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Is the story of Troy true?

newman24x

Is it true? The legend of Priam and all that..I just couldn't imagine a city with high walls surrounding it. Must be a small city :s-smilie:

I think the movie exaggerates it a little bit :smile:

Most cities had walls at one point in their history, why is that the bit you have trouble with?

Reply 21

pipkinlove

jismith1989

I'm thinking of transferring to St Andrews actually, I notice that's where you're going, in my second year; as I changed from Law at the last minute and so Manchester was one of the few places that would have me, and it does look like a beautiful university. I'll see how well I like Manchester though, obviously. Have you had chance to visit St Andrews?

You know what if you can get transferred there do it, seriously. It's completely beautiful. I'm doing English but in the Scottish system you can do three subjects in your first two years and so I went to the Classics talk and I was very impressed. Great academics, stunning department building and one of the top rated departments in the country. Go for it.

Good Luck!
:biggrin:

Reply 22

vapid slut magician

newman24x

is the wall surrounding the city true? I can't imagine a city (at that time) have all its parameter surrounded by brick walls..

how can archaeologists determine/know that what they had found is the city of Troy? (sorry not a history major-but interested to know :biggrin:

)

Mycenae had huge walls around it...

Reply 23

Epic Win

15

newman24x

Is it true? The legend of Priam and all that..I just couldn't imagine a city with high walls surrounding it. Must be a small city :s-smilie:

I think the movie exaggerates it a little bit :smile:

Chester has walls surrounding it :biggrin:

Reply 24

faber niger

17

pipkinlove

You know what if you can get transferred there do it, seriously. It's completely beautiful. I'm doing English but in the Scottish system you can do three subjects in your first two years and so I went to the Classics talk and I was very impressed. Great academics, stunning department building and one of the top rated departments in the country. Go for it.

Good Luck!
:biggrin:

Well, I have straight As and they only ask for ABB, so I talked to an admissions tutor there, and she told me that there was a good chance that I'll be accepted if I apply. The only problem is that I'm not sure if I want to do a Law degree afterwards; if I do, I don't want to put an extra year onto my degree, with Scottish degrees being four years long -- so I guess I'll have to make my mind up soon!

Thanks anyway. :smile:

Reply 25

newman24x

OP

vapid slut magician

Most cities had walls at one point in their history, why is that the bit you have trouble with?

lol

don't know. Can't imagine they can build such high walls higher than than 3-4 stories high (correct me if i'm wrong :smile:

).

How can they build such walls if they were attacked by foreign nations whiles building it (if it did happen) must take years to build such walls

yeah...i know i don't know much hehe but still just love history. Wanted to be an archaeologist when i was at school :biggrin:

but that never happend lol

Reply 26

--

3

newman24x

lol

don't know. Can't imagine they can build such high walls higher than than 3-4 stories high (correct me if i'm wrong :smile:

).

How can they build such walls if they were attacked by foreign nations whiles building it (if it did happen) must take years to build such walls

yeah...i know i don't know much hehe but still just love history. Wanted to be an archaeologist when i was at school :biggrin:

but that never happend lol

Homer never saw the walls, he wrote the story hundreds of years after Troy was destroyed. The Greek Dark Age, in which literacy pretty much died out, was in the intervening years, so his tale is probably based on oral accounts passed down through myth and folk tale. Walls did not have to be massive to be unassailable - the Greeks had no way of breaking a siege until about the 5th-4th century BC, if a city managed to secure it's walls when they attacked they invariably simply laid waste to the land outside the walls and then went back home once the fighting season was over (Greek warfare tended to only happen in the summer months, the soldiers were busy farming at other times).

So, basically, the battle probably did happen, but not in the epic, mythical way that Homer describes it. Troy was probably a well defended city, but not a towering marvel of engineering. Also, have you even read the book? You realise that it involves the actions of Gods, or the son's of Gods (Achilles)? Or that in the Odyssey there are actual monsters - including harpies and a cyclops? It's quite clear the story cannot possibly be 'true' in the strictest sense.

Reply 27

vapid slut magician

Cantab

Homer never saw the walls, he wrote the story hundreds of years after Troy was destroyed. The Greek Dark Age, in which literacy pretty much died out, was in the intervening years, so his tale is probably based on oral accounts passed down through myth and folk tale. Walls did not have to be massive to be unassailable - the Greeks had no way of breaking a siege until about the 5th-4th century BC, if a city managed to secure it's walls when they attacked they invariably simply laid waste to the land outside the walls and then went back home once the fighting season was over (Greek warfare tended to only happen in the summer months, the soldiers were busy farming at other times).

So, basically, the battle probably did happen, but not in the epic, mythical way that Homer describes it. Troy was probably a well defended city, but not a towering marvel of engineering. Also, have you even read the book? You realise that it involves the actions of Gods, or the son's of Gods (Achilles)? Or that in the Odyssey there are actual monsters - including harpies and a cyclops? It's quite clear the story cannot possibly be 'true' in the strictest sense.

That and the fact Poseidon and Apollo built the walls, that's why they're so amazing, duuuhhh

Reply 28

Catsmeat

13

newman24x

Is it true? The legend of Priam and all that..I just couldn't imagine a city with high walls surrounding it. Must be a small city :s-smilie:

I think the movie exaggerates it a little bit :smile:

The search for the fabled Troy has troubled quite a few minds, if I recall. Heinrich Schliemann, a romantic and classical historian, was convinced that the narrative of Troy represented a considerable and actual historical event. He looked for Ilium, or Troy, and supposedely discovered it in 1870. He built up his own mythos around it, though; that the gold he'd recovered was Priam's, that the city's destruction levels were of the Trojan/Achean war. Actually, the city he recovered was far too late. Current research indicates that levels V and VII of the city are the best candidates for a contemporaneous settlement that would have been actively occupied during the so-called Dark Ages (i.e., the period when Homer indicated that Troy was under siege predated the poet's time, and was set in a post-Mycenaen Aegean).

