50 Fun Facts About Trojan War

Which goddess, uninvited to Peleus and Thetis's wedding, threw the apple 'to the fairest'?

Hermes stopped her at the door on Zeus's orders; Hera, Athena and Aphrodite all claimed the apple.

What did Aphrodite offer Paris to win the golden apple?

Hera offered power over Asia and Athena wisdom and prowess; Paris was herding sheep on Mount Ida, unaware he was a Trojan prince.

Why was Paris being raised as a shepherd on Mount Ida rather than in Troy?

After the judgement he was recognised by his royal family and returned to Troy.

How, in the best-known version, did Thetis try to make the infant Achilles invulnerable?

She held him by the heel, leaving that spot mortal; other versions have her burning away his mortal parts over a fire at night.

Which god fathered Helen, taking the form of a swan with Leda?

Some accounts make Nemesis her mother instead; Tyndareus of Sparta was her stepfather.

On what did Helen's suitors swear their oath to defend her marriage, whoever was chosen?

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'.

Where was Menelaus when Paris carried Helen off from Sparta?

Menelaus had also forgotten a promised hecatomb of 100 oxen to Aphrodite, earning her wrath.

According to the poet Stesichorus, what did the gods put in Troy in place of the real Helen?

In that version the real Helen sat out the war in Egypt; Homer has only one Helen, in Troy.

How did the king of Ithaca try to dodge the war, and who exposed him?

Odysseus never forgave Palamedes and later framed him for treason with forged letters and planted gold.

How was Achilles found out when his mother hid him disguised as a girl at the court of Skyros?

In another telling, Odysseus posed as a merchant and Achilles alone admired the weapons rather than the jewellery.

King Cinyras of Cyprus promised Agamemnon 50 ships. What did he actually send?

Achilles, the last commander to reach Aulis, was 15 years old.

What omen at Aulis did Calchas read as meaning Troy would fall in the tenth year?

Homer's Iliad covers only four days and two nights of that tenth year.

Which 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?

The oracle had said 'he that wounded shall heal'; scrapings from Achilles's spear cured him.

Whom did Agamemnon have to sacrifice at Aulis to appease Artemis and free the becalmed fleet?

Some versions have Artemis swap in a deer or lamb at the last moment; Hesiod says she became the goddess Hecate.

How many fifty-oared ships does the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships count in the Greek fleet?

That implies 70,000 to 130,000 men across 28 contingents; Thucydides rounds it to about 1,200.

Why was the keeper of Heracles's bow abandoned on Lemnos on the way to Troy?

He carried the bow and arrows of Heracles, and a prophecy later said Troy could not fall without them.

Which Greek was the first to die at Troy, having been first ashore after a rival tricked him by leaping onto his shield?

Calchas had prophesied the first man to set foot on Trojan soil would die; Hector killed him.

Which two gods built the walls of Troy during a year of forced service to King Laomedon?

The walls held for ten years; Troy was never fully cut off and kept getting reinforcements from Asia Minor.

According to Homer, how many places did Achilles conquer during the long siege?

His loot included Briseis from Lyrnessus, while Chryseis went to Agamemnon, setting up the quarrel of the Iliad.

Achilles killed which Trojan prince because Troy would not fall if he reached the age of 20?

He was killed at the temple of Thymbraean Apollo, where in one version Achilles himself later died.

What board game were Achilles and Ajax shown playing on many vases, oblivious to the battle around them?

The scene appears in no surviving literary source; Athena is shown intervening to save them.

How did Palamedes die, according to the version in which a letter from Priam was forged against him?

His father Nauplius took revenge by telling the Greek wives their husbands were bringing home Trojan concubines, and later by lighting false beacons.

Whose concubine did Agamemnon seize after returning Chryseis, prompting Achilles to withdraw from battle?

Apollo's plague had forced the return of Chryseis; Achilles then had Thetis ask Zeus to favour the Trojans.

Which Greek hero wounded the gods Aphrodite and Ares in battle with Athena's help?

He also killed Pandaros and nearly killed Aeneas, whom Aphrodite whisked away.

Which river god did Achilles fight after returning to battle to avenge Patroclus?

