Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Trojan War trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Trojan War trivia quiz covers the whole legend, not just the slice in Homer's Iliad: Eris's golden apple and the Judgement of Paris, Thetis dipping Achilles in the Styx, the oath of Helen's suitors, Odysseus faking madness, Achilles hiding among the girls of Skyros, the wound of Telephus, the sacrifice at Aulis, the thousand-odd ships, Philoctetes abandoned on Lemnos, and the nine slow years of raids before the quarrel over Briseis. It then runs through the tenth year and after: Patroclus and Hector, Priam in Achilles's tent, Penthesilea and Memnon, the arrow to the heel, Ajax and the armour, the prophecies of Helenus, the theft of the Palladium, Epeius's wooden horse, Sinon and Laocoon, the sack, Neoptolemus and Priam, Astyanax, the ruinous voyages home, Agamemnon's murder and Aeneas's escape to Italy. It finishes with the history: Eratosthenes' date, Schliemann and Frank Calvert at Hisarlik, Troy VII, Wilusa in the Hittite letters, and the 2004 film. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's article on the war and related pages, and each explanation adds one further fact. For the poem itself try our Iliad and Trojan Horse pages; this one is for the whole war.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which goddess, uninvited to Peleus and Thetis's wedding, threw the apple 'to the fairest'?
Eris
Hermes stopped her at the door on Zeus's orders; Hera, Athena and Aphrodite all claimed the apple.
Q 02What did Aphrodite offer Paris to win the golden apple?
Helen's love
Hera offered power over Asia and Athena wisdom and prowess; Paris was herding sheep on Mount Ida, unaware he was a Trojan prince.
Q 03Why was Paris being raised as a shepherd on Mount Ida rather than in Troy?
A prophecy said he would destroy the city
After the judgement he was recognised by his royal family and returned to Troy.
Q 04How, in the best-known version, did Thetis try to make the infant Achilles invulnerable?
By dipping him in the River Styx
She held him by the heel, leaving that spot mortal; other versions have her burning away his mortal parts over a fire at night.
Q 05Which god fathered Helen, taking the form of a swan with Leda?
Zeus
Some accounts make Nemesis her mother instead; Tyndareus of Sparta was her stepfather.
Q 06On what did Helen's suitors swear their oath to defend her marriage, whoever was chosen?
The severed pieces of a horse
The plan came from one suitor who wanted Tyndareus's help in winning Penelope; the swearing was done 'not without a certain amount of grumbling'.
Q 07Where was Menelaus when Paris carried Helen off from Sparta?
In Crete, burying his uncle
Menelaus had also forgotten a promised hecatomb of 100 oxen to Aphrodite, earning her wrath.
Q 08According to the poet Stesichorus, what did the gods put in Troy in place of the real Helen?
A likeness made of clouds
In that version the real Helen sat out the war in Egypt; Homer has only one Helen, in Troy.
Q 09How did the king of Ithaca try to dodge the war, and who exposed him?
Feigned madness; Palamedes put his baby before the plough
Odysseus never forgave Palamedes and later framed him for treason with forged letters and planted gold.
Q 10How was Achilles found out when his mother hid him disguised as a girl at the court of Skyros?
He seized a spear at a horn blast
In another telling, Odysseus posed as a merchant and Achilles alone admired the weapons rather than the jewellery.
Q 11King Cinyras of Cyprus promised Agamemnon 50 ships. What did he actually send?
One ship plus 49 of clay
Achilles, the last commander to reach Aulis, was 15 years old.
Q 12What omen at Aulis did Calchas read as meaning Troy would fall in the tenth year?
A snake ate nine chicks and turned to stone
Homer's Iliad covers only four days and two nights of that tenth year.
Q 13Which king, wounded by Achilles when the Greeks landed in Mysia by mistake, was healed by the same spear and then showed them the way to Troy?
Telephus
Q 21What board game were Achilles and Ajax shown playing on many vases, oblivious to the battle around them?
Petteia
The scene appears in no surviving literary source; Athena is shown intervening to save them.
Q 22How did Palamedes die, according to the version in which a letter from Priam was forged against him?
Stoned to death for treason
His father Nauplius took revenge by telling the Greek wives their husbands were bringing home Trojan concubines, and later by lighting false beacons.
Q 23Whose concubine did Agamemnon seize after returning Chryseis, prompting Achilles to withdraw from battle?
Briseis
The oracle had said 'he that wounded shall heal'; scrapings from Achilles's spear cured him.
Q 14Whom did Agamemnon have to sacrifice at Aulis to appease Artemis and free the becalmed fleet?
Iphigenia
Some versions have Artemis swap in a deer or lamb at the last moment; Hesiod says she became the goddess Hecate.
Q 15How many fifty-oared ships does the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships count in the Greek fleet?
1,186
That implies 70,000 to 130,000 men across 28 contingents; Thucydides rounds it to about 1,200.
Q 16Why was the keeper of Heracles's bow abandoned on Lemnos on the way to Troy?
A snake bite gave him a stinking wound
He carried the bow and arrows of Heracles, and a prophecy later said Troy could not fall without them.
Q 17Which Greek was the first to die at Troy, having been first ashore after a rival tricked him by leaping onto his shield?
Protesilaus
Calchas had prophesied the first man to set foot on Trojan soil would die; Hector killed him.
Q 18Which two gods built the walls of Troy during a year of forced service to King Laomedon?
Poseidon and Apollo
The walls held for ten years; Troy was never fully cut off and kept getting reinforcements from Asia Minor.
Q 19According to Homer, how many places did Achilles conquer during the long siege?
11 cities and 12 islands
His loot included Briseis from Lyrnessus, while Chryseis went to Agamemnon, setting up the quarrel of the Iliad.
Q 20Achilles killed which Trojan prince because Troy would not fall if he reached the age of 20?
Troilus
He was killed at the temple of Thymbraean Apollo, where in one version Achilles himself later died.
Apollo's plague had forced the return of Chryseis; Achilles then had Thetis ask Zeus to favour the Trojans.
Q 24Which Greek hero wounded the gods Aphrodite and Ares in battle with Athena's help?
Diomedes
He also killed Pandaros and nearly killed Aeneas, whom Aphrodite whisked away.
Q 25Which river god did Achilles fight after returning to battle to avenge Patroclus?
Scamander
A full battle of the gods followed; Achilles then killed Hector, who had been tricked into staying outside the walls by Athena.
Q 26Which god guided King Priam to Achilles's tent to beg for Hector's body?
Hermes
The Iliad ends with Hector's funeral during a temporary truce.
Q 27Which Amazon queen came to fight for Troy after Hector's death?
Penthesilea
Achilles killed her and mourned her; when the soldier Thersites mocked him and gouged her eyes, Achilles killed him too.
Q 28Which Ethiopian king, son of the dawn goddess Eos, was killed by Achilles after Zeus weighed their fates?
Memnon
Like Achilles he wore armour made by Hephaestus; he killed Nestor's son Antilochus first.
Q 29Who killed Achilles?
Paris, with an arrow guided by Apollo
Another version has Paris stab him while he was marrying Polyxena in a temple; both versions deny the killer any valour.
Q 30To whom were Achilles's arms awarded after his death, driving Ajax mad?
Odysseus
Ajax slaughtered cattle thinking they were his comrades, then fell on the sword Hector had given him.