey, with the help of the goddess Athena, made a large wooden horse. The bravest of the Achaean heroes: Diomedes, Odysseus, Menelaus, Neoptolemus and others hid in it. The Greek army burned their camp and sailed to Tenedos, as if deciding to end the Trojan War. The Trojans who came out of the city looked with surprise at the huge wooden horse. The heroes who hid in it heard their deliberations on how to deal with it. Helen walked around the horse, and loudly called the Greek leaders, imitating the voice of each wife. Some wanted to answer her, but Odysseus held them back. Some Trojans said that one cannot trust one's enemies, and one should drown the horse in the sea or burn it. The most insistent of all was the priest Laocoön, the uncle of Aeneas. But before the eyes of all the people, two big snakes, wrapped rings around Laocoön and his two sons and strangled them. The Trojans considered this a punishment to Laocoon from the gods and agreed with those who said that it was necessary to put the horse in the acropolis, dedicate it as a gift to Pallas. This decision was especially facilitated by the traitor Sinon, whom the Greeks left here to deceive the Trojans with the assurance that the horse was intended by the Greeks as a reward for the stolen palladium, and that when it was placed in the acropolis, Troy would be invincible. The horse was so large that it could not be dragged through the gate; The Trojans made a hole in the wall and dragged the horse into the city with ropes. Thinking that the Trojan War was over, they feasted happily.

Capture of Troy by the Greeks

But at midnight, Sinon lit a fire - a signal to the Greeks waiting at Tenedos. They swam to Troy, and Sinon unlocked the door made in d Eos carries away the body of the Memnon-wooden horse. By the will of the gods, the hour of the death of Troy, the end of the Trojan War, has come. The Greeks rushed to the carelessly feasting Trojans, slaughtered, robbed and, having plundered, set fire to the city. Priam sought salvation at the altar of Zeus, but Achilles' son Neoptolem killed him at the very altar. Priam's son Deiphobes, who married Helen after the death of his brother Paris, courageously defended himself in his house against Odysseus and Menelaus, but was killed. Menelaus led Helen to the ships, whose beauty disarmed his hand, raised to strike the traitor. The widow of Hector, the sufferer of Andromache, was given by the Greeks to Neoptolemus and found in a foreign land a slavish fate, predicted to her by her husband at the last farewell. Her son Astyanax was, on the advice of Odysseus, thrown off the wall by Neoptolemus. The soothsayer Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, who sought salvation at the altar, was torn off from him by the blasphemous hand of Ajax the Small (son of Oileus), who overturned the statue of the goddess with a frantic impulse. Cassandra was given as booty to Agamemnon. Her sister Polyxena was sacrificed over the coffin of Achilles, whose shadow demanded her as a prey for herself. The wife of the Trojan king Priam Hecub, who survived the fall of the royal family and kingdom. She was brought to the Thracian coast and found out there that her son (Polydorus), whom Priam had sent with many treasures before the start of the war under protection to the Thracian king Polymestor, had also died. Legends spoke differently about the further fate of Hecuba after the Trojan War; there was a legend that she was turned into a dog; according to another legend, she was buried on the northern shore of the Hellespont, where her tomb was shown.

The fate of the Greek heroes after the Trojan War

The adventures of the Greek heroes did not end with the capture of Troy: on the way back from the captured city, they had to experience many troubles. The gods and goddesses, whose altars they defiled with violence, subjected them to grievous fates. On the very day of the destruction of Troy, in the assembly of heroes, heated with wine, there was, according to Homer's Odyssey, a great strife. Menelaus demanded to immediately sail home, and Agamemnon wanted to soften the anger of Athena with hecatombs (by bringing several sacrifices, each of a hundred oxen) before sailing. Some supported Menelaus, others supported Agamemnon. The Greeks completely quarreled, and the next morning the army was divided. Menelaus, Diomedes, Nestor, Neoptolemus and some others boarded the ships. At Tenedos, Odysseus, who sailed with these leaders, quarreled with them and returned to Agamemnon. The companions of Menelaus went to Euboea. From there, Diomedes returned favorably to Argos, Nestor to Pylos, safely sailed to their cities Neoptolemus, Philoctetes and Idomeneo. But Menelaus was caught by a storm near the rocky Cape Malea and brought to the coast of Crete, on the rocks of which almost all of his ships crashed. He himself was carried away by a storm to Egypt. Tsar Polybus cordially received him in the hundred-gate Egyptian Thebes, gave him and Elena rich gifts. The wanderings of Menelaus after the Trojan War lasted eight years; he was in Cyprus, in Phenicia, he saw the countries of the Ethiopians and Libyans. Then the gods gave him a joyful return and a happy old age with the eternally young Elena. According to the stories of later poets, Helen was not at all in Troy. Stesichorus said that Paris only stole the ghost of Helen; according to the story of Euripides (the tragedy " Helena"), he took away a woman like Helen, created by the gods to deceive him, and Hermes transferred the real Helen to Egypt, to King Proteus, who guarded her until the end of the Trojan War. Herodotus also believed that Helen was not in Troy. The Greeks thought that the Phoenician Aphrodite (Astarte) was Helen. They saw the temple of Astarte in that part of Memphis where the Tyrian Phoenicians lived; probably from this arose the legend of Helen's life in Egypt.

