Posted on 12/23/2010 8:35:56 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The real Helen would be much younger.
Was assigned to Izmir 79-80 when I was in the army. Met several archaeologists during my travels.
They were interested in Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus and others...not the site believed to be Troy.
Homer..the Illiad and Virgil the Aeneid.
Two years..in the area was a dream for me..
Mmmm.... Genevieve Bujold...
And her face launched ships, not lunches.
Maybe blaming the snatching of Helen for the Trojan War is like blaming the assassination of the archduke for WWI.
It’s also simpler when you’re sitting around the campfire singing. Running off with the king’s wife makes for better lyrics than a long dissertation about socioeconomic disequilibrium.
On the other hand, they could’ve sung Rock Island Line ;)
IMO the big factor was Troy sitting at one end of the Dardanelles (access to the Euxine cities), pinching everybody for tolls both ways.
But when a queen is taken, the story takes on heroic dimensions you just can’t apply to being fed up with paying off a gauntlet of pirates.
Hattusas and the Hittites are interseting too.
Anatolia is a treasure trove of ancient history.
Thanks for the reminder, I have been meaning to read “War Before Civilization” for a couple of years. This thread jogged my memory just down loaded the kindle edition.
I’d seen it at a public library; it sounded good on the dust jacket!
Achilles? He was such a heel!
Achilles? He was such a heel!
I liked the Brad Pitt version.
Michael Wood's "in search of the trojan war" speculations are now considered accurate 20 years later...you might want to buy the series (I downloaded it from a Chinese yuku video site, if you google you might find it) or watch it on streaming video .
and check out LINK
The face that launched a thousand ships
The face that sunk a thousand ships!
By the time we left, the poppies were growing just past the base fences and there was no love for Americans if they ran out of dollars.
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