The Trojan War

The Golden Apple

Dec 21, 1000

Eris, the evil goddess of discord, throws a golden apple into the midst of a wedding for King Peleus and sea nymph Thetis. "For the Fairest" is written on it. Three goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera and Pallas Athena, all want it because they each think they are the best. They go to Zeus to decide, but he tells them to go to Mount Ida and ask Prince Paris to instead. Each goddess bribes Paris, but in the end he chooses Aprhodite. She promises him the fairest woman in the world, Helen.

Paris takes Helen

Dec 22, 1000

Paris leaves his wife, Oenone, a sea nymph, for Helen. Aprodite takes Paris to Helen, and he starts out as a guest in the house. Then, when Helen's husband leaves them alone at home while he goes to Crete, Paris takes Helen and runs away with her. Menelaus, calls upon all of Greece to help him find his wife. Odysseus and Achilles are important people from the first rank of the Greek fleet.

The Sacrifice at Aulis

Dec 23, 1000

The Greek fleet had met at Aulis but were having trouble leaving because of the strong winds. The fortune-teller, Calchas, speaks with the gods and says Artemis is mad because one of her beloved wild creatures was slain by a Greek. The only way to have a safe voyage to Troy is to sacrifice to her a royal maiden, so they sacrifice Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, by taking her to a rock and killing her. After the sacrifice, the winds grow calm, and the Greeks sail out on a safe voyage to Troy.

The Gods begin choosing sides

May 15, 1009

Phoebus Apollo gets angry with the Greeks because Agamemnon won’t give Chryseis back to her father. He shoots fiery arrows at the Greek Army killing some of their men, so Achilles gathers together his chieftains and tells them they need to either appease Apollo or sail home. They decide to appease Apollo. Chryseis is sent back to her father but now Agamemnon is mad. He takes Achilles’ maiden, Briseis, in place of Chryseis. Achilles swears Agamemnon will pay dearly for the deed.

Achilles' mother, Thetis, gets involved

May 24, 1009

Thetis tells Achilles to have nothing more to do with the Greeks. Then, she returns to heaven and tells Zeus to give success to the Trojans. Zeus cant resist Thetis, so he comes up with a plan. He knows the Greeks are inferior with Achilles no longer being involved, so he sends a dream to Agamemnon promising him victory if he attacks the Trojans.

Paris and Menelaus fight

May 26, 1009

Agamemnon attacks the Trojans while Achilles stays in his tent. While the Greejs and Trojans are fighting, Helen appears to King Priam telling him the names of different Greek heroes. Then, the two armies back away from each other and Paris and Menalaus have a battle of their own in between them. When Paris is close to losing,Aphrodite catches him up in a cloud and takes him back to Troy. Agamemnon declares Menelaus the victor because no one can find Paris and that Troy must give Helen back.

Hera interferes and war starts up again

May 27, 1009

Hera sends Athena to the battlefied to persuade Pandarus, a Trojan, to break the truce and shoot an arrow at Menelaus. It only slightly wounds Menelaus, but it rages the Greeks enough to start war again. Diomedes ends up wounding Ares with his spear, so Ares can no longer help the Trojans.

Hector prays for mercy

May 29, 1009

Hector, the son of King Priam, is met by his brother. His brother tells him to to run home to his mother, the Queen, and tell her to offer her most beautiful robe to Athena and pray her to have mercy. Athena denies the prayer, so Zeus goes down to Earth to help the Trojans. With his help, the Trojans drive the Greeks almost all the way back to their ships.

Achilles refuses to fight with Greeks

Jun 2, 1009

Agamemnon realizes he needs Achilles come back or they will lose the war. He returns Brisais to Achilles and begs him to fight with the Greek fleet again. Achilles refuses the offer, so the Greeks go to battle without him. Once again, they are driven almost all the way back to their ships.

Hera makes a plan to help the Greeks

Jun 3, 1009

Hera makes herself look so beautiful that Zeus becomes overcome with love and forgets about his promise to Thetis. The Greeks start taking control of the battle, but then Zeus realizes what Hera did. She denies she did anything wrong and actually blames Poseidon. Zeus believes her and forces Poseidon to leave the battlefield. Achilles still refuses to fight though, so his best friend, Petroclus, takes action. He puts on Achilles' armor and goes to battle to help the Greeks.

Achilles flaunts his accomplishment

Jun 3, 1009

Achilles pierces the bottoms of Hector’s feet and ties them to his chariot. Then he rides around Troy dragging Hector behind the chariot. Zeus is angered by this. He sends Iris to King Priam. Iris tells him to beg Achilles for Hector's body, and Achilles will give it back. After Zeus begs for the body, Achilles returns it. King Priam lamentates for nine days, and then holds an honorable funeral for Hector.

Achilles kills Hector

Jun 3, 1009

Hector kills Petroclus in battle and then puts on the armor Petroclus was wearing, which was Achilles'. Achilles hears about this and immediately seeks revenge. The Greeks drive the Trojans all the way back into their town. Hector refuses to surrender, so he stays outside of the gates into Troy and waits for Achilles. After a short battle, Achilles kills Hector.

