Trojan War.
    Homer's Iliad, describing the war between the mainland Greeks (Achaeans) and the Trojans of Asia Minor, was based on what may have been an actual historical event that ended with the destruction of the city of Troy (also known as Ilium) in c. 1250 BCE. According to legend, the war began after the abduction of Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, by Paris, son of Priam of Troy. It then raged for some nine years, with the Greeks, led by Menelaus's brother Agamemnon, unable to penetrate the heavily fortified city. The Iliad describes a short period near the end of the war, beginning with the angry withdrawal from battle of the Greek warrior Achilles and ending with the funeral of the Trojan prince Hector.
    Classical artists illustrated many events from the war — especially duels between Menelaus and Paris, Ajax and Hector, and Diomedes and Aeneas, and Achilles receiving armor from his mother, Thetis — on black- and red-figure pottery and in other media. In the Middle Ages the Trojan War was a frequent subject of verse romances.

Further Reference: Margaret R. Scherer (1963), The Legends of Troy in Art and Literature (New York: Phaidon, for Metropolitan Museum of Art); Dora Wiebenson (1964) "Subjects from Homer's Iliad in Neoclassical Art," Art Bulletin 46:23-38.



Listings are also arranged under the following headings:
Trojan War — General List (TrojanWar)
Trojan War — Wooden Horse (TrojanWarHorse)
Trojan War — Fall of Troy (TrojanWarFall)

See also — ACHILLES; AGAMEMNON; AJAX; ANDROMACHE; APHRODITE, Girdle; ARES AND ATHENA; CASSANDRA; CHRYSEIS; DIOMEDES; HECTOR; HELEN OF TROY; IPHIGENIA, at Aulis; LAOCOÖN; MEMNON; PALAMEDES; PARIS; PATROCLUS; PENTHESILEA; PHILOCTETES; POLYDORUS; POLYXENA; PROTESILAUS and LAODAMIA; THETIS, and Peleus; TROILUS and CRESSIDA