The Reality Of the Trojan War
Historical events become legends and myths as time marches on. They are full of events and characters that are unrealistic. Was there really a Robin Hood? Though history is not concrete about this one, who’s to say there was not a man who became the basis for this larger-than-life figure? The same can be said about the Trojan War.
The Trojan stories seem unbelievable. Do we dismiss the Trojan War as fiction because of Homer’s creative work, or do we accept it as fact based on cooperating evidence?
Composition of Story
The story of the Trojan War was not composed until the Dark Age was ending and the Archaic age was on the horizon. Around 500 years after Troy vanished, Homer wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey, which are without question fictional books. Many, in the classical Greek period, believed that Homer’s fictional books had considerable historical value and that Troy did exist. The stories were taught in schools and revered as crucial parts of education in history. Tradition has it that Alexander the Great carried a copy of Homer’s works with him as he conquered much of the known world.
As the years went by, Homer began to be dismissed as just a good story writer. In the ancient world, Homer was revered as a man who passed on a piece of history that otherwise might forever have been forgotten.
