Sunday, May 4, 2014

The Trojan War

 
The earliest known depiction of the Trojan Horse, from the Mykonos vase ca. 670 BC
 



The Trojan War was over a woman named Helen, who was married to Menelaus, King of Sparta.  The Trojan War was against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) when Paris of Troy took Helen to be his wife.

Helen was promised to Paris when he judged the most beautiful goddess to be Aphrodite.  From Wikipedia:


The war originated from a quarrel between the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, after Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, gave them a golden apple, sometimes known as the Apple of Discord, marked "for the fairest". Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the "fairest", should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the brother of Helen's husband Menelaus, led an expedition of Achaean troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris' insult. After the deaths of many heroes, including the Achaeans Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojans Hector and Paris, the city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Horse. The Achaeans slaughtered the Trojans (except for some of the women and children whom they kept or sold as slaves) and desecrated the temples, thus earning the gods' wrath. Few of the Achaeans returned safely to their homes and many founded colonies in distant shores. The Romans later traced their origin to Aeneas, one of the Trojans, who was said to have led the surviving Trojans to modern-day Italy.

The war is famous for the ruse of the Trojan Horse.  Per Wikipedia:

The end of the war came with one final plan. Odysseus devised a new ruse—a giant hollow wooden horse, an animal that was sacred to the Trojans. It was built by Epeius and guided by Athena,[146] from the wood of a cornel tree grove sacred to Apollo,[147] with the inscription:


The Trojans lost and their city was sacked and destroyed.  Many Achaeans never made it home.  The story is written about in Homer's epic poem The Iliad and the travels of one of the Achaeans named Odysseus is written about in Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey.




by Rita Jean Moran (www.thelibrarykids.com and www.hiddenhumanstory.com)



Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

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