There's little merit in conducting a historical or archaeological investigation from a narrative that has no clear provenance, and one which, equally, deals with Gods as well as the hum-drum lives of men and women. In that sense, we may look at it in the same way some scholars approach the bible; as a literary resource. In this sense, the narrative is quite historically compelling. The sites of Troy (i.e., Levels V and VII) are wealthy, well-built (there is evidence of Cyclopean walls, a palatial structure, though little evidence so far of domestic activity at any high frequency), with artifact assemblages including gold, precious metals, minerals, amphorae (i.e., storage vessels, indicating trade). The location of the City is prominent, controlling access into the Crimea, as well as the route between the Balkans and Anatolia (consider the strategic importance of the region during WWI, for instance). Equally, it appears that several layers have experienced some destruction, perhaps by fire, whilst Level V deposits have also shown evidence of piled sling stones, as if in preparation for attack. The social pattern, then, of a trade city controlling regional monopoly, set against the growing coherency and structure of Mycenaen trade, indicates that conflict was probably quite common over such a city, to the extent that it may have been notable and, therefore, worth writing about. In terms of technology, also, many scholars have actually indicated that the very intricate descriptions of armour, and of the style of fighting, would have suited what is witnessed in the archaeological record; figure-of-eight shields, artisanal weaponry, the use of bronze greaves and breast-plates, the use of short spears and the practice of one-on-one fighting. In that sense, it seems that technologically, and socio-economically, the Iliad is quite an accurate representation of possible events and ways of living in the late Bronze Age. As to the story, the Trojan horse and chariot races by the beach, well...

newman24x

don't know. Can't imagine they can build such high walls higher than than 3-4 stories high (correct me if i'm wrong :smile:

).

Bronze Age engineering was actually quite sophisticated, especially in terms of defensive building. Mycenae, as another poster has observed, has walls dating to the 13th century that are distinguished for their time; the process of building such walls involved rolling larger blocks into position from a height on the plateu of the citadel. These walls are rather immense, as the following link (observing the Lion's Head Gate of Mycenae) indicates; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Mycenae_lion_gate_dsc06382.jpg/800px-Mycenae_lion_gate_dsc06382.jpg.

Reply 29

newman24x

OP

how accurate the Troy movie with the actual Troy? Is the city that big?

Reply 30

vapid slut magician

newman24x

how accurate the Troy movie with the actual Troy? Is the city that big?

God please tell me you're kidding. That movie was the biggest pile of ****. If you want to know about Troy then read the Iliad. Or something by Professor Diggle.

Reply 31

newman24x

OP

vapid slut magician

That movie was the biggest pile of ****. If you want to know about Troy then read the Iliad. Or something by Professor Diggle.

lol who knows right? :smile:

lol i can't understand poems very well to be honest :biggrin:

i just checked Iliad's poem at wiki, the poem(if i'm not mistaken ends with Hector's body being burned on a pyre? so in which part the wooden horse cames in?

Reply 32

vapid slut magician

newman24x

lol who knows right? :smile:

lol i can't understand poems very well to be honest :biggrin:

i just checked Iliad's poem at wiki, the poem(if i'm not mistaken ends with Hector's body being burned on a pyre? so in which part the wooden horse cames in?

The wooden horse isn't in the Iliad. The Iliad only chronicles about two weeks in the 10th and final year of the Trojan war and doesn't include the sack of the city or the death of Achilles (even though it's foretold).

The horse is mentioned briefly, however, in the Odyssey when Odysseus is recounting the story of the Trojan war.

To be honest, the poems are pretty easy reading, if you really want to know all this stuff it wouldn't take you long to read them both. The penguin classics are perfectly adequate.

Reply 33

pipkinlove

newman24x

how accurate the Troy movie with the actual Troy? Is the city that big?

Put it this way, in the actual legend Aeneas is one of the most prominent Trojan figures (being the son of Venus/Aphrodite and going on to found the Roman/Latin race etc), in the film he is played by this weedy pre-pubescent boy and is on the screen for like 2 minutes if that while Paris hands him some seemingly symbolic sword........

Pile of *******.

:yep:

Reply 34

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3

newman24x

how accurate the Troy movie with the actual Troy? Is the city that big?

**** me, are you serious? It's a Hollywood movie, of course it's not accurate. Do you really not have the critical faculties to see that? Whatever you do, don't watch 300 and come on here asking if there are ogres and monsters.

If you're actually even remotely interested, read the books - Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. I managed to read them when I was about 7, I'm sure you can get through them. The poems have been translated into prose (like a normal story), so aren't like reading a Shakespeare sonnet.

Reply 35

Haloface

5

After the movie "Alexander", I can't pick a Robin Lane Fox book up without feeling somewhat disgusted. Thankfully I read his 'Alexander the Great' before he consulted on the movie.

Reply 36

vapid slut magician

Haloface

After the movie "Alexander", I can't pick a Robin Lane Fox book up without feeling somewhat disgusted. Thankfully I read his 'Alexander the Great' before he consulted on the movie.

Yeah but that man couldn't publish a coherent book even if someone wrote it for him

Reply 37

faber niger

17

Sorry to interrupt, but does anyone on this thread want to join the TSR Classics Society? We have quizzes and other such fun and games; generally, we're a very welcoming group and end up discussing many things! Here's the link: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=605460

Is the story of Troy true?

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