Where Did The Greeks Gather Before Sailing To Troy?

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War began as a way for Zeus to reduce humanity’s population. The Greek (Achaean) leaders met at Aulis to prepare for war against Troy. Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, hunted and killed a deer in a grove sacred to the goddess Artemis. Artemis punished Agamemnon by acting upon the winds, so that Agamemnon’s fleet could not sail.

The Greeks sent a diplomatic mission to Troy, likely consisting of Menelaus and Odysseus, with the mission to recover Helen. Paris, driven by his promised reward from Aphrodite, set sail to Greece and arrived at Menelaus palace. During his visit, Paris seduced Helen and convinced her to sail to Troy. The Greeks spent ten years attacking the city without successfully capturing it.

In one battle, Achilles captured the Trojan priestesses of Apollo. When night fell, the horse opened up, and a group of Greek warriors led by Odysseus climbed out and sacked Troy from within. After the Trojan defeat, the Greek fleet gathered at Aulis for the long voyage to Troy. However, when they were about to leave, Artemis sent contrary winds, and Menelaus and Agamemnon gathered the armies of their allies at the coast to sail to Troy.

Homer revealed that many people believed he came from the Aegean island of Chios, or from Smyrna or Colophon, on the west coast of what is now modern-day Turkey. Troy is an ancient city and archaeological site in modern-day Turkey, but is also famously the setting for the legendary Trojan War in Homers. The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war.


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Who was the Trojan War between
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What prevented the Greeks from sailing to Troy?

Iphigenia at Aulis was written in410 B.C.E. and is the last play that Euripides wrote. The playwas produced a few years after his death and won first prize at thefestival of Dionysia. Iphigenia at Aulis is the precursorto Iphigenia at Tauris andsets the background for the fate of Iphigenia. Thisplay mainly focuses on Agamemnon, Iphigenia’s father. Agamemnonis faced with a very difficult decision of whether he should sacrificehis daughter to allow his troops to set sail. The Greek troops are waiting at Aulis to set sailand advance to Troy because they cannot travel without wind.There is a lack of wind because it’s being controlled by the goddessArtemis. Artemis was offended by Agamemnon and therefore decidedto punish him and his army by making it impossible to set sail.In order to please Artemis and get the necessary wind, Agamemnon istold he must sacrifice his daughter. Agamemnon realizes thehorror of killing his own daughter but must not dismiss the ideabecause his troops are getting anxious and might rebel againsthim. Agamemnon decides to send a message to his wife to sendtheir daughter to Aulis for marriage to Achilles before he leaves forbattle.

Euripides.Translated by: Moses Hadas, and John McLean. Ten Plays by Euripides. Iphigenia at Aulis. New York:Bantam Books,1950. The actual text of Iphigenia at Auliswritten byEuripides and translated by Moses Hadas and John McLean can be found inTen Plays by Euripides.The book is comprised of ten of Euripides plays including Iphigenia atTauris.

How did the Trojan War start
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How did the Greeks gain entrance into Troy?

Trojan horse, huge hollow wooden horse constructed by the Greeks to gain entrance into Troy during the Trojan War. The horse was built by Epeius, a master carpenter and pugilist. The Greeks, pretending to desert the war, sailed to the nearby island of Tenedos, leaving behind Sinon, who persuaded the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athena (goddess of war) that would make Troy impregnable. Despite the warnings of Laocoön and Cassandra, the horse was taken inside the city gates. That night Greek warriors emerged from it and opened the gates to let in the returned Greek army. The story is told at length in Book II of the Aeneid and is touched upon in the Odyssey. The term Trojan horse has come to refer to subversion introduced from the outside. Beginning in the late 20th century, the name “Trojan horse” was applied to deceptively benign computer codes that seem like legitimate applications but are written to damage or disrupt a computer’s programming or to steal personal information.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.

How long did the Trojan War last
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How did the Greeks arrive to Troy?

