Fionnuala’s review of In Search Of The Trojan War > Likes and Comments

You might also enjoy some of the Hittite royal correspondence with mainland Greece - I think Wood mentions it a bit, but they mention a city that seems to be Ilium whose king is called Alexander (Paris). It's intriguing, although on the otherhand, it pulls away from the Homeric epic

Having recently read all four (each with a different "style") volumes of Stephen Fry's rewriting, ending with the Odyssey, what's your opinion of them? Just superficially, by reputation. I enjoyed the first and final volumes much more than the middle ones.

Jan-Maat wrote: "You might also enjoy some of the Hittite royal correspondence with mainland Greece - I think Wood mentions it a bit, but they mention a city that seems to be Ilium whose king is called Alexander (Paris). It's intriguing, although on the otherhand, it pulls away from the Homeric epic."

Yes, Jann, I enjoyed the chapter on the Hittites and their correspondence with mainland Greece as well as with Egypt. It was truly fascinating that there was diplomatic correspondence in the Bronze Age even if it was written in Linear B on clay tablets! I was also intrigued by the theory that 'the Greek alphabet was actually devised to write down the Homeric poems in c.700 BC.,' even though it is only a theory!
And you're right, I didn't get distracted by anything that pulled me away from the possibility that The Iliad might be true

Kind of a shame, really, that the stories most likely to survive for thousands of years feature lots of people killing one another.

Greg wrote: "Having recently read all four (each with a different "style") volumes of Stephen Fry's rewriting, ending with the Odyssey, what's your opinion of them? Just superficially, by reputation. I enjoyed the first and final volumes much more than the middle ones..."

I've heard a lot of people talking about them, Greg, and since it's Stephen Fry who always writes/speaks engagingly, I'm guessing they are good?
I've just looked at your reviews of the last two and understand a little better what his project is about. I might take a look at the books in the future.

I read this book and watched the BBC series a thousand years ago Fionnuala when I was also looking up things on the odyssey. Okay, it was in the 1980s. Back then there was no internet just books like this. So great to see that you enjoyed this book.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "Kind of a shame, really, that the stories most likely to survive for thousands of years feature lots of people killing one another."

There's no arguing with that, Justin. But there are a lot of human interest episodes in Homer's story of the siege of Troy too. All our impulses and desires are found in it from deep friendship to extreme jealousy, from vengeance to forgiveness. I just know I love it, and this book has told me I'm one of a long line of people equally besotted:-)

David wrote: "I read this book and watched the BBC series a thousand years ago Fionnuala when I was also looking up things on the odyssey. Okay, it was in the 1980s. Back then there was no internet just books like this..."

It must have been a great resource for you back then, David! Don't the 1980s, before we had internet searches, almost sound like the Bronze age when people had to make do with books clay tablets!

I wasn’t going to go that far but you might be right…clay tablets forever! Gosh, just consider the weight of all those tablets.

This review is very à propos. This morning I finished the 3rd Book of Montaigne's Essays in which Montaigne writes: "Avant la guerre de Troie et avant la ruine de Troie, d'autres poètes avaient chanté d'autres événements." (Before the Trojan and the ruin of the city, other poets sang of different events."). In my view, all that matters is that we have the poem. Does it matter if the War was real or a fiction. The consensus among historians is that the Horse was a fiction.

Wood is pretty dated now. There have been active excavations by Tübingen and Cincinnati for a number of years since then. Most of the publications have been excavation reports (generally grim reading if you aren't a professional archaeologist). I think there are some readable things by one of the excavators, Manfred Korfmann floating around on the web.

David wrote: "I wasn’t going to go that far but you might be right…clay tablets forever! Gosh, just consider the weight of all those tablets."

And think about the process! They had to bake them after they'd written them. No editing later! The phrase 'Fixed in stone' comes to mind.

Czarny wrote: "This review is very à propos. This morning I finished the 3rd Book of Montaigne's Essays in which Montaigne writes: "Avant la guerre de Troie et avant la ruine de Troie, d'autres poètes avaient cha..."

Glad to rhyme with your current reading, Czarny. I'd forgotten Montaigne mentioned Homer, but then he mentioned so many writers from ages past. You're right that the fact we have the Iliad is the main thing but I'm with the people who want it to have been real. On the other hand, I don't see The Odyssey as anything but an elaborate and well-told fiction, and I don't have the same love for it at all.

Fred wrote: "Wood is pretty dated now. There have been active excavations by Tübingen and Cincinnati for a number of years since then. Most of the publications have been excavation reports (generally grim reading if you aren't a professional archaeologist). I think there are some readable things by one of the excavators, Manfred Korfmann floating around on the web..."

Thanks for that info, Fred. The edition of Michael Wood's book I read is a revised one from twenty years after it first appeared in 1986 and with an extra chapter summing up more recent excavations including some stuff about the Korfmann findings. But I'll look out for further research.

