50 Fun Facts About Troy

The Trojan War began after Paris took Helen from her husband, the king of which Greek city?

Sparta was ruled by Menelaus, Helen's husband; when Paris carried her off, Menelaus invoked the oath of Tyndareus, under which her former suitors had sworn to defend the marriage.

Which goddess tossed a golden apple inscribed 'to the fairest' into a wedding?

Eris had been left off the guest list for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.

At the Judgement of Paris, which goddess offered him political power and control of all Asia?

Hera, queen of the gods, offered Paris dominion over Asia; Athena offered wisdom and victory in war, and Paris chose the third goddess's offer of the most beautiful woman instead.

Where was Paris being raised as a shepherd when Hermes led the three goddesses to him?

Mount Ida, the range above Troy, is where the exposed infant Paris had been raised by a herdsman; Hermes brought the three goddesses to him there and he judged them beside a spring.

In which year of the siege of Troy is Homer's Iliad set?

The tenth year of the war is the Iliad's setting; the poem covers only a few weeks of it, from the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon to the funeral of Hector.

Agamemnon, who led the Greek expedition against Troy, was king of which city?

Mycenae, the citadel in the Argolid with the Lion Gate, was Agamemnon's seat in Homer; he was Menelaus's elder brother, and his wife Clytemnestra took up with Aegisthus while he was away.

According to one tradition, Thetis made the infant Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in which river?

The Styx, the river of the underworld, is where Thetis dipped the infant Achilles in the later tradition; she held him by the heel, which stayed dry, mortal and famous.

To keep Achilles out of the war, Thetis hid him at King Lycomedes' court disguised as what?

A girl called Pyrrha was the disguise: Achilles lived among King Lycomedes' daughters on Skyros until Odysseus laid out trinkets and weapons, and Achilles gave himself away by seizing the arms.

Odysseus tried to dodge the war by feigning madness and sowing his fields with what?

Salt was what Odysseus scattered from his plough as he feigned madness; Palamedes set the infant Telemachus in front of the share, and Odysseus swerved, proving he was sane.

Whom did Agamemnon sacrifice at Aulis to appease Artemis and free the fleet from the calm?

Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, was lured to Aulis on the pretext of marrying Achilles and sacrificed to Artemis; in Euripides' version the goddess swapped in a deer at the last moment and carried her off to Tauris.

According to the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships, how many Greek ships sailed for Troy?

1,186 ships is the total reached by adding up the contingents listed in Iliad Book 2, led by Agamemnon's 100; Thucydides rounded the tradition to about 1,200 ships.

King Cinyras of Cyprus promised 50 ships but sent only one real vessel and 49 made of what?

Clay was the material: Apollodorus records that Cinyras dispatched a single real ship and forty-nine toy vessels of earthenware, crewed by clay figures, to satisfy the letter of his promise.

Philoctetes was abandoned on Lemnos for ten years after suffering what injury?

A snake bite, suffered at a shrine on the islet of Chryse, left Philoctetes with a festering wound so foul that the Greeks marooned him on Lemnos; the bow he had inherited was later needed to take Troy.

Who was the first Greek to land at Troy, and the first to die, in fulfilment of a prophecy?

Protesilaus of Phylace leapt ashore first and was cut down at once, fulfilling the prophecy that the first Greek to land would die; Odysseus had dodged it by jumping onto his own shield rather than Trojan soil.

Legend said the walls of Troy were built by Apollo and which other god during a year of forced service?

Poseidon and Apollo, sentenced by Zeus to a year's labour, built Troy's walls for King Laomedon, who then refused their wages; Poseidon sent a sea monster in revenge, and the divine walls held for ten years.

Achilles withdrew from the fighting after Agamemnon took which captive woman from him?

Briseis, Achilles' war-prize from Lyrnessus, was taken by Agamemnon after he had to return his own captive Chryseis to her father to end the plague sent by Apollo.

Who wore Achilles' armour into battle and was killed by Hector?

Patroclus borrowed Achilles' armour to rally the Greeks and was killed by Hector outside the walls; Hector stripped the armour from the body, and Achilles' grief brought him back to the fight.

Which god forged the new set of arms that Achilles wore when he returned to battle?

