Troy and the Trojan War: The Archaeology of an Epic: Home

The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy provides an overview of all excavations that have been conducted at Troy, from the nineteenth century through the latest discoveries between 1988 and the present. Charles Brian Rose traces the social and economic development of the city and related sites in the Troad, as well as the development of its civic and religious centers from the Bronze Age through the early Christian period, with a focus on the settlements of Greek and Roman date. Along the way, he reconsiders the circumstances of the Trojan War and chronicles Troy's gradual development into a Homeric tourist destination and the adoption of Trojan ancestry by most nation-states in medieval Europe.

Among surviving Greek tragedies only Euripides' Trojan Women shows us the extinction of a whole city, an entire people. Despite its grim theme, or more likely because of the centrality of that theme to the deepest fears of our own age, this is one of the relatively few Greek tragedies that regularly finds its way to the stage. Here the power of Euripides' theatrical and moral imagination speaks clearly across the twenty-five centuries that separate our world from his. The theme is really a double one: the suffering of the victims of war, exemplified by the woman who survive the fall of Troy, and the degradation of the victors, shown by the Greeks' reckless and ultimately self-destructive behavior. It offers an enduring picture of human fortitude in the midst of despair. Trojan Women gains special relevance, of course, in times of war. It presents a particularly intense account of human suffering and uncertainty, but one that is also rooted in considerations of power and policy, morality and expedience. Furthermore, the seductions of power and the dangers both of its exercise and of resistance to it as portrayed in Trojan Women are not simply philosophical or rhetorical gambits but part of the lived experience of Euripides' day. And their analogues in our own day lie all too close at hand.This new powerful translation of Trojan Women includes an illuminating introduction, explanatory notes, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading.

In this new volume, Jan Haywood and Naoíse Mac Sweeney investigate the position of Homer's Iliad within the wider Trojan War tradition through a series of detailed case studies. From ancient Mesopotamia to twenty-first century America, these examples are drawn from a range of historical and cultural contexts; and from Athenian pot paintings to twelfth-century German scholarship, they engage with a range of different media and genres. Inspired by the dialogues inherent in the process of reception, the book adopts a dialogic structure. In each chapter, paired essays by Haywood and Mac Sweeney offer contrasting authorial voices addressing a single theme, thereby drawing out connections and dissonances between a diverse suite of classical and post-classical Iliadic receptions. The resulting book offers new insights, both into individual instances of Iliadic reception in particular historical contexts, but also into the workings of a complex story tradition. The centrality of the Iliad within the wider Trojan War tradition is shown to be a function of conscious engagement not only with Iliadic content, but also with Iliadic status and the iconic idea of the Homeric.

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play.En route to fight the Trojan War, the Greek army has abandoned Philoctetes, after the smell of his festering wound, mysteriously received from a snakebite at a shrine on a small island off Lemnos, makes it unbearable to keep him on ship. Ten years later, an oracle makes it clear that the war cannot be won without the assistance of Philoctetes and his famous bow, inherited from Hercules himself. Philoctetes focuses on the attempt of Neoptolemus and the hero Odysseus to persuade the bowman to sail with them to Troy. First, though, they must assuage his bitterness over having been abandoned, and then win his trust. But how should they do this--through trickery, or with the truth? To what extent do the ends justify the means? To what degree should personal integrity be compromised for the sake of public duty? These are among the questions that Sophocles puts forward in this, one of his most morally complex and penetrating plays.

A central figure in both classical and ancient near Eastern fields, Trevor Bryce presents the first publication to focus on Troy's neighbours and contemporaries as much as Troy itself. With the help of maps, charts and photographs, he unearths the secrets of this iconic ancient city. Beginning with an account of Troy's involvement in The Iliad and the question of the historicity of the Trojan War, Trevor Bryce reveals how the recently discovered Hittite texts illuminate this question which has fascinated scholars and travellers since the Renaissance. Encompassing the very latest research, the city and its inhabitants are placed in historical context - and with its neighbours and contemporaries - to form a complete and vivid view of life within the Trojan walls and beyond from its beginning in c.3000 BC to its decline and obscurity in the Byzantine period. Documented here are the archaeological watershed discoveries from the Victorian era to the present that reveal, through Troy's nine levels, the story of a metropolis punctuated by signs of economic prosperity, natural disaster, public revolt and war.