Troy-Trojan War! True or False? Your Ideas?

Answer 1

Having been there and helped with a dig . It happened!!! all the evidence was there . but it was not the enormous city and building you saw in the film Troy , a fairly small place but the walls were ten foot thick and sloping , it would have been very difficult to storm and i can understand its reputation for being impregnable

Answer 2

The trojan war is Fact, however the ideas about how big Trojan cities where etc are a bit exaggerated. Troy does still exist but digs have shown that the sacking of the area was a little smaller than Homer mentions.

Answer 3

The Trojan War was waged, according to Greek mythology, against the city of Troy by the armies of the Achaeans (Mycenaean Greeks), after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology, and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. The Iliad relates a part of the last year of the siege of Troy, while the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the Achaean leaders. Other parts of the story were narrated in a cycle of epic poems, which has only survived in fragments.

Ancient Greeks thought the Trojan War to be a historical event. They believed that it took place in the 13th or 12th century BC, and that Troy was located in the vicinity of the Dardanelles, which is in modern day Turkey. By modern times both the war and the city were widely believed to be non-historical. In 1870, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a site in this area which he believed was Troy; this identification is now almost universally accepted. Whether there is any historical reality behind the events of the Trojan War cycle is an open question. Many scholars would agree that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Greeks of the Bronze Age or Mycenaean period. Those who believe that the stories of the Trojan War derive from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th centuries BC, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194 BC–1184 BC, which roughly corresponds with archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VIIa.

Answer 4

absolutely true but it wasn't a war over the love of Helen - it was a war over tin that took place in the bronze age when tin was the key metal for making weapons.

surprisingly the war did not take place in Hissarlik - in spite of many digs there is no evidence whatsoever that a major war like the one waged in the Iliad ever took place there- at that time the Greeks were barely out of the stone age and had a tiny population.

if you new where it happened and who Achilles really was it would blow your mind - especially if you are a Brit .

the best book ever on this subject is called ' WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD' by Iman Jacob Wilkens born in the Netherlands in 1936. he now lives in France and the website is www.troy-in-england.co.uk.

i read the book twice along side the Iliad for reference and i now know it to be a true account of what took place .
i have stood on the war dykes and on the site where Troy once stood - it is a must if you love history.


the book is a bit pricey but worth it - if you can't buy it then get your local library to order it for you - happy reading.

Answer 5

Impossible to say. But comparison with other events celebrated in epic poetry where we can check with the historical fact, like the death of Roland in 778, suggests it's more false than true.
What is more, pottery analysis seems to show the great Mycenean sites in Greece were destroyed or abandoned before Troy VIIA, so either that wasn't the right number Troy, or it wasn't the great and powerful Mycenean Greece that did it.

Answer 6

There was a Troy. There was a war. The Greeks won.

The rest of it has been embroidered so much that it's virtually impossible to find out the historical facts.

Answer 7

their may well have been a war but i think that alot of what was written is a myth these stories get passed down through time and things change as they were written long after the actual event, king Arthur is another example show me definitive proof and i will believe it, whatever the truth its a great story

Answer 8

All true, except the whole intervention of the Gods thing

Answer 9

I thought it was a Trojan- Greek war.

Answer 10

yup, yes, agree. But according to historians.....Helen was not so beautiful....as opposed to having a face that launched a thousand ships, she had a face that could sink a thousand ships.