Hephaestus forged Achilles' new arms at Thetis' request, including the great shield described in Iliad Book 18; Memnon later faced Achilles wearing armour from the same divine smith.

With Athena's help, Diomedes wounded Ares and which other deity on the battlefield?

Aphrodite was cut on the wrist by Diomedes' spear in Iliad Book 5 as she carried her son Aeneas from the field; later in the same book he wounded Ares, who bellowed like ten thousand men.

Guided by Hermes, who came to Achilles' tent to beg for the return of Hector's body?

Priam, the aged king of Troy, crossed the Greek camp by night with Hermes as guide and kissed the hands that had killed his son; Achilles relented, and the Iliad ends with Hector's funeral.

Which queen of the Amazons arrived to fight for Troy shortly after Hector's burial?

Penthesilea, daughter of Ares, brought her Amazons to Troy after Hector's funeral and was killed by Achilles, who then mourned her beauty; when Thersites mocked his grief, Achilles killed him.

Memnon, son of Eos, who aided Troy and was slain by Achilles, was king of which land?

Ethiopia, at the edge of the world in Greek geography, was Memnon's kingdom; he came with an army to aid Troy, and Zeus weighed the fates of the two heroes, with Memnon's side sinking.

In an alternative version of his death, Achilles was stabbed while marrying which daughter of Priam?

Polyxena, a Trojan princess, was the lure: Achilles was ambushed and stabbed by Paris at the temple of Thymbraean Apollo during the wedding; after the sack she was sacrificed on Achilles' tomb.

When Ajax fell on his sword after losing the contest for Achilles' armour, where did it pierce?

His armpit was Ajax's one vulnerable spot, so he fixed the sword there; after losing Achilles' arms to Odysseus he had slaughtered a flock of sheep, believing them to be his comrades.

Paris was finally shot dead by Philoctetes using a bow that had belonged to which hero?

Heracles gave his bow and poisoned arrows to Philoctetes for lighting his funeral pyre; Helenus revealed that Troy could not fall without them, so Odysseus fetched Philoctetes from Lemnos.

Which sacred Trojan statue did Odysseus and Diomedes steal because Troy could not fall while it stood?

The Palladium, a small wooden image of Athena said to have fallen from heaven, guaranteed Troy's safety; Odysseus and Diomedes crept in and carried it off after the captive seer Helenus revealed the conditions for the city's fall.

Who physically built the wooden horse, working under Athena's guidance?

Epeius, a Phocian craftsman and champion boxer, built the horse under Athena's direction; the ruse was Odysseus's idea, and Epeius himself hid inside with the other warriors.

What inscription did the Greeks put on the wooden horse?

A thank-offering to Athena for their return home, dedicated by the Greeks, is the inscription Apollodorus records on the horse; the rest of the army burned its camp and sailed just out of sight to Tenedos.

Which Trojan priest warned against the horse and was devoured by serpents that came from the sea?

Laocoön, a Trojan priest, hurled a spear into the horse's flank and was crushed with his two sons by serpents from the sea; the Trojans read the portent as punishment for his sacrilege and dragged the horse inside.

Why did the Trojans ignore Cassandra's warnings about the wooden horse?

Apollo had cursed her never to be believed: he had given Cassandra the gift of prophecy and, when she spurned his advances, twisted it so that her true warnings always fell on deaf ears.

Which Greek spy stayed behind and signalled the fleet at midnight once the Trojans were asleep?

Sinon, left behind as a supposed deserter, talked the Trojans into taking the horse and then, once they slept, lit a beacon to the fleet waiting off Tenedos and released the warriors inside.

Which Roman poet describes the sack of Troy in Book 2 of the Aeneid?

Virgil has Aeneas narrate the fall of Troy to Queen Dido at Carthage in Aeneid Book 2, from the wooden horse to his escape carrying his father Anchises, before he sails on to found the line that leads to Rome.

The scholar Eratosthenes dated the Trojan War to which years?

1194–1184 BC was Eratosthenes' reckoning, placing the fall in 1184; the span sits close to the fiery destruction of the layer archaeologists call Troy VIIa, dated to around 1180 BC.