Fionnuala wrote: "Czarny wrote: "This review is very à propos. This morning I finished the 3rd Book of Montaigne's Essays in which Montaigne writes: "Avant la guerre de Troie et avant la ruine de Troie, d'autres poè..."

Does it matter if the horse is real?

There's something fascinating about stories that pass down and multiply through millennia. Your project has shown that, Fi. I guess this is our western one.

(Apart from the Old Testament, I can't think of another example like this. Gilgamesh is less infused into our daily lives. (I must read that, too.) I guess the Indians have their texts, the rigvedas, upanishads and mahabarahta. But I'm not familiar with these. The I Ching and a few others are of similar age.)

Oh, ooops, I hope it doesn't sound like I was being critical! While war is one component of what our ancestors handed down to us, there's plenty of other things to enjoy, plus the small thrill of realizing that humans have had the same worries and joys for millennia.

I want to make some joke about a greek tailor tired of repairing the pants of one classical actor's costume: "Euripides again and I'll charge you double!"

This sounds like a great find! You’ve been amply rewarded for your digging. Thank you for sharing your uncovered treasures with us. It is often a fool’s errand to try to find the Truth in a tale but there’s something beautiful and profound about joining in a search that has compelled people for 2000 years or more. Irresistible questions, across centuries!

A good wrap on key links between literature and history.

So Odysseus, too, is a true historical figure? I know he plays a small role in The Iliad but he is my favorite character.

I went to primary school in Kinshasa in the mid eighties and there was a kid in my class called Priam. He was a bit of a know-it-all and I didn’t particularly like him, perhaps because we both had a crush on Hélène, the girl who sat in the front row so we could all admire her golden curls. I think she had a secret crush on Hector the school bully, who followed Electra around like a faithful dog. My story is not historically accurate but it’s true nevertheless. Also all my encounters with Penelopes and Calypsos have been awkward to say the least. Haven’t met a Circe yet. Sirens, many. They sing beautifully.
Are you travelling to Turkey this summer so as to mix pleasure with archeology, Fionnuala?

Hector's band played at my wedding.

I am glad you've met Euripides in this book, Fionnuala. He is not that easy to find in literature it seems. I was trying to find a single book devoted just to him and his life I couldn't. Asia Minor is such a fascinating place in general. Once we've rented a car and went all the way down from Istanbul to the South West of Turkey on the coast. It was the feeling that the time has stopped there. I've visited Troy then or basically what claimed to be Troy place. It was nothing apart from old stone ruins (probably from the later time or excavations) and huge amount of red poppies, practically a sea of them. I looked at it and still I felt the ghost of those Trojans around. Ephesus nearby was much more elaborate. There were a lot of stuff including ancient mosaic floor, a theatre, remains of the older temple where St Paul has first preached. But when we tried to find the one of the so called seven miracles The Temple of Arthemida, it was a total failure - a field and a bunch of stray dogs:-) Still somehow it felt much more authentic compared to the sites of mainland Greece, less touristic and less carefully curated.

I always felt slightly bemused and slightly uneasy that that the modern west (or whatever we call that) seemed to appropriate the heritage of this places almost exclusively for themselves with all those excavations and search for a legend.

Czarny wrote: "Does it matter if the horse is real?.."

I'm not bothered about the horse being real, Czarny. That's because it's not mentioned in The Iliad at all. Homer brings it in to The Odyssey but only as a 'story' that's told about Odysseus, how he came up with the crafty plan for entering the city, but it's only one of many crafty ploys attributed to Odysseus in The Odyssey.
Euripides describes Odysseus entering Troy quite differently in his play, 'Hecuba'. Hecuba says she met a beggar loitering in the streets of Troy whom she recognized as Odysseus (incognito) and she organised for him to leave safely—she hoped he would broker a peace deal because she let him leave.
I think I'm with Pausanias about the horse, that it was more likely a wooden battering ram on wheels, and that it broke in rather than being let in.

Nick wrote: "There's something fascinating about stories that pass down and multiply through millennia. Your project has shown that, Fi. I guess this is our western one.
(Apart from the Old Testament, I can't think of another example like this. Gilgamesh is less infused into our daily lives. (I must read that, too.) I guess the Indians have their texts, the rigvedas, upanishads and mahabarahta. But I'm not familiar with these. The I Ching and a few others are of similar age.)"

We have a few similar stories that are particular to individual countries but it's true that The Iliad is revered throughout Europe, and further.
Michael Wood mentions Beowulf as having points in common with The Iliad, and also the stories of the Fianna in Ireland—Agamemnon would be the equivalent of the Ard-rí or high king and the Achaeans would be the Fianna, with individual heroes such as Achilles having their Irish counterparts.
But thanks for mentioning epics from further east, Nick. It's always good to remind ourselves that Europe is Not the centre of the world even if Time is still measured in relation to Greenwich! When I look at a globe I'm always reminded of how tiny Europe is and how vast every other continent is.

