Info: The Trojan War

[Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>]

Poster: Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>


Lord Jonathan Blackbow, you write in part:

>         Let's take the Trojan War as a good example:  
>         
>         The TW was basically fought by maybe a couple of hundred guys TOTAL and 
>         lasted MAYBE a couple of days, and it MIGHT have started over a woman.  
>         So somebody [Homer] says to himself, [in Greek of course]"Hey!  This 
>         sounds like a cool novel in the works!"  and proceeds to write _The 
>         Iliad_.  I suspect that somebody paid him to pretty it up.

Ah,

The Battle of Kadesh, fought a few years/decades before the Trojan War, 
was a battle of several tens of thousands of men and hundreds of 
chariots.  The people of Troy were allies of one side (the Hitties) and 
formed, with a few other local citystates, a substantial contingent at 
Kadesh.  The other side at Kadesh was the Egyptians under Ramses II, the 
Pharoh with whom Mosses tangled.  Just to give you a sense of the timeframe.

The Trojan War was fought between Troy and all of Mycenian (sp) Greece.  
Mycenian Greece was about the third largest power of the region at that time.

Besides, having seen the diagrams of the City of Troy at Hissilik, I 
really don't think it was successfully defended by less then a hundred 
men.  And seiges tend to last MUCH longer then two days...

Besides, Homer didn't WRITE anything.  He was a rote bard, who learned 
and probably vastly improved the story of the Illiad, but who was 
supposedly blind, and couldn't write.

<smilently>

Leifr J.
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