King Priam is killed

Jun 11, 1009

Achilles' son finds King Priam in the inner courtyard of his palace with his wife and children, but he feels no sorrow for any of them. He kills King Priam right in front of his family.

Prince Memnon comes to assist the Trojans

Jun 12, 1009

Prince Memnon brings his big army and comes to assist Troy. Achilles kills him in combat, and it ends up being his last battle he ever fights.

Paris kills Achilles

Jun 13, 1009

Achilles drives the Trojans back to the wall of Troy. There, Paris shoots him in the heel with the help of Apollo and kills him. Achilles’ mother, Thetis, had dipped him in River Styx when he was young to make him invulnerable, but she had forgotten to dip the foot she was carrying; therefore his heel was the only place he could be shot and killed. After he was put on a pyre and burned, his bones were put in the same urn as his best friend's, Patroclus.

Odysseus wins Achilles' armor

Jun 17, 1009

Ajax wanted Achilles' armor, so he went mad in the head when he didn't get it. He comes up with a plan to kill Agamemnon and Menelaus, the ones who voted to give the armor to Odysseus, When he reaches their quarters, Athena strikes him with herds of animals. Ajax thinks it's the Greek army and saughters all of them. Then, he drags a ram to his tent and beats it savagely thinking it's Odysseus. He finally regains reason and is appalled at what he did to the innocent animals so he kills himself.

Hercules' bow and arrow

Jun 22, 1009

The prophet of Helenus says Troy will not fall until someone fights against the Trojans with the bow and arrows from Hercules, and they had been given to Prince Philoctetes after Hercules died. Unfortunately, the Greeks had left Philoctetes on an island on their way to Troy because he was bit by a serpent. Odysseus goes to the island and steals the bow and arrows, but he feels bad leaving Philoctetes there, so he talks him into going back to Troy and fighting with the Greeks.

Paris is killed

Jun 24, 1009

Prince Philotetes joins the Greeks in battle, and the first person he shoots with Hercules' arrow is Paris. Paris begs to be taken to his ex-wife, Oenone, who used to tell him she had a magic drug to cure anything. Oenone is still angry at him for leaving her for Helen though, so she refuses to save him. Instead, she watches him die and then kills herself.

The Palladium is stolen

Jun 25, 1009

The Greeks learn of the Palladium, the most sacred image of Pallas Athena in the city of Troy. As long as the Trojans still had it, Troy could not be taken. With this in mind, Odysseus and Diomedes steal it from the city and take it back to the Greek camp.

The wooden horse is created

Jul 2, 1009

A hollow wooden horse is made to hold a number of Greek men. Odysseus is devising a plan to use this horse to finally defeat the Trojans.

Odysseus' plan is put into action

Jul 9, 1009

Sinon, a Greek, is the only Greek left in the camp when the Trojans come to look at it. They seize him and carry him to Priam where he cries that he doesn't want to be a Greek any longer. There he explains that Athena was angry at the Greeks when they stole the Palladium, so the Greeks sent to an oracle who told them to sacrifice someone and then return to Greece. Sinon tells them he was chosen to be the sacrifice, but he hid before they could sacrifice him.

Odysseus' plan is put into action

Jul 10, 1009

The Trojans pity Sinon and decide he will henceforth live as one of them. Sinon tells the Trojans that the big wooden horse was made as a votive offering to Athena, and that the Greeks purposely made it very large to discourage the Trojans from taking it into the city. He says if it is placed in the city, Athena will turn to the Trojans’ side, so the Trojans want to take it into city. The priest Laocoon is urgent to destroy it though.

Odysseus' plan is put into action

Jul 10, 1009

Trojans want to take the wooden horse into city, but priest Laocoon says they should destroy it. When he says this, two serpents come out of the sea and crush the life out of him (Poseidon's doing). The Trojans then fear that Lacoon had been punished for opposing the entry of the horse, so they drag the horse into Troy and up to the temple of Athena.

The Trojans begin fighting back

Jul 11, 1009

The Trojans realize they must fight back. Some of the Trojan soliders start putting on the armor of Greek soldiers that are dead. Then, they begin killing Greek soldiers by surprise because the Greeks think it they are fellow soldiers.

Troy is set on fire

Jul 11, 1009

In the middle of the night, the chieftains and Odysseus get out of the wooden horse, open the gates to Troy, and lead the Greek Army right into the city. They quietly set fire to the buildings, so by the time the Trojans wake up, the city of Troy is all on fire, With the Trojans now aware of what's happening, the Greeks bigan slaughtering them left and right.

Helen and Menelaus are reunited

Jul 12, 1009

Aphrodite returns Helen to Menelaus, and they sail home to Greece together.

Troy's last sacrifice

Jul 12, 1009

Hector’s wife, Andromache, is among many other women who are being held captive and whose children have been taken from them. Unlike them, she still has her child Astanax with her. That doesn't last for long. A Greek herald comes to her and says the news he is bringing is against his will, but that her child must die. He was to be throw down from the tower of Troy. After Andromache says her goodbyes, Astanax is thrown from the tower and killed. That completes Troy's last sacrifice.

The End

Jul 13, 1009

Finally, the war is over. Greece has won itself a grand victory, and Troy lay in ruins. The only Trojans left are helpless, captive women who wait to be made slaves by the Greeks.