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TROY
(Date of Submission: 14th January, 2009)
Submitted to:
Miss Fareena Iqbal
Submitted By:
Ahmad Ali Ansari
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Contents
Page N
Contents
Page No.
Introduction to Book……………………………………………………. 6
Summary………………………………………………………………….. 7-9
Core Themes……………….……………………………………………...10-13
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Critical Analysis…………………………………………………………. 14
Conclusion……………………………………………………………….. 15
Bibliography……………………………………………………………… 16
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Introduction to Nick MacCarty
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INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK
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SUMMARY
It is 1250 B.C. during the late Bronze Age. Agamemnon of
Mycenae and his army are in Thessaly, Greece, looking to expand his
military might and empire. His army prepares to engage in combat
against a host of soldiers under the Thessalonian king, Triopas. Rather
than suffer great losses, Triopas agrees to Agamemnon's proposal to
settle the matter in the traditional way, through a decisive match between
the heroes of the opposing armies. Achilles is summoned by
Agamemnon. He easily killed the greatest and most accomplished
warrior of Thessaly.
In Sparta, Prince Hector and his young brother Paris negotiate an
end to the war between the outlying
kingdom of Troy and Sparta. On the
last day of a weeklong peace festival,
Paris manages to smuggle his love
Helen back to Troy with him.
Menelaus, Helen's husband, vows
revenge on Paris. Meanwhile,
Agamemnon the brother of
Menelaus, who had for year’s
harbored plans for conquering Troy,
decides to use his brother's situation
as an excuse to invade. He is
advised by his general Nestor, to call
upon Achilles to fight for the Greeks.
This is in order to ensure they can
rally enough troops to the cause.
Agamemnon knows that with Troy
under his control, he would have complete control over the Aegean. So
they set off with 1,000 ships holding 50,000 Greeks to Troy.
The Greeks land at Troy and take control of the beach on the first
day of the war. Achilles and the Myrmidons are able to kill many Trojans
but also desecrate the Trojan’s temple “Apollo”, slaying the unarmed
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priests that reside there. Briseis, a member of the Trojan royal family who
has chosen to dedicate her life to service to the gods, is captured and
taken as a prize by Achilles. However, he treats her with kindness, which
makes her initially cautious. In the course of the battle within the temple,
Achilles and Hector meet but do not fight. Hector is outnumbered but
allowed to leave.
Achilles and his Myrmidons do not take part in the next day's open war,
but watch the events from a distance, Achilles
pacing back and forth in anger at Agamemnon's
mistakes. With the Trojan army beneath the walls of
Troy and the Greek army surrounding it, Paris,
feeling guilt for having brought the threat of war upon
Troy, challenges Menelaus to a duel to settle things.
Menelaus agrees, knowing he is the better warrior.
Agamemnon then decides he will attack afterwards
anyway, regardless of the outcome. Paris, severely
outmatched, is easily defeated. Terrified of dying, he
crawls back to Hector's feet. Menelaus approaches and moves to finish Paris,
but Hector steps in to protect his brother and kills Menelaus. A shocked and
distraught, Agamemnon orders his army to charge on Trojans. The Greek
army starts to lose, and at the pleas of Odysseus, Agamemnon withdraws the
troops.
The Trojans attack the Greek camp at dawn. As the Greeks appear
to be on the verge of defeat, Achilles appears and the Myrmidons join the
battle. He brings courage to the Greeks, and eventually fights man-to-
man against Hector, until his throat is cut. This energizes the Trojans and
dismays the Greeks, until Hector pulls Achilles' helmet off and finds it is
Patroclus, Achilles' cousin. A distraught Achilles leads the funeral
ceremony, complete with funeral pyre, while a satisfied Agamemnon tells
Odysseus "That boy just saved this war."
The next day, Achilles approaches the gates of Troy and demands
Hector come out and face him. Hector requests a pact that the loser be
given proper funeral rights by the winner. They both fight bravely and
arduously. Hector, though he is a great warrior in his own right, is
outclassed by the enraged Achilles, who duly kills him. Achilles then ties
Hector's body to the back of his chariot and drags it along the dirt. That
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night, King Priam, aided by the dark, goes to the Greek army's camp to
get Hector's body back. After an emotional and mortifying talk given to
him by Priam, Achilles breaks down into tears near Hector's slain body.
He lets Priam take Hector's body back, promising him that no Greek will
attack them on the way back. Achilles lets Priam take Briseis back as
well, and gives her the shell necklace Thetis made for him.
During the 12 days that Troy mourns Hector's death, the Greeks
plan to enter the city using a hollowed-out wooden horse, devised by
Odysseus. The Greeks leave the horse at the location of their camp, then
withdraw to the beach hiding in their ships behind a nearby island. Paris
warns Priam about the horse and says they should burn it to the ground,
but Priam neglects his warning, blinded by the priests' talk of the horse
being a "peace offering by the Greeks" in order to appease the Sun-God
Apollo for the desecration of his temple by Achilles earlier. Assuming
victory, the Trojans take the horse into the city and celebrate. The Greeks
attack while the Trojans celebrate, killing King Priam in the process.
Achilles frantically searches for Briseis, who is at the shrine of
Apollo being threatened by Agamemnon. She kills him with a concealed
knife, and is saved by Achilles from being stabbed to death by
Agamemnon's guards when he arrives. Paris manages to find Achilles
and shoots an arrow that goes straight through Achilles’ heel. Crippled,
he turns to face him but is hit in the chest by several more arrows,
despite pleads from Briseis. Though he removes them, he is fatally
wounded and unable to fight. As she cries, Achilles tells Briseis, "You
gave me peace in a lifetime of war," and urges her to leave the city with
Paris, though she initially refuses to. Tearfully, Briseis lets Paris pull her
up and lead her up the steps as they run towards the secret passageway
and leave Achilles there. After watching them leave, he collapses with the
one arrow remaining in his heel.
After a last disorganized and futile attempt by surviving Trojan
soldiers to repel the invaders, the battle ends and the Greeks storm the
inner palace only to find that Achilles has died just a few moments earlier.
They perform the funeral rituals for him the next morning. Odysseus
delivers the final words, "If they ever tell my story, let them say that I
walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the winter wheat, but these
names will never die. Let them say that I lived in the time of Hector, tamer
of horses. Let them say I lived in the time of Achilles...."
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Core Themes
“War, Chivalry, Love, Compulsion in System”
The major causes of war are fame, wealth, woman and power. If we
see the history, the most of wars were based on these factors. As
Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885) says:
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The war of Troy was
based on the above
mentioned factors. As the
war of Troy began because
of Helen, Queen of Sparta,
who fled with prince of Troy
Paris. Agamemnon’s brother
Menelaus requested him for
help in the war to get back
his queen. Agamemnon
agreed who wants power in
Greece and see Troy as a
stone in his way. As he said:
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War is a systematic mass killing. No one can get benefit in war.
Everyone has to be subjected of stings and arrows of battle. The result of
war is nothing but some charred bones are there in the battle fields.
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Chivalry and fame of Soldiers:
Achilles:
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Achilles only fought for fame and glory and not for any emperor. As it
is indicated in the book, when Agamemnon called him for a duel. It was an
old custom that as an option, the fate of war can be decided by the duel of
best warrior of the two conflicting armies. When Achilles won the duel and
king of Thessaly wanted to give him Royal Scepter to give him his king,
Achilles said:
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His saying depicts that he only fought for himself or for the Greece.
When his cousin Patroclus was killed by Hector by mistake, he went to fort of
Troy alone to get his revenge. This act on his part reflects his gallantry.
Hector:
Fame is vapour, popularity an accident,
Riches take wings, one thing endures character
When Achilles came to the castle of Troy and challenged him to fight
him, Hector went to fight him without any fear of death as Achilles was
famous as death’s angel. This depicts his bravery.
Compulsion in System:
Critical Analysis
Before concluding we must take into account possible issues with
the Trojan War topic. It is by far one of the most controversial events of our
planet’s history made evident in the varying of information of each source.
There exists an overload of opinion as everyone has a different perception,
the facts are in the artifacts but the perspectives are created by the
individual.
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War due to the amount of veracity the recently investigated artifacts
create. In conclusion taking into account all of the analysed sources and
their credibility, the existence of a Trojan War seems very convincing.
Perhaps in the early stages controversy would be understood but the
evidence derived from the Hittite letters and Korfmann show that it is
certain there was military tension in 1200 BC Turkey and this is what we
know as the Trojan War. There is no question that a Trojan War took place,
the real question that should be asked to those in disbelief is ‘why wouldn’t
there have been?’
By Karlos
Ishac
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CONCLUSION
Love, urge for gaining fame and power were the basic reasons of war which
occurred between Trojans and Greeks. Achilles plunged into war to earn distinction.
Agamemnon showed aggression towards Trojans to achieve power. Hector fought
for the sake of his nation and his glory and Menelaus to get back his queen. But the
history in general and Trojan War in particular has proved that excessive use of
power and weapons is not the criterion of winning in the battle fields.
Because:
Significance of man power can’t be denied but brain power has its own
importance.
And strategies are only effective if they are commanded by such sort of leader
who is entirely fearless like Achilles or Hector. If we see around we will find many
Achilles’, ambitious for seeking fame, Hectors’, who fights for others, Agamemnons’,
who wants power and many more. But the matter of thinking is how we can polish
them so that their abilities may result into the prosperous of humanity instead of
destruction of nations.
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Living shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying shall go down,
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d and unsung.”
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books:
McCarty, Nick, Troy the myth and reality behind the epic legend, Lisa Moore, Carlton Publishing Group 2004
Article:
Korfmann, Manfred, Was There a Trojan War? , 2004 by the Archaeological Institute of America, Volume 57
Number 3, May/June 2004
Internet Sources
http://home.att.net/~a.a.major/troy.htm
http://www.mythindex.com/greek-mythology/A/Agamemnon.html
sitchin.com, Troy,
http://www.sitchin.com/troy.htm
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geocities.com, Homer’s Iliad, and the city of Troy,
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2471/Troy.html#Remains
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0514_040514_troy.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4032
http://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/history.html
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/schliemann_heinrich.html
http://hometown.aol.com/dynamisimmortal/history7.html
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