Agamemnon, upon returning from the Trojan War, was killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. A few years later, the children of Agamemnon, Orestes and Electra, severely avenged their mother and Aegisthus for their father. These events formed the basis for a whole cycle of myths. Ajax the Small, on his way back from Troy, was killed by Poseidon for his unheard-of pride and blasphemous insult to the altar when Cassandra was captured.

Odysseus suffered the most adventures and hardships when returning from the Trojan War. His fate gave the theme and plot for the second great

Message about the Trojan War 6th grade will briefly tell you a lot useful information about the military conflict between the Greek city-states.

Report on the Trojan War by History

Trojan War- This is a military conflict that arose between the Greek city-states, led by Mycenae and Sparta against Troy. Approximately this event took place in the XIII-XII century BC. The only source that contains information about the Trojan War is the famous poem "Iliad" by the Greek author Homer.

Since the poem is a work of art, before the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann in early XIX century, no one believed, not only in the very military action, but also in the existence of Troy as such. She was considered a fiction and a figment of the imagination of Homer. However, the archaeologist managed to find a whole city in the place where, according to the description of Homer, Troy was located. This is where her story began.

Briefly about the Trojan War

Trojan war reason

During the period of Antiquity, the Greek city-states (especially Mycenae) sought to become masters of the Aegean Sea. But one of the most powerful states, Troy, stood in their way. Therefore, in order to subdue the trade, rich sea routes to the Aegean, it was necessary to subjugate or destroy Troy.

Reason for war

Today the whole world knows the wonderful story of what gave the Greeks a reason to make war on Troy. She was Elena the Beautiful - the wife of the king of Sparta and an ally of Mycenae. The legend says that Paris, the young prince of Troy, fell in love with her and kidnapped Helen, bringing him to his home. The indignant Greeks immediately declared war on Troy. Nobody knows if that was really the case.

Military operations and how long did the Trojan War last?

Greeks huge army 50-100 thousand people from all city-states moved towards Troy. From the sea they were supported by a huge fleet, a total of 1,000 ships. The Trojan army was much smaller, but the walls of the state could withstand even the longest siege. After the declaration of war, a year passed, and the Greeks landed on the banks of the enemy. The Trojans met the enemy on the shore, but under their pressure and superiority retreated behind the walls of the city. For many years there were bloody clashes, with no apparent advantage to either side. However, human losses were great among the Greeks. The troops of Troy were led by the heir to the throne and warrior - Hector, and the Greeks - Achilles. In a protracted battle of these great warriors, the Greek Achilles wins. And the war continues. For 10 years the Greeks besieged Troy to no avail, until they realized that the city had to be taken by cunning. They built from the famous wood Trojan horse and rolled him up to the city gates as a sign that they were leaving Troy, recognizing its superiority.

In fact, warriors were sitting on the horse. When the Trojans rolled the gift of the Greeks into the city, those, after dark, got out of the horse and opened the gates for their associates. The Greek army broke into the sleeping city, and by morning it was already on fire with might and main.

Consequences of the Trojan War

Mighty Troy was destroyed. Mycenae, having suffered serious human and economic losses, also soon fell.

We hope that the report on the Trojan War helped you prepare for the lesson. And you can leave a small message about the Trojan War through the comment form below.

The cause of the Trojan War is known, it seems, even to a schoolboy, but it is still necessary to say a few words about it. And it’s worth starting with the wedding of Thetis, the sea goddess and hero Peleus. Almost all the gods were invited to this wedding, with one small exception: Eridu, the goddess of discord, they decided not to invite. And, quite naturally, she was offended by this turn of events. Eris was famous for her mean jokes, and this time she did not deviate from her habits. On the festive table she was thrown on which was written "To the most beautiful."

