The Troian War

The ancient clash between the Greeks and Trojans has captivated people for millennia. Danny Bird looks at its influence on the Romans, what archaeologists have found, and whether it was all just a myth

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IS THE TROJAN WAR A MYTH OR A REAL HISTORICAL EVENT?

Epic poem the Iliad is the most famed source for there ever having been a conflict between the ancient Greeks and Trojans. However, the historicity of the events depicted in this work - as well as those referenced in its sister epic, the Odyssey - are less certain, as is the identity of their author, Homer. The poems have been dated to the late eighth or early seventh centuries BC, during a time when writing was becoming widespread in Mycenaean civilisation (the Late Bronze Age Greeks), but the narratives allude to earlier incidents, suggesting there was an oral tradition behind the events' that would have been familiar to an ancient audience.

It follows that dating the Trojan War is problematic, although scholars tend to agree that Homer was writing about a heroic age that existed some four centuries before the Iliad's conception. As a result, the texts are replete with anachronisms, such as references to the construction of temples - buildings that did not arise within the Greek world until the eighth century BC. But what is indisputable is that peoples during the classical era, and right through to the late medieval age, believed the Trojan War to have been an actual historical event.

WHAT CAUSED THE TROJAN WAR?