Fig. 17. Carl Blegen affirmed that Troy 7a had been seized and burnt in the mid-13th century B.C. and argued this on the basis of the prevalence of type 3B Mycenaean pottery in its cultural layer. (Image © Olga Aranova.)
Thus, Troy 7a must have been the mythological Troy, a fortress with its sad fate, whose seizure attracted attention and awoke imagination of its contemporaries poets and narrators, whose stories about the heroes of that war passed by word of mouth from generation to generation. There is no doubt that some details of those stories were forgotten and omitted in due course, and that some other things were made up. This had been going on until these legends reached the ingenious poet, who collected all the different stories and wrote two epical poems that survive until our day.[33]
Carl Blegen identified Troy 7a as Homers Ilion. Troy 7a came to its end being captured by the enemy after a continuous siege. However, there is no proof that it was captured by the Greeks.
The results of excavations of the next cultural layer, relating to the phase of Troy 7b (12601190 B.C.), indicate that many inhabitants of this burnt city had survived. Soon after the conquerors left, the citizens returned and built new houses right on the ruins and, and the city rose by approximately one meter as compared with the previous ground level. However, the city that used to be great failed to return to its former power. The population got poorer and left the city. At the same time, the fortress wall wasnt damaged, as it had happened before. Blegen wrote, It looks like everything happened quietly enough: having simply cast the citizens out of their houses, new tenants moved in.[34] The tribe that settled there brought some coarse pottery along, made without a potters wheel, which became kind of a business card for Troy 7b. According to some explorers, that moulded pottery with bumps, just like some other primitive bronze utensils found in the same layer, were obviously related to similar goods found in depositions of the late Bronze Age in Hungary.
The next devastation to the city caused by fire completed the history of ancient Troy. For 4 centuries, the city remained empty its inhabitants might have found a quieter place for living. New Troy Troy 8 (70085 B.C.) already belonged to the Greek world entirely. It is known under the name of Ilion, though, many scientists specialized in antiquity have categorically rejected its connection with Homers Ilion.[35] This city was not as mighty, as it changed states several times. In 480 B.C., King Xerxes visited that very city, and Alexander the Great came there in 334 B.C. After his empire had collapsed, the city was overtaken by Lysimachus, who exercised his special concern for the city, according to Strabo.
Then Ilion became part of the Roman Empire, and bathhouses, temples and theatres were built there. However, in 85 B.C., due to conflicts with Rome, the city was again plundered and destroyed this time at the hands of the troops of Roman vicar Gaius Flavius Fimbria, who captured the city during the war against Mitridate Eupatore.
Fig. 18. Division of Alexander's empire after the battle of Ips (301 B.C.) The Lysimachus empire is dashed.
Fig. 19. The Roman odeum of Troy 9 (from 85 B.C. till 500 A.D.).
When Fimbria began boasting that he captured the city on the 11th day, whereas Agamemnon did it only in the 10th year with great difficulties and having a fleet of 1,000 vessels, and the whole Greece aiding him in the campaign, one citizen of Ilion remarked, True, but we did not have such a defender as Hector.[36]
Troy 9, dated 85 B.C. 500 A.D., was restored by Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who routed Fimbria. Then it was dynamically developed in times of Julius Caesar and Octavianus Augustus. By 400 the city appeared to be deserted, and all geostrategic advantages were gained by Constantinople. In due course, Troy turned into a hill that Heinrich Schliemann would dug up into historical oblivion 1500 years later.
Chapter 3
The War for Troy, 20[[th]] century
A tour around the Trojan archaeological reserve starts at the Eastern gate, relating to the period of Troy 7. It seems not to be a coincidence: upon entering the area of the great city, you immediately feel its mighty walls and involuntarily identify yourself with its defenders. The path, marked with coloured ribbons (anything can happen to tourists!), goes near the Northern bastion with a wonderful sight-seeing platform, along the Athena temple discovered in 1865 by Franc Calvert, an ancient citadel of mudbrick and megaron houses built a thousand years before the Trojan War, and the Schliemanns trench looking like a bad wound on the body of the elderly hill
If you do not take pictures of every stone or stay at the information stands for too long, you can walk along the tourist path in 1015 minutes. The mighty fortress is only 200 meters in diameter.
