Trouble in The Greek Camp: Achilles & Agamemnon Quarrel Amphora with Ajax Carrying the Dead Achilles, Archaic Period of Greece (530 – 520 BCE), Terracotta, via The Walters Art Museum It isn’t until a special friend of his, a certain Patroclus, is killed in battle that Achilles resolves to enter the conflict. Because of a disagreement with Agamemnon, Achilles refuses to participate in the early battles of the Trojan War. The struggles of the Greeks are only exacerbated by troubles within their own ranks, particularly those generated by Achilles - a Greek prince of Peleus, who is unmatched on the battlefield. Homer’s evocation of the mythic Trojan War, however, remains as important today as it was to Alexander 2,300 years ago.
It was at this time that entire empires, like the Hittites in Anatolia and the Mycenaeans in Greece, collapsed due to hostile incursions by the so-called Sea Peoples.ĭespite this, we may never know for certain the reality of exactly how or why Troy VII fell, historically speaking. Today, some historians believe that the city of Troy in The Iliad could be what archaeologists call Troy VI and VII-the context layer of that ancient city destroyed during the upheaval of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Its fame survived solely through the epic of Homer. Even at the time of Alexander’s Persian campaign, little was known about the historic Trojan War that had taken place over 800 years prior. When the Macedonian conqueror crossed the Dardanelles into Asia, he built an altar to pay tribute to him. The warrior prince Achilles had been his idol since boyhood.
The Abduction of Helen by Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto, Venetian, 1578 – 1579, Oil on canvas, via Museo del Prado with The Body of Patroclos Borne from the Battlefield by Diana Scultori, 16th c., via The Harvard Art MuseumsĪccording to legend, Alexander the Great kept two things under his pillow: a dagger and a copy of Homer’s Iliad.
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