I love your honesty about wanting them to have existed. There’s something in us that resists letting Priam, Hecuba and the others remain entirely inside literature. We want the earth to answer the poem somehow, even if it can only give us walls, pottery and a handful of names.

I haven’t read Wood, but I’m fascinated by the possibility that poetry can carry fragments of history across centuries without preserving them neatly. Names change, events merge, machines become horses and yet something real may still be travelling inside the story. Maybe the strange power of Troy lies in never belonging fully to either history or myth. If it were completely invented, we might admire it differently; if every detail were proven, perhaps some of the mystery would vanish.

The Linear B tablets may be the detail that interests me most. Homer gives us heroes, kings and great ships; the tablets give us shepherds, tax inspectors, broken wheels and oxen called Blacky and Spot. Somehow that ordinary bureaucracy makes the world feel more real than another golden mask ever could. Troy really does make a person greedy for certainty, doesn’t it? A destroyed city is found, the dates roughly fit, familiar names begin appearing.. and suddenly you want Priam and Hecuba too, and perhaps one impossible horse while we’re at it.

I understand the pursuit, Fionnuala. For me, fiction is more real than reality itself. Facts tell us what happened; fiction tells us why it mattered.

And to extend it further, within the pages of a novel, a story, or a poem, I find every truth, every passion, every contradiction, every hope, and every despair that make us human. The greatest writers illuminate the hidden chambers of the heart—our loves, fears, ambitions, vanities, and acts of grace—with a clarity that everyday life rarely affords. I read fiction not to escape the world, but to understand it more deeply, for nowhere else have I found a truer account of what it means to be alive.

I don't know how this even pertains to this review, except that while I was reading your words, it sprang into my head, fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus—whose story is as real to me as... the Battle of Waterloo. A nitpicky distinction, in my world. 😉

I love your ongoing fascination with the Ancient Greek world, Fionnuala, especially since it provides such enlightening reviews and interesting comment threads.

All our impulses and desires are found in it from deep friendship to extreme jealousy, from vengeance to forgiveness.
This remark from one of your comments in this thread provides the perfect explanation why peope are perpetually fascinated by the ancient fables of the East and West. I guess the publishing industry has always worked in favor of the latter, but Ancient Greek myths are the point where these two worlds converge ;-)

Dear Fionnuala, what a wonderfully evocative review! I love how you went hunting for Euripides like a detective searching for "further news" of old friends -- there is something so delightfully relatable about wanting these legendary figures to have actually existed, bureaucratic tax records and all.

Your description of the book itself being like an archaeological dig, with each chapter uncovering a deeper layer of truth, is beautiful. I’m right there with you -- I absolutely choose to believe Priam and Hecuba were real, and that Hecuba’s sigh still echoes somewhere along the Turkish coast. Thank you for such a fascinating, deeply felt journey through the ruins!

Left Coast Justin wrote: "Oh, ooops, I hope it doesn't sound like I was being critical! While war is one component of what our ancestors handed down to us, there's plenty of other things to enjoy, plus the small thrill thrill of realizing that humans have had the same worries and joys for millennia...."

Not at all, Justin. I knew exactly what you meant, and before I read The Iliad myself I was certain such a violent epic wouldn't sit well with me. It was only because I read The Aeneid with some friends last year that I began to consider 'tackling' The Iliad. I thought it would require 'tackling', nerves steeled and heart battened down—but no! Instead my nerves were never taxed and my heart became engaged fully with Homer's lines (in Robert Fagle's plus Alexander Pope's translations). And it's true that we easily forget that people from several millennia ago couldn't possibly have the same dilemmas and the same deep reactions to them as we have. Reading older books, as you say, is a great reminder of how not so special we are after all.

Jeff wrote: "I want to make some joke about a greek tailor tired of repairing the pants of one classical actor's costume: "Euripides again and I'll charge you double!""

Jeff, a few different versions of those pants have cropped up lately—but yours is a new variation ;-)

Alison wrote: "This sounds like a great find! You’ve been amply rewarded for your digging. Thank you for sharing your uncovered treasures with us. It is often a fool’s errand to try to find the Truth in a tale but there’s something beautiful and profound about joining in a search that has compelled people for 2000 years or more..."

That's it, Alison, I've found my tribe and it feels great. I could have shared half the book, I found it so interesting. I could only have shared half though, because the other half of the book is in the form of questions. Michael Wood does like asking questions—but they are good teacher-like questions, the kind that make us do our own thinking.

Seeing your review in my feed this morning, Fionnuala, brought me a smile: "Ah, Fionnuala is still in Greece, the ancient one :-)..." This whole journey of yours this year—actual, literary, mythological—is so enchanting