200 multiplied by 200 is 4 hectares, which approximately matches the ground space of five football fields or one modern not-too-large megamall. How was it possible to accommodate 50,000 defenders of Troy here, as Homer had written? Lets assume that most of them had stayed outside the bastion. In the early 1990s, Helmut Becker and Jorg Fassbinder, employees of Manfred Korfmann, made a discovery by means of magnetic survey: in the 13[[th]] and 12[[th]] centuries B.C., the Trojan citadel was surrounded by a big downtown protected with two outer circles of walls, and a ditch, cut off in the rock half a kilometer away from the fortress. Thus, territory of Troy extended about five times further and was as large as the Moscow Kremlin. Nevertheless, there were 50,000 people, who had to sleep a bit more comfortably than in standing position and to maintain cattle, battle horses and chariots! In such area, it was only economically justified, as Margaret Thatcher would say, for no more than 5 thousand people to live there. Korfmann said 7,000 would have fit it. Let it be, but surely no more than that!
Fig. 20. Megarons of the 23rd century B.C. are protected from bad weather with a canvas roof and ribbons are to guard against too curious tourists.
However, the figures provided by Homer have long been considered as poetic exaggerations 29 empires in the Achaean coalition, 1186 ships filled with soldiers (from 50 to 120 people on every ship, more than a hundred thousand in total!), and 10 years of siege
But many questions still have no definite answers, in particular, because of the damage done by Schliemann. Who were the Trojans? What was their nationality? What language did they speak? Why did most of them have Greek names? Who did the Trojans pray to, and why did some Greek gods help them? If the Greeks really captured Ilion, why didnt they use the victory advantage and capture the country or even leave their vicar there? Was there the great Trojan War real, or was it just a poetic image of many independent military campaigns, forays and sieges that took place during dozens or even hundreds of years?
These questions were asked especially often since the legend about the Trojan War seemed to have been completely confirmed by finds made by Schliemann, Dörpfeld and Blegen.
Doubts about historicity of the Trojan War revived, when the legend about it seemed to have been completely confirmed by finds made by Schliemann, Dörpfeld and Blegen.
These questions were asked especially often since the legend about the Trojan War seemed to have been completely confirmed by finds made by Schliemann, Dörpfeld and Blegen.
Doubts about historicity of the Trojan War revived, when the legend about it seemed to have been completely confirmed by finds made by Schliemann, Dörpfeld and Blegen.
A kind of Renaissance of views of the late 18[[th]] and early 19[[th]] centuries happened, when doubts about the historical reality of both the Trojan War and Troy itself were very popular.
While Ancient thinkers considered Homer to be not only the most skilful poet but also the greatest scientist, and his poems to be a source of the truest historical and geographical information (according to Strabo, Homer surpassed all people of the ancient and new time, not only due to the high dignity of his poetry, but knowledge of the conditions of public life[37]), the science of the Modern Age completely subverted his authority. Not only was the information about the events described in the Iliad and the Odyssey considered to be unreliable, but the very existence of Homer was put into question. Scientists skepticism reached the point that for some time believing that there was some considerable culture in Aegis before the 1st millennium B.C. was considered madness.[38] According to their judgments, all these rich in gold Mycenae, blossoming Corinthes and magnificently arranged Troy, inviting envy by their riches even amongst Greeks of the classic era, were only imaginary cities populated with fiction characters the descendants and relatives of the Olympic gods, such as Agamemnon, Achilles, Diomidius and Priam. At the same time, there have always been scientists, who trusted in Homers word and were ready to defend their point of view.
