Troy

• Troy was a city in Greek Mythology, which was subject to a ten year siege by the Achaeans known as the Trojan War, which ended with the Fall of Troy.
• The Trojan War was described by Homer in the Iliad.

History

• Troy was strategically located near the mouth of the Dardanelles or Hellespont, connecting the Aegean to the Black Sea.
• Augustus rebuilt Troy as ‘Ilium’ (‘Troy IX’) in the first century BCE as a Roman city.
• Troy was rediscovered and excavated by Dr Heinrich Schliemann in 1870.
• Although not an island, Troy has been considered as one of the possible locations for Atlantis.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

• Troy is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• It is a citadel on a hill in Turkey, next to the village of Hisarlik, which is 18 miles (30 km) southwest of the city of Cannakale.
• Nine different cities have been excavated on the site, and they are numbered ‘Troy I – Troy IX’.
• The cities date from 3,000 BCE to 500 CE.

Homer

• Troy was the site of the Iliad and Odyssey, written by the Ancient Greek Epic Poet, Homer.
  • The Iliad
    • The Iliad covers the Fall of Troy in 1184 BCE, the final few weeks of the ten year Siege of Troy
  • The Odyssey
    • Homer followed the Iliad with the Odyssey. It describes the ten year Journey of Odysseus (Ulysses, in Roman mythology) to return to his home at Ithaca after the Fall of Troy.

Helen of Troy

• In Homer‘s Iliad, Helen of Troy, also known as Helen of Sparta, was the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta.
• She had the reputation of being the most beautiful woman in the world.
• When she was abducted by Prince Paris of Troy, it caused the Trojan War.
• In Goethe’s Faust, Faustus described her as ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’.

Eratosthenes

• Eratosthenes dated the Trojan War between 1194-1184 BCE.
• The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the Fall of Troy to have been a historical event.

Heinrich Schliemann

• The Iliad was considered to be a Myth until Heinrich Schliemann excavated the Ruins of Troy in May 1873 and discovered the treasures of the ancient city buried under a hill at the village of Hisarlik. The village is 18 miles (30 km) southwest of the modern city of Canakkale.

Roman Grand Tour

• The Roman Upper Classes had all read Homer‘s Iliad and the Odyssey.
• They visited the ruins of Troy and saw the grave of Achilles, as part of the Itinerary on the Roman Grand Tour of the Ancient World.

Lost Tomb of Achilles

• After Paris killed Achilles in Troy, his body was taken away, but accounts vary of where he was buried.
• The Emperor Caracalla visited the Tomb in 216 CE on his way to Parthia.

Troy