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, a prize 'for the fairest', among the guests at a divine wedding?

Eris, goddess of strife, had been left off the guest list for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and the quarrel over her apple led to the Judgement of Paris.

At the Judgement of Paris, which goddess tried to win the prize by offering him rule over a vast kingdom?

Hera, queen of the gods, offered Paris a throne and Athena offered victory in war, but he took the third goddess's bribe: the most beautiful woman in the world.

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

Mount Ida, near Troy, is where baby Paris was left to die after a prophecy that he would ruin the city; in one telling a she-bear nursed him until a herdsman took him in.

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 was Agamemnon's seat in Homer; while he fought at Troy his wife Clytemnestra took Aegisthus as a lover, and the king was murdered on his return.

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, he was hidden at King Lycomedes' court disguised as what?

A girl was the disguise: Achilles hid among King Lycomedes' daughters until, in the usual telling, Odysseus set weapons among gifts of finery and the hero gave himself away by grabbing them.

In the familiar telling, Odysseus feigned madness to dodge the Trojan War, ploughing his fields and sowing them with what?

Salt in the furrows is a later touch to the tale; in the usual version Palamedes set baby Telemachus in the plough's path, and Odysseus swerved, proving he was sane.

Whom did Agamemnon lead to the altar at Aulis to appease Artemis so the Greek fleet could sail?

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.

Homer's Catalogue of Ships tallies the Greek fleet sent against Troy at roughly how many vessels?

About 1,200: the contingents listed in Iliad Book 2 add up to 1,186 ships, a figure Thucydides rounded to twelve hundred while suspecting the poet of exaggeration.

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

Clay was the material: Cinyras sent Agamemnon a breastplate as a gift and pledged fifty ships, then sent one real vessel and moulded the rest out of earth.

In Homer's telling, Philoctetes was marooned on Lemnos after suffering what injury?

A snake bite left Philoctetes with a festering wound so foul that the Greeks marooned him on Lemnos, then had to fetch him back years later when a prophecy said Troy would not fall without his bow.

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

Protesilaus leapt ashore first and was killed, as an oracle had warned the first Greek to land would be; the gods then pitied his widow and let him return from the underworld for a brief reunion.

Legend said Troy's walls were built for King Laomedon by Apollo and which other god?

Poseidon and Apollo built Troy's walls for King Laomedon, who then refused their wages; in revenge Poseidon sent a sea monster against the city.

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.

Who forged the new arms that Achilles wore when he returned to battle?

Hephaestus forged the arms, great shield included, to repay Thetis: in the Iliad she had sheltered him in her sea cave after he was thrown down from Olympus.

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 was Memnon's kingdom: he led a great Ethiopian force to Troy and killed Nestor's son Antilochus before Achilles killed him in turn.

In an alternative version of his death, Achilles was ambushed after seeking to marry which Trojan princess?

Polyxena's hand was the bait: in this telling Achilles came to arrange the marriage and was killed by Paris and Deiphobus; after the sack the Greeks sacrificed her at his tomb.

In the tradition that gave Ajax a single vulnerable spot, where did his sword pierce when he fell on it?

His armpit was his one weak point in this tradition, a twin to Achilles' heel; maddened at losing the dead hero's arms to Odysseus, he had first slaughtered livestock he took for his Greek comrades.

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

Heracles' bow passed to Philoctetes, in the usual telling as thanks for lighting the hero's funeral pyre when no one else would; a prophecy later said Troy could not fall without it.

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 did the wooden horse's inscription say?

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.

In the best-known telling, which Trojan priest warned against the horse and was killed by serpents from the sea?

Laocoön hurled a spear into the horse's flank and, in the Aeneid, was crushed with his two sons by sea serpents; the Trojans read it as punishment for 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: in Aeschylus he gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy and, when she then refused him, twisted it so that her true warnings fell on deaf ears.

Which Greek stayed behind when the fleet sailed, posing as a deserter so the Trojans would take the horse in?

Sinon posed as a deserter and talked the Trojans into hauling the horse inside; in the Aeneid he then unbolts it while they sleep, and in another telling he lights the beacon that calls the fleet back.

Which 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.

Which Greek scholar, famous for measuring the Earth's circumference, also worked out a date for Troy's fall?

Eratosthenes put Troy's fall at 1184 BC, and the guess has worn well: the layer archaeologists call Troy VIIa burned around 1180 BC.

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

The Epic Cycle told what the Iliad leaves out, from the war's cause in the Cypria to the wooden horse and the homecomings, but it survives only in fragments and Proclus's prose summaries.

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

Turkey's north-west corner holds the mound of Hisarlik, at the mouth of the Dardanelles: the city sat beside the sea road to the Black Sea, which may help explain its wealth.

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

Heinrich Schliemann, rich from trade, began digging at Hisarlik in 1870 and cut a great trench through the mound; Frank Calvert, whose family owned part of it, had dug there first and urged him to try the site.

The topmost of Troy's nine stacked cities, Troy IX, belonged to which empire?

Roman Ilium, Troy IX, tops the stack: Augustus, whose family traced its line back to the Trojan Aeneas, paid for fine new public buildings there.

Which museum holds the Trojan gold missing from Berlin since 1945?

The Pushkin in Moscow holds the gold hoard dug up at Hisarlik in 1873: it was taken to the Soviet Union in 1945, and Russia keeps it as compensation for wartime losses to Nazi Germany.

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 detoured to Troy after crossing into Asia, laid a garland on the tomb of Achilles and left his own armour in Athena's temple, taking in exchange arms kept there to carry into his battles.

Manfred Korfmann's team, digging at Troy from 1988, changed the picture of the Bronze Age city mainly by finding what?

A lower town, ringed by a rock-cut ditch, lay below the citadel; Korfmann, of Tübingen, argued it made Troy far larger than the hilltop stronghold earlier diggers pictured, and the claim set off a fierce scholarly row.

Who directed the 2004 film Troy?

Wolfgang Petersen, of Das Boot, was also lined up for a Batman vs. Superman film that never got made; Christopher Nolan, who had been offered Troy, ended up with Batman Begins instead.

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

Eric Bana, an Australian, swapped his accent for an English one to play Hector and drew some of the best notices in a film that got mixed reviews; Sean Bean was Odysseus.

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

Malta's Fort Ricasoli held the city set, while the outer walls went up at Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, where a hurricane tore through the set and halted filming.

What did Brad Pitt injure while filming Troy, holding up the shoot for weeks?

His Achilles tendon was the casualty: the injury held up filming for weeks, an irony 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 had a few weeks at most to write a new score: Gabriel Yared had spent a year on his, but after the poor previews it was dropped within a day.

What drove the film Troy's shoot from Morocco to Mexico?

The Iraq War pushed the shoot out of Morocco, so Troy's outer walls rose at Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, where Bulgarian extras filled out the armies.

Which settlement at Hisarlik was wrongly taken for Homer's city in the 1870s because of its walls and treasure?

Layer II, with its massive walls and gold hoards, was the settlement mistaken for Homer's Troy; it fell around 2300 BC, a thousand years too early for any plausible Trojan War.

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.

Travellers once mistook which ruined port, on the coast south of Hisarlik, for Troy?

Alexandria Troas, a port founded under Antigonus and renamed by Lysimachus, left such extensive ruins that travellers took them for Troy, which had itself been lost from view.