At the turn of the 18[[th]] and 19th centuries the harshest arguments about Homer took place. The ones being in doubt were Englishmen John McLaurin, who published Treatise in evidence that Troy was not captured by the Greeks (1788), and Jacob Bryant, who published Treatise concerning the Trojan War and expedition of the Greeks as it was described by Homer, demonstrating that such expedition had not ever been held, and that such a city of Phrygia hadnt existed (1796). The latter violently polemized about historicity of Troy with archaeologist Lechevalier, the very person who first located Ilion in the Bunatbashi area. Cabinet critics heatedly argued about trifles location of the Greek ships and even the probable number of children born by camp whores.[39]
At the very height of the scholarly battles, the great romantic Byron visited the plane at the Hellespont coast. The atmosphere of these places made him believe that Homers poems were true. 11 years later he wrote in his diary, I stood upon the plain daily, for more than a month, in 1810; and if anything diminished my pleasure, it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity (the Trojan war) I venerated the grand original as the truth of history (in the material facts) and of place. Otherwise, it would have given me no delight. Who will persuade me, when O reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not contain a hero? its very magnitude proved this. Men should not labour over the ignoble and petty dead and why should not the dead be Homers dead?[40]
Despite such poetic arguments by Byron, the belief that the Trojan War was only the fiction of the blind Homer remained popular among scientists for another half a century until Schliemanns excavations assured the scientific community of the historical value of great cities described in the Iliad, such as Troy, Mycenae, Tirynthos and Orchomenus. At first sight, some finds of the amateur archaeologist accurately corresponded to the items described by Homer. For instance, the blade of a bronze dagger found in Mycenae depicted the famous tower shield; in the Iliad, such item belonged to Ajax.
Fig. 21. Hellespont in the Canakkale District.
Other items found were the remains of a helmet made of wild boar fangs, depicted in the 10[[th]] rhapsody of the poem, and so on. All these seemed to be sound proof that the Trojan War had been real. And Homer himself already seemed to be at least a younger contemporary of his heroes or even an immediate witness of the events he described. Data provided by Homer gradually became kind of a guidebook for those studying the Aegean culture of the Mycenae epoch.[41]
However, Schliemanns romantic epoch ended up quite quickly. Already in the late 19[[th]] century, serious studies were performed, demonstrating that the material culture and everyday life of the Homers heroes did not correspond to the cultural environment of the Mycenae civilization and should have been associated with a later period.[42] Having armed his characters with iron weapons and darts known in the Bronze Age, Homer ignored all typical signs of the Mycenae culture, mentioning neither cobbled roads with bridges, nor water lines and water drains in the palaces, nor the fresco paintings. Even written language that already existed before the 12[[th]] century B.C. and was demonstrated in clay plates found by Arthur Evans at the beginning of the 20[[th]] century during the Knossus excavations on Cyprus, wasnt mentioned by Homer. Thus, it appeared that when the Iliad and the Odyssey were written, the Mycenae civilization had been already forgotten. Thus, trustworthiness of Homers stories were once again put in doubt.
Harvard philologists Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who in late 1920s and early 1930s studied style of Homers epic, also fanned the flames in a way. To learn about the technique for creating, learning and transferring of oral legends they undertook several expeditions to the Balkans to study the living epic tradition. Having collected and studied a huge amount of folklore material, they found out that in time epic was based not on telling some finished texts, but rather on transferring a set of resources used to develop a song: plots, canonical images, and stereotyped word-and-rhythm formulas, which singers used like language words. In particular, this allowed performers to reproduce (or, more precisely, to create in the course of the performance) poems consisting of thousands of lines.[43] Each time the song was an improvisation, though, it remained a form of collective creativity.
Fig. 22. American historian Moses Finley calling on the deletion of Homers Trojan War from the history of the Greek Bronze Age. (Image © Olga Aranova.)
The folklore nature of Homers poems that were of exactly such formula style was proven, thus (over 90 percent of the Iliad text was comprised of such formulas a staggering number, especially upon considering the refinement and intricacy of the Greek hexameter).[44] It is hard to expect that folklore tales would mirror some true historical reality.
Moses Finley, a reputable historian, insisted on that point, too. In his book The World of Odysseus (1954), he affirmed that searching through Homers works for authentic testimonies concerning the Trojan War, its causes, outcome and even composition of coalitions is just the same as studying the history of Huns in the 5[[th]] century by the Song of Nibelungs or appealing to the Song about Rolland to reconstruct the course of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. Finley grounded his doubts on both the data for comparative philology and results of the economic history study of Homers society by means of the model proposed by French anthropologist Marcel Mauss.