Plot
With the birth of the prince Paris of Troy, the princess Cassandra has a prophecy that Paris would be the cause of the destruction of their city. Their father, the king Priam, leaves Paris to Mount Ida, where he is raised by the shepherd Agelaus. When he is grown (in what is known as his "judgement"), he encounters the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, who ask him to judge which of them is the most beautiful. Hera offers him power and Athena offers him victory, but he chooses Aphrodite, who promises him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.
In Sparta, Helen meets Agamemnon, who has come to claim her sister Clytemnestra as his bride but is attracted to Helen. Helen is kidnapped by two Athenians, including Theseus. Her brother Pollux raids Athens to rescue her but Theseus kills him. In a rage, Helen's father Tyndareus presents her to the many suitors who seek her hand. Various men compete and she is married to Menelaus. The other suitors swear an oath to wage war against anyone who disrespects her husband's claim to her.
Paris is, years later, sent to Sparta to draw out a peace treaty with Menelaus, which angers Agamemnon. The treaty is refused and both Menelaus and Agamemnon plot to have Paris murdered. Paris meets Helen as he gains her love and the two flee to Troy. Menelaus demands that his brother wage war on Troy and the former suitors are gathered to fulfill their oath. When the Greeks arrive to demand the return of Helen, Priam refuses. The Greeks attack and occupy Troy.
The war rages on. Agamemnon agrees to end it if, in a single duel, Menelaus wins over Paris. Agamemnon poisons Menelaus' javelin. Paris is cut but Menelaus stops the fight and the two men make peace. Hector challenges Agamemnon to a duel to the death; Achilles takes up the challenge and kills Hector. To try to save Paris, Helen attempts to surrender to Agamemnon, but Paris intervenes. Achilles charges at him, but Paris shoots Achilles in the heel. Paris is saved by Trojan soldiers but Agamemnon stabs him and he dies in Helen's arms.
During Paris' funeral, the Greeks appear to sail away, leaving a huge wooden horse on the beach of Troy. The horse is taken into the city, but there are Greek soldiers inside it. When the city is asleep at that night, the Greeks kill both Priam and the queen Hecuba. Agamemnon seats himself on Troy's throne declaring himself as a dictator and ruler of the Aegean entirely, having Helen brought to him and raping her. The next morning, as the Greek soldiers sack the city, Clytemnestra arrives, rescuing her sister and killing her husband.
Helen wanders through the ruined city. At the spot where Paris died, she sees his apparition. She begs him to take her with him to the afterlife but he says that she must wait for her time. A compassionate Menelaus takes her back to Sparta, where they will reign as king and queen. Troy, once the richest kingdom of all, is left in ruins.
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Achaeans during the Trojan War. He was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Iphigenia, Iphianassa, Electra, Laodike, Orestes and Chrysothemis. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. Agamemnon was killed upon his return from Troy by Clytemnestra, or in an older version of the story, by Clytemnestra's lover Aegisthus.
Cassandra or Kassandra in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.
The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the 12th or 13th century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid.
Paris, also known as Alexander, is a mythological figure in the story of the Trojan War. He appears in numerous Greek legends and works of Ancient Greek literature such as the Iliad. In myth, he is prince of Troy, son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, and younger brother of Prince Hector. His elopement with Helen sparks the Trojan War, during which he fatally wounds Achilles.
Helen, also known as Helen of Troy, Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, and in Latin as Helena, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda or Nemesis, and the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor, Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta "who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also." Her abduction by Paris of Troy was the most immediate cause of the Trojan War.
In Greek mythology, Tyndareus was a Spartan king.
Diomedes or Diomede is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War.
Troy is a 2004 epic historical war film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by David Benioff. Produced by units in Malta, Mexico and Britain's Shepperton Studios, the film features an ensemble cast led by Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Saffron Burrows and Orlando Bloom. It is loosely based on Homer's Iliad in its narration of the entire story of the decade-long Trojan War—condensed into little more than a couple of weeks, rather than just the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in the ninth year. Achilles leads his Myrmidons along with the rest of the Greek army invading the historical city of Troy, defended by Hector's Trojan army. The end of the film is not taken from the Iliad, but rather from Quintus Smyrnaeus's Posthomerica, as the Iliad concludes with Hector's death and funeral.
The Trojan Women is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides, produced in 415 BCE. Also translated as The Women of Troy, or as its transliterated Greek title Troades, The Trojan Women presents commentary on the costs of war through the lens of women and children. The four central women of the play are the same that appear in the final book of the Iliad, lamenting over the corpse of Hector after the Trojan War.
Paris is a rock musical written by Australian rock musician Jon English and David Mackay between 1987 and 1990, based on the myth of the Trojan War. A concept album was released in Australia in 1990 with the first stage production taking place in Sydney in 2003.
The Cypria is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature, which has been attributed to Stasinus and was quite well known in classical antiquity and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the Cypria comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and is followed by that of the Iliad; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven books of verse in epic dactylic hexameters.
King Priam is an opera by Michael Tippett, to his own libretto. The story is based on Homer's Iliad, except the birth and childhood of Paris, which are taken from the Fabulae of Hyginus.
The Posthomerica is an epic poem in Greek hexameter verse by Quintus of Smyrna. Probably written in the 3rd century AD, it tells the story of the Trojan War, between the death of Hector and the fall of Ilium (Troy). The poem is an abridgement of the events described in the epic poems Aethiopis and Iliou Persis by Arctinus of Miletus, and the Little Iliad by Lesches, all now-lost poems of the Epic Cycle.
Clytemnestra, in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the half-sister of Helen of Sparta. In Aeschylus' Oresteia, she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess Cassandra, whom Agamemnon had taken as a war prize following the sack of Troy; however, in Homer's Odyssey, her role in Agamemnon's death is unclear and her character is significantly more subdued.
The Returns from Troy are the stories of how the Greek leaders returned after their victory in the Trojan War. Many Achaean heroes did not return to their homes, but died or founded colonies outside the Greek mainland. The most famous returns are those of Odysseus, whose wanderings are narrated in the Odyssey, and Agamemnon, whose murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra was portrayed in Greek tragedy.
Cassandra is a 1983 novel by the German author Christa Wolf. It has since been translated into a number of languages.
Goddess of Yesterday is a 2002 novel by Caroline B. Cooney based on the Trojan War from Greek mythology. The book was nominated for the South Carolina Junior Book Award, and was a 2003 ALA Notable Children's Book for Older Readers
The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature.
Troy is an opera in two acts by Bujor Hoinic set to a Turkish-language libretto by Artun Hoinic, based on the ancient Greek epic poem Iliad by Homer. It premiered in Ankara, Turkey, in 2018 and was restaged at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia, in 2019.
