HOMER

The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition
of Greek kingdoms. It focuses on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior
Achilles lasting a few weeks during the last year of the war. The Odyssey focuses on the
ten-year journey home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. Many accounts
of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a
blind bard from Ionia, a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern
scholars consider these accounts legendary.

HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN

His work lent weight to the idea that Homer's Iliad reflects historical events.
Schliemann's excavation of nine levels of archaeological remains with dynamite has been
criticized as destructive of significant historical artifacts, including the level that is
believed to be the historical Troy.[1]

Along with Arthur Evans, Schliemann was a pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in
the Bronze Age. The two men knew of each other, Evans having visited Schliemann's
sites. Schliemann had planned to excavate at Knossos but died before fulfilling that
dream. Evans bought the site and stepped in to take charge of the project, which was
then still in its infancy.

ACHILLES

Chilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince
Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the
Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris,
who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with Statius'
unfinished epic Achilleid, written in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was
invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel because, when his mother Thetis
dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, she held him by one of his heels. Alluding to
these legends, the term "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a point of weakness,
especially in someone or something with an otherwise strong constitution. The Achilles
tendon is also named after him due to these legends.

HELEN OF TROY

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη Helénē, pronounced

[helénɛː]), also known as Helen of Sparta, was said to have been the most beautiful
woman in the world. She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta but was abducted by
Prince Paris of Troy after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to him in the Judgement
of Paris. This resulted in the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her. She
was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was the sister of
Clytemnestra, Castor and Polydeuces, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra.

Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes,
Cicero, Euripides, and Homer (in both the Iliad and the Odyssey). Her story reappears in
Book II of Virgil's Aeneid. In her youth, she was abducted by Theseus. A competition
between her suitors for her hand in marriage saw Menelaus emerge victorious. An oath
sworn by all the suitors (known as the Oath of Tyndareus) required all of them to
provide military assistance to the winning suitor, whomever he might be, if she were
ever stolen from him; the obligations of the oath precipitated the Trojan War. When she
married Menelaus she was still very young; whether her subsequent departure with
Paris was an abduction or an elopement is ambiguous (probably deliberately so).

The legends of Helen in Troy are contradictory: Homer depicts her as a wistful, even
sorrowful figure, who came to regret her choice and wished to be reunited with
Menelaus. Other accounts have a treacherous Helen who simulated Bacchic rites and
rejoiced in the carnage she caused. Ultimately, Paris was killed in action, and in Homer's
account Helen was reunited with Menelaus, though other versions of the legend recount
her ascending to Olympus instead. A cult associated with her developed in Hellenistic
Laconia, both at Sparta and elsewhere; at Therapne she shared a shrine with Menelaus.