A full battle of the gods followed; Achilles then killed Hector, who had been tricked into staying outside the walls by Athena.

Which god guided King Priam to Achilles's tent to beg for Hector's body?

The Iliad ends with Hector's funeral during a temporary truce.

Which Amazon queen came to fight for Troy after Hector's death?

Achilles killed her and mourned her; when the soldier Thersites mocked him and gouged her eyes, Achilles killed him too.

Which Ethiopian king, son of the dawn goddess Eos, was killed by Achilles after Zeus weighed their fates?

Like Achilles he wore armour made by Hephaestus; he killed Nestor's son Antilochus first.

Who killed Achilles?

Another version has Paris stab him while he was marrying Polyxena in a temple; both versions deny the killer any valour.

To whom were Achilles's arms awarded after his death, driving Ajax mad?

Ajax slaughtered cattle thinking they were his comrades, then fell on the sword Hector had given him.

Who killed Paris?

He used the bow of Heracles, fetched from Lemnos after a prophecy said Troy could not fall without it.

According to the captured seer Helenus, what three things did the Greeks need to win?

Odysseus fetched Neoptolemus from Skyros, and with Diomedes and Helen's help stole the Palladium.

Who built the wooden horse?

It was made from a cornel grove sacred to Apollo, guided by Athena, and inscribed as a thank-offering to her.

What happened to Laocoon after he warned the Trojans against the horse?

Cassandra warned too, but Apollo had cursed her never to be believed.

Which Greek spy signalled the fleet at Tenedos once the Trojans were drunk and asleep?

He signalled 'when it was midnight and the clear moon was rising' and the men in the horse killed the guards.

Who killed King Priam at the altar of Zeus during the sack?

Achilles's son also got Andromache as a prize and, by most accounts, sacrificed Polyxena on his father's grave.

Why did Menelaus not kill Helen when he found her in Troy?

He had just killed her new husband Deiphobus; the Odyssey later has the couple blown to Egypt on the way home.

What did the Greeks do to Hector's infant son Astyanax?

It was either cruelty or a way to end the royal line and any chance of revenge.

Which Trojan was spared for his piety and led survivors to Italy, becoming an ancestor of the Romans?

He carried his father on his back out of the burning city, as Virgil tells it in Book 2 of the Aeneid.

How did Ajax the Lesser die on the voyage home?

He had dragged Cassandra from Athena's altar during the sack; Odysseus had wanted him stoned for it.

Who murdered Agamemnon on his return to Mycenae?

Possibly revenge for Iphigenia; Orestes later killed both of them and took the throne.

Which ancient scholar's dates for the Trojan War, 1194-1184 BC, are most often preferred?

They roughly match the burning of the archaeological layer Troy VII and the Late Bronze Age collapse.

Which German archaeologist was convinced by Frank Calvert in 1868 that Troy lay at Hisarlik in Turkey?

By the mid-19th century both the war and the city had been widely dismissed as myth; most scholars now accept the site.

What is the name in Hittite records that most scholars since the 1990s identify with Ilios, or Troy?

The Tawagalawa letter of about 1250 BC even mentions a war over Wilusa with the king of Ahhiyawa, thought to be Greece.

Which poems of the Epic Cycle, surviving only in fragments, told the parts of the war Homer left out?

Their contents are known from a summary in Proclus's Chrestomathy.

Who directed the 2004 film Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles?

Eric Bana played Hector and Orlando Bloom Paris; it grossed over $497 million.

Avenging his son Palamedes, who lit false beacons on Cape Caphereus to wreck the Greek fleet?

He had already toured the Greek kingdoms persuading the kings' wives, Clytemnestra among them, to betray their husbands.

Disowned by his father after the war, Ajax's half-brother Teucer went on to found which city?

Telamon found him guilty of negligence for failing to bring home his half-brother's body or arms.

In later tradition, what did the Cretan king Idomeneus sacrifice to Poseidon after surviving a storm home?

He had vowed to sacrifice the first living thing he saw on landing; the gods sent a plague to Crete and his people exiled him.

Which composer wrote the opera Les Troyens, based on the Trojan War and its aftermath?

Other famous adaptations include Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.