The lost poems telling the rest of the war, such as the Cypria and the Little Iliad, are known as what?

They survive only in fragments and a summary in Proclus's Chrestomathy.

The ruins identified as Troy lie at Hisarlik in which modern country?

Turkey's Çanakkale province, on the Asian side of the Dardanelles, holds the mound of Hisarlik; the site joined the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998.

Which German businessman-turned-archaeologist dug at Hisarlik in the 1870s, sure it was Troy?

Heinrich Schliemann, who had made a fortune in trade, began digging at Hisarlik in 1870 and cut a great trench through the mound; Frank Calvert, an Englishman who owned part of the site, had already dug there in 1865.

How many major archaeological layers, or successive cities, have been identified at the site of Troy?

Nine principal layers, Troy I to Troy IX, have been distinguished, running from an Early Bronze Age settlement of about 3000 BC to the Roman city of Ilium; each was built on the ruins of the last.

Which museum revealed in 1993 that it held Trojan gold taken from Berlin in 1945?

The Pushkin in Moscow revealed in 1993 that it held the gold hoard dug up at Hisarlik in 1873, which the Red Army had removed from Berlin in 1945 as war booty.

Troy VI–VII is believed to be the city called what in Hittite records?

Wilusa, a vassal kingdom in north-west Anatolia named in Hittite treaties and letters, is generally identified with Troy; the name is thought to echo the Greek Ilios, which once began with a lost 'w' sound.

Which conqueror crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC and sacrificed at the tombs of Homeric heroes at Troy?

Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC and detoured to Troy, where he sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles and took a sacred shield from the temple of Athena Ilias before marching into Asia.

From 1988 to 2005, excavations at Troy were led by Manfred Korfmann of which German university?

Tübingen's Manfred Korfmann directed the Troy project from 1988 until his death in 2005; working alongside the University of Cincinnati, his team found the large lower city that ringed the Troy VI–VII citadel.

Who directed the 2004 film Troy?

Wolfgang Petersen, the German director of Das Boot and Air Force One, made Troy for Warner Bros. in 2004; David Benioff, later of Game of Thrones, wrote the screenplay.

Which actor played Hector opposite Brad Pitt's Achilles in the 2004 film Troy?

Eric Bana, the Australian star of Chopper and Hulk, played Hector; Sean Bean was Odysseus, and Orlando Bloom played Paris.

Where was the city of Troy built for the 2004 film?

Malta's Fort Ricasoli, near Valletta, held the Troy set; the beach battles were shot at Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, where Hurricane Marty disrupted filming in 2003.

What did Brad Pitt suffer while filming Troy, delaying production for weeks?

A torn Achilles tendon sidelined Pitt for weeks during the 2003 shoot; the irony was lost on nobody, since he was playing Achilles at the time.

Which composer replaced Gabriel Yared and scored Troy after poor test-screening reactions?

James Horner, the composer of Titanic and Braveheart, was brought in to write a replacement score in a matter of weeks after Yared's was dropped following a poor test screening.

Roughly how much did the 2004 film Troy gross worldwide?

$497 million worldwide made Troy one of the top ten earners of 2004 despite a budget reported at around $175 million; most of that total came from outside North America.

Which settlement at Hisarlik did Schliemann wrongly take for Homer's city because of its walls and treasure?

Layer II, with its massive walls, burnt ruins and gold hoards, was the settlement mistaken for Homer's Troy; built around 2550 BC and destroyed around 2300 BC, it predates any plausible Trojan War by centuries.

Which University of Cincinnati professor ran the Troy excavations from 1932 to 1938?

Carl Blegen led the University of Cincinnati's Troy excavations from 1932 to 1938, subdividing the site's successive cities into some forty-six strata and identifying Troy VIIa, destroyed by fire, as the likeliest Homeric Troy.

Early travellers such as Pierre Belon mistook which Hellenistic ruin, 20 km south of Hisarlik, for Troy?

Alexandria Troas, a Hellenistic port founded by Antigonus around 310 BC and renamed by Lysimachus, has extensive ruins that travellers from the 16th century took for Troy; Calvert's work at Hisarlik in 1865 pointed to the true site.