Three goddesses claimed this title: Athena, Aphrodite and Hera. And the feast failed to resolve their dispute. Then Zeus ordered Paris, the Trojan prince, the son of Priam, to make a decision. The goddesses approached him when he was herding sheep outside the city walls and asked for help, while each of the goddesses promised Paris one or another reward for the “right” choice. Hera promised Paris power over Asia, Athena - military glory, and Aphrodite is the love of the most beautiful woman, Elena.

It is quite predictable that Paris chose the most beautiful Aphrodite. Helen was the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Paris came to Sparta and, disregarding the laws of hospitality, took Helen with him, along with the slaves and treasures stored in the palace. Upon learning of this, Menelaus turned to his brother, Mycenae, for help. Together they gathered an army, which was joined by all the kings and princes, who at one time wooed Elena and swore to protect her and her honor.

Thus began the Trojan War. The invaders failed to take the city quickly, as it was very well defended. The siege dragged on for a long 9 years, but we know the events of the last 10 years in most detail. Changes begin from the moment Agamemnon takes away his captive, Briseis, from Achilles. She was a priestess in the temple of Apollo and needed to be brought back to avoid the god's wrath. Achilles was offended and refused to participate in further hostilities.

From that moment on, military fortune turned away from the Greeks. No persuasion helped, Achilles was firm in his decision. Only after the Trojans broke into the camp and set fire to one of the ships, Achilles allowed his friend, Patroclus, to change into his armor and lead a detachment of his soldiers. They drove off the Trojans, but their leader, Priam's eldest son, Hektar, killed Patroclus.

This event infuriated Achilles, and he, reconciled with Agamemnon, went to take revenge on the offender. He was so furious that after killing Hector, he tied his corpse to a chariot and drove him several times around the city. And soon after that, the hero himself found his death.

It was almost impossible to kill Achilles, the fact is that immediately after birth, his mother dipped him into a source that made him invulnerable. But dipping, she held him by the heel. Apollo told Paris that Achilles should be hit in the heel.

After his death, the Greeks began to share his armor, two heroes claimed them: Odysseus and Ajax. As a result, the armor went to the first, and then Ajax killed himself. Thus, the Greek army lost two heroes at once. The Trojan War came to a new turning point. In order to swing the scales again in their favor, the Greeks called for help from two other heroes: Philoctetes and Neoptolemus. They killed the two remaining leaders of the Trojan army, after which the latter stopped going out to fight in the field. It was possible to keep the city under siege for a very long time, and therefore Odysseus, famous for his cunning, offered to deceive the inhabitants of Troy. He offered to build a huge horse out of wood and bring it as a gift to the besieged city, and pretend to swim away. The Greeks burned the tent camp, boarded their ships and sailed over the nearest cape.

The Trojans decided to drag a horse into the city, not suspecting that they hid in his belly best wars Greeks. The priest Laocoön warned the inhabitants, anticipating trouble, but no one listened to him. The horse did not pass through the gate and the Trojans dismantled part of the wall. At night, the wars got out of the belly of the horse, let the returned Greeks into the city. They killed all the men and took the women and children prisoner. Thus ended the Trojan War.

We learned most of the information about this event from the poem "Iliad", the authorship of which is attributed to Homer. However, it is now reliably established that, in fact, this is a Greek folk epic, which was told to the inhabitants of the cities by local singers, Aeds, and Homer was either the most famous of the Aeds, or simply collected into different fragments into one whole.

For a long time, the Trojan War was considered a myth, a beautiful fairy tale, but nothing more. In particular, the reason for this was that it was unknown, which suggested that it did not exist at all.

But then the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann found the ruins of Troy. Then it became clear that the Trojan War, the story of which is told in the Iliad, was in fact.

Insomnia. Homer. Tight sails.
Osip Mandelstam

One of the most important historical events of mankind - Trojan War- happened too late to be reflected in the constellations. In Greek heroic poems, she occupies a leading place, but in myths she did not have enough time to crystallize and transfer to heaven. Nevertheless, we find some references to the events of the war in stories related to constellations and stars, and therefore I am forced to tell about the Trojan cycle.

I take this case with understandable trepidation. Painfully, the topic is unbearable. I will describe only the backbone of events, and I will expand the episodes related to the stellar theme in more detail. This is not Wikipedia!

Causes

Both the sea and Homer - everything is moved by love.

It began with the fact that the progenitor of the gods Gaia, Earth in Greek, began to pester her grandson Zeus with complaints. "These human people have multiplied, especially heroes trample me, torment me! There is no life, only suffering! Arrange, granddaughters, a small genocide, flood, pestilence, ecological disaster, or at least world war to moderate their number and agility."

So the myths say, but I think that Gaia was more driven by revenge: unbridled by her womb, she, in the course of her history, forever gave birth not so much to gods (although gods too), but to all sorts of chthonic evil spirits: hecatoncheiers and snake-footed giants, evil Erinyes and under the end of the macabre teratomorph Typhon. Typhon, in spite of teratomorphism, boldly produced a whole brood of dirty monsters: lions, snakes, dragons and incomprehensibly disgusting things that inhabited the earth's back streets and terrorized fragile humanity. With all this indecent rabble, the Greek heroes had to fight heroically, say, Hercules and Perseus, and the heroes coped with the task. But in the face of Hera, who lost her cute offspring, they got a blood enemy.

Gaia's complaints fell on fertile ground: it must be admitted that the Olympic gods were gradually becoming uncomfortable, too human heroes were gaining influence, claiming to participate in divine affairs. Slowing down their activity seemed quite reasonable. The matter remained small: to find a reason for war.

Occasion

The Apple of Discord, the Judgment of Paris and Elena the Beautiful

Whenever not Elena,
What is Troy to you alone, Achaean men?

So once Eris, the goddess of discord, offended that she was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, threw a golden apple with the inscription "the most beautiful" to the gods feasting on Olympus. This immediately gave rise to a bitter dispute between the three goddesses: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. A dispute that turned into a scandal and almost into assault: who is more beautiful? The three furies of the goddess turned to Zeus to resolve the conflict, but he, as usual, when it came to the interests of his wife, prudently retired and offered to transfer the right of decision to Paris.

Why Paris? who is Paris?

The abduction of Helen, and in essence, quite an ordinary flight with her lover, became the reason for the Trojan War.

The alignment of forces

Like a crane wedge in foreign borders, -
Divine foam on the heads of kings

The stolen Helen was the daughter of Leda and the Spartan king Tyndareus, and her "second father" was Zeus. The case is dark: Zeus took possession of Leda in the form of a swan and Leda laid an egg (or two) from which the Dioscuri twins Castor and Polydeuces hatched, and she also had daughters - Helen and Clytemnestra; how the daughters were born is not exactly known. It is generally believed that Castor and Clytemnestra are the children of Tyndareus, and Polydeuces and Helen are Zeus.

The assumption that Helen was the daughter of Zeus confirms her unearthly beauty. When her father announced his readiness to marry her, suitors from all over Hellas came, excited by rumors and gossip about this beauty, and began to vying to woo, coming into a frenzy. The excitement increased so much that Tyndareus began to seriously fear for a peaceful outcome of the procedure. Odysseus suggested that he give Elena herself the choice, and take an oath from all suitors that they would accept any choice of Elena, whatever it was, and jointly oppose any of their rivals who violated the oath. The oath was unanimously given, and Elena chose Menelaus, who later became king Sparta.

Thus, when the Trojan Paris seduced and took away Helen, all the royal families of Greece, by virtue of this oath, were forced to make war against Troy.

What does "king" mean?

It must be said that when we traditionally use the word "king" to translate ancient Greek βασιλῆας this is not entirely accurate in terms of political scale. In the realities of Greece in the 12th-11th centuries, when the described events took place, the lord of an island 20 by 8 kilometers, like Ithaca - here is the king for you, the valley between the spurs of the mountains with a couple of villages - here is your kingdom. Probably, it would be more accurate to say "prince", as, for example, there were princes in the Caucasus, but tradition is tradition - we will say "king". Kings in the full sense of the word were Priam, king of Troy (or, if you like, Ilion), a large, well-defended city in the north of Asia Minor on the banks of the Dardanelles, controlling the vast territory of Asia Minor, king Mycenae in Argolis Agamemnon and, perhaps, the king of the hundred Crete, the main island of the Mediterranean, which has not yet lost its maritime power to the end.

The mighty Troy significantly limited the economic and political interests of the small Greek ... kingdoms, and to solve the totality of the problems that arose in this case with one decisive military victory seemed to the Greek ... kings a good way out.

Finally, divine help awaited both sides.

Trojans in memory of the apple supported

her lover Ares,
sister Artemis
together with their mother, the quiet titanide Leto
and the deity of the local river Scamander (Xanth), in whose jurisdiction all this happened

United Greeks supported

Athena as Aphrodite's apple rivals
Poseidon, who disliked the Trojans for deception in the construction of walls,
as well as Thetis, who wished victory for her son from his last war, and
Hephaestus, obliged to Thetis, who warmed him, thrown from Olympus by an angry mother, in infancy.