1. The Trojan War A Brief Re-Telling
Excerpts from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology; Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1942.

2. ERIS, Goddess of Discord
The only goddess not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis
Designed a golden apple marked For the Fairest
Caused a great commotion at the wedding
Denton Lund Copyright 2001

3. And the winner is… Three goddesses eventually vied for the title:
Aphrodite
Hera
Athena
A prince named Paris (Alexander) got to be the judge.
Claude Lorrain

4. Pick me! Pick me! Hera promised to make him Lord of Europe and Asia.
Athena promised that he would lead the Trojans to victory against the Greeks.
Aphrodite promised him the fairest woman in all the world.
Which would you choose?

5. Decisions, decisions
Paris chose Aphrodite, and therefore, he “earned” his prize of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Helen was so beautiful that every prince in Greece wanted to marry her.

6. Details, details
One problem was that Helen was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta.
Paris came to their home pretending to be a guest.
When Menelaus was away, Paris “stole” Helen.

7. The Wrath of the King
Menelaus was enraged when he found Helen gone. He called upon all
of Greece, including the great warriors Achilles and Odysseus, to attack Troy.
Today we think that the war started because Greece wanted better trade routes.

8. Where have all the heroes gone?
Achilles was hidden from the war by his mother. She dressed him as a girl and made him hide with maidens. He was eventually persuaded to join the war. His story is told in The Iliad.

9. Where have all the heroes gone?
Odysseus, king of Ithaca, pretended that he had gone mad. He planted salt in his fields instead of seed when the messenger from the Greek army arrived. They, in turn, tricked him into joining the fight.

10. What about the Trojan Heroes?
The King and Queen of Troy, Priam and Hecuba, had many sons, but the bravest and greatest was Hector. Hector had a wife name Adromache and a son named Astyanax (And you thought my name was difficult to pronounce!).

11. When heroes collide
Both sides had great heroes upon which they pinned their hopes of winning.
The Greeks were excellent sailors and highly skilled in warfare.
The Trojans had a great wall surrounding their city that made it virtually impregnable. No one had ever breached it.

12. Personal Grudges
After nine years of fighting, both sides agreed to let Paris and Menelaus fight it out to declare a winner.
Menelaus would have killed Paris easily, but Aphrodite saved him by whisking him away in a cloud of dust.
The other gods joined in on their respective sides.

13. Just whose side are you on?
Aphrodite Troy
Athena Greece
Hera Greece
Apollo Troy
Ares Troy
Poseidon Greece
Many of the gods/goddesses had mortal children on one side and wanted that side to win.

14. The Thrill of Victory
Achilles withdrew from battle because some of the spoils of war were kept from him.
His best friend, Patroclus, put on Achilles’ armor and pretended to be him because Achilles was the biggest threat to the Trojans and his armor was impenetrable.
Hector had his greatest day, slaying many men, including Patroclus, whom he thought was Achilles, giving the Trojans momentum.

15. The Agony of Defeat
When Achilles learned that Patroclus died by the hand of Hector, he became enraged and rejoined the battle.
He and Hector fought a battle by themselves.
Achilles killed Hector and refused to give his body back to his family for a proper burial. Achilles’s actions were scorned by everyone, including the gods.

16. Achilles’s Revenge
Not content to have only killed Hector, Achilles stripped his body and dragged it behind a chariot for three days.
He wanted to feed it to the dogs, but Priam convinced him to return it to the family for proper burial.
The Greeks believed that if a person did not receive a proper burial, he/she would not be allowed to pass into the Land of the Dead and would be forced to wander as a “shade” for 100 years, which the Greeks thought was very bad.

17. The Fall of Troy
Paris killed Achilles by shooting an arrow into his heel, his only weak spot.
Achilles’s son, Neoptolemus, then killed Paris.
The war was again at a stalemate, and the gods and humans alike were tired of the fighting.
Odysseus then got an idea to build a great wooden horse to hide soldiers inside.

18. The Trojan Horse
The people of Troy accepted the horse as a sign of surrender.
They dragged the horse inside the walls of the city and celebrated all night long.
When everyone fell asleep, the soldiers hiding inside crept out and lit the city on fire.
The end of Troy was at hand.

19. The Gods’ Fury
The Greeks celebrated mightily after their victory and forgot to pay homage to the gods who helped them win.
This turned Poseidon against the Greeks.
Poseidon caused many storms that killed most of the Greek warriors.
Odysseus, the mastermind, was doomed to wander home for 10 years because death was not his destiny. His story is told in The Odyssey.

20. Odysseus and Homer
The Odyssey is believed to have been created by a blind poet named Homer in 700 BC. We think the events of the Trojan War occurred in 1200 BC.
Right Homer
Wrong Homer