Troy has appeared in Greek and Latin literature. Homer first mentioned the story of Troy in his Iliad and Odyssey. According to legend, goddesses were led to the Trojan Mount Ida where Priam’s handsome son Paris was living. Paris went to Sparta to give an apple to Helen. Menelaus, Helen’s husband, prepared a feast for him, but when he left to visit the king of Knossos, Helen and Paris ran away together and sailed to Troy. When Menelaus heard what had happened, he gathered an army and sailed to Asia Minor; Troy finally fell in the 10th year of the ensuing war.
Homer’s Iliad famously tells how the great warrior Hector fell in single combat with Achilles, the finest Greek warrior, and how the Greeks built a wooden horse to gain access to the city (with well-armed men hidden inside). The horse was left as a thank-you to Athena; the Greeks burned their camps and sailed away as if they had given up. Finding the ashes of the camps, the Trojans pulled the horse into the city. The hidden soldiers jumped out of the horse, killed the guards, and opened the city gates; waiting Greeks entered the city and killed the Trojans—no males were left alive. But this bloody victory brought suffering to the Greeks; they were dispersed by storms and lost their way on their return voyage home, and Agamemnon, king of Greeks, was killed by his wife.
Archaeologists have discovered nine layers of settlement in Troy:
Troy I (3000 – 2500 B.C.) – A small fortified town, about 100m in diameter, of the early Bronze Age.
Troy II (2500 – 2200 B.C.) – Slightly larger, and showing considerable developments. Treasure found by Troy’s ‘’discoverer’’, Heinrich Schliemann, comes from this level, which was destroyed by fire and attack. The attackers were probably Indo-European tribes spreading into Anatolia.
Troy III, IV, V (2000 – 1800 B.C.) – Cultural development continued. This period ended with the destruction of the town; complete cultural changes resulted, as outlined in The Iliad.
Troy VI (1800 – 1275 B.C.) – The new population was probably Indo-European, who settled here after their invasions.
Troy VII (1275 – 1100 B.C.) – The city walls were repaired; little cultural change occurred.
Troy VIII (700 – 300 B.C.) – After a gap of four centuries, Troy became a Greek city; temples were built, and Xerxes and Alexander visited.
Troy IX (300 B.C. – A.D. 300) – Troy’s last prosperous period. New wall was built. Goths attacked in A.D. 267.
Constantine once had Troy on his list of possible capitals, but he chose Byzantium. Troy survived as an unremarkable (and probably shrinking) Byzantine—later Turkish—town of the Karasi Emirs. It disappeared completely sometime later.
We assume that the German archaeologist Schliemann was inspired by Homers’s tale. Prior to his excavations at Troy he was in Greece, visiting a school; he asked the students to read The Iliad for him. A girl, Sofia, was the best interpreter; he later married her.
Troy existed for more than 4,000 years and was known as a centre of ancient civilization—yet until Schliemann’s excavations, people believed it was only a legendary place. What we know today about the history of Troy comes both from archaeology and legend.
The archaeological work in Troy has its own dramatic story. Schliemann dug into a mound of earth with abandon and found the third-millennium treasure of Priam. These findings were brought to Athens and then Germany (after the Second World War)—and then lost. Some fragments were later found in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
The name “Troy” conjures up great romance and mystery. Today, however, Troy is far less impressive than other sites in the region and in despite its extent, its meager remains can be a bit disappointing. In ancient times the city was on the seacoast. Now the sea has receded, the seabed silted up by rivers. The site is well sign-posted for visitors. The ruins of temples from the Roman period are worth visiting, and fragments are displayed in the museum.