The Narrative of the Trojan War. According to classical sources, the war began after the abduction (or elopement) of Queen Helen of Sparta by the Trojan prince Paris. Helen’s jilted husband Menelaus convinced his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, to lead an expedition to retrieve her. Agamemnon was joined by the Greek heroes Achilles, Odysseus, Nestor and Ajax, and accompanied by a fleet of more than a thousand ships from throughout the Hellenic world. They crossed the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor to lay siege to Troy and demand Helen’s return by Priam, the Trojan king.

Did you know? Some traditions portray Homer as a blind poet, because the name Homer sounds like a word for “blind” in some Greek dialects. In the “Odyssey,” a blind bard appears telling stories of the war, which some interpret as a cameo by the poem’s author.

The siege, punctuated by battles and skirmishes including the storied deaths of the Trojan prince Hector and the nearly-invincible Achilles, lasted more than 10 years until the morning the Greek armies retreated from their camp, leaving a large wooden horse outside the gates of Troy. After much debate (and unheeded warnings by Priam’s daughter Cassandra), the Trojans pulled the mysterious gift into the city. When night fell, the horse opened up and a group of Greek warriors, led by Odysseus, climbed out and sacked the Troy from within.

Who won the Trojan War
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Which two heroes initially try and avoid sailing to Troy?

But two heroes were reluctant. An oracle told Odysseus that he would be twenty years from home if he went, so he feigned madness when the Greek leaders came for him. Palamedes exposed the ruse, and Odysseus had to go. Since Troy could not be taken without the help of Achilles, the Greeks went to Scyros to fetch him.

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Helen of Troy
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Are Trojans Greek or Turkish?

The Trojans were an ancient people who are thought to have been based in modern-day Turkey. Historians are unsure if they were descendants of Greeks or from elsewhere, most of what we know comes from Greeks written much later, such as the famous Greek writer, Homer.

Find out all about the Trojans in Ancient Greece, the Trojan War, and the famous Trojan Horse from Greek legends with this handy wiki full of Trojan War facts.

Who were the Trojans?. Well, we don’t actually know that much about them! You see, the main way that we knew about the Trojans until comparatively recently is through ancient Greek myths about the Trojan War – a legendary 10 year long conflict between the ancient Greeks and the ancient Trojans, who were believed to live on the Eastern Mediterranean coast. Famously, at the end of the war, the Greeks razed the city of Troy to the ground – which means that it was pretty hard to say exactly where Troy had been and how its people lived until much later on.

The Trojan War was one of ancient Greece’s most foundational myths from what they called the ‘Heroic Era’, when they believed thatmonsters roamed the earth and gods interacted directly with humans, and they treated the myth as though it was historical fact.The story of its destruction was one of the cornerstones of Greek mythology and literature, featuring prominently in some of the earliest examples of ancient Greek literature, the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as numerous other poems and plays. Its legacy played a large role in Greek society, with many prominent families claiming descent from those who had fought there. The area where Troy was believed to have been even became a tourist trap during the Classical Greek era!

Who was on the Greek side in the black ships before Troy?

The main characters on the Greek side are Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Odysseus, Nestor, and Calchas the soothsayer. Helen is Greek, but she is living in Troy. The main characters on the Trojan side are Priam, Hecuba, Hector, and Paris.

What happened in the Trojan War
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Where did the Greek fleet gather before heading off on their expedition against Troy?

According to Homer’s epic The Iliad, the Greek fleet gathered in Aulis to set off for Troy. However, the departure for the Trojan War was prevented by Artemis, who stopped the wind to punish Agamemnon, who had killed a deer in a sacred grove and boasted he was the better hunter than she. The fleet was only able to sail off after Agamemnon had sacrificed his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Strabo says that the harbour of Aulis could only hold fifty ships, and that therefore the Greek fleet must have assembled in the large port in the neighbourhood (Ancient Greek: Βαθὺς λιμὴν, romanized:Bathỳs limḗn, lit. ’deep sea’). Aulis appears to have stood upon a rocky height, since it is called by Homer “rocky Aulis” (Ancient Greek: Αὐλὶς πετρήεσσα, romanized:Aulìs petrḗessa), and by Strabo a “stone village” (Ancient Greek: πετρῶδες χωρίον, romanized:petrôdes chōríon).

In 396BCE, the Spartan king Agesilaus II, imitating Agamemnon, chose Aulis as the departure point for sailing to Asia with his army. On the eve of sailing Thebans intervened and drove Agesilaus out of Boeotia. This event has been seen as the origin of Agesilaus’ personal hatred towards Thebes, which greatly influenced the relationship between Sparta and Thebes over the next 25 years until the decisive Battle of Leuctra.

In the time of Pausanias, Aulis had only a few inhabitants, who were potters. Its temple of Artemis, which Agamemnon is said to have founded, was still standing when Pausanias visited the place.

Why was it not possible for the Greeks to enter Troy?

Troy was a high walled city and fortified. The Greeks invaded. Achilles killed Hector but still could not get into the city. The King of Ithica was supposedly come up with the idea to use a device later dubbed the Trojan Horse and snuck in the city.

Trojan Horse
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Which city were the Greek trying to enter when they used the Trojan Horse?

In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse (Greek: δούρειος ίππος, romanized:doureios hippos, lit. ’wooden horse’) was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in the Odyssey. But in the Aeneid by Virgil, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under the cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war.

Metaphorically, a “Trojan horse” has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer program that tricks users into willingly running it is also called a “Trojan horse” or simply a “Trojan”.

The main ancient source for the story still extant is the Aeneid of Virgil, a Latin epic poem from the time of Augustus. The story featured heavily in the Little Iliad and the Sack of Troy, both part of the Epic Cycle, but these have only survived in fragments and epitomes. As Odysseus was the chief architect of the Trojan Horse, it is also referred to in Homer’s Odyssey.In the Greek tradition, the horse is called the “wooden horse” (δουράτεος ἵππος douráteos híppos in Homeric/Ionic Greek (Odyssey 8.512); δούρειος ἵππος, doúreios híppos in Attic Greek). In Dictys Cretensis’ account, the idea of the Trojan Horse’s construction comes from Helenus, who prophesies that the Greeks must dedicate a wooden horse to Athena.

Where is Troy
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Why did the Greeks hate Troy?

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 (Books II – XXIII) 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.

The ancient Greeks believed that Troy was located near the Dardanelles and that the Trojan War was a historical event of the or. By the mid-19th century AD, both the war and the city were widely seen as non-historical, but in 1868, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann met Frank Calvert, who convinced Schliemann that Troy was at what is now Hisarlık in modern day Turkey. On the basis of excavations conducted by Schliemann and others, this claim is now accepted by most scholars.

The historicity of the Trojan War remains an open question. Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age. Those who believe that the stories of the Trojan War are derived from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the or, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194–1184 BC, which roughly correspond to archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VII, and the Late Bronze Age collapse.

Did the Trojan War happen
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Is the Trojan Horse a true story?

But was it just a myth? Probably, says Oxford University classicist Dr Armand D’Angour: ‘Archaeological evidence shows that Troy was indeed burned down; but the wooden horse is an imaginative fable, perhaps inspired by the way ancient siege-engines were clothed with damp horse-hides to stop them being set alight.’

There is even doubt about the existence of the man said to have written theOdyssey, Homer, who is considered to be the greatest of Greek epic poets. Dr D’Angour explains: ‘It’s generally supposed that the great epics which go under Homer’s name, the Iliad and Odyssey, were composed orally, without the aid of writing, some time in the 8th Century BC, the fruit of a tradition of oral minstrelsy stretching back for centuries.

‘While the ancients had no doubt that Homer was a real bard who composed the monumental epics, nothing certain is known about him. All we do know is that, even if the poems were composed without writing and orally transmitted, at some stage they were written down in Greek, because that is how they have survived.’


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Where Did The Greeks Gather Before Sailing To Troy
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Debbie Green

I am a school teacher who was bitten by the travel bug many decades ago. My husband Billy has come along for the ride and now shares my dream to travel the world with our three children.The kids Pollyanna, 13, Cooper, 12 and Tommy 9 are in love with plane trips (thank goodness) and discovering new places, experiences and of course Disneyland.

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