Introduction to the Iliad and the movie Troy.

Homer’s Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem set during the Trojan War. It is based on the struggles between two great ancient empires that was Greek and Troy. Specifically it is about the events that occur at the last weeks of the ten year siege of Troy by the Greeks. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, Greek mythology and ancient folk law is eluded to.

The cause of this war all started because the Greek-Achaeans besiege the city of Troy in order to rescue King of Sparta, Menelaus’s wife Helen after she was abducted( or went willingly, depends on which side of the story you believe) by Prince of Troy, Paris- who is brother of Hector- who we will analyse further in later posts. Paris, son of the aged King of Troy, Priam, was originally prophesied to be the doom of Troy, due to this he was cast out into the wilderness only to be saved by hunters and bought back to Troy, the prophesiers where correct as his relationship with Helen doomed Troy by bringing Agamemnon’s and Menelaus’s thousand ship fleet to the shores of Troy.

Throughout this blog we will compare Homer’s epic poem to the movie Troy by Wolfgang Peterson 2004, as well as the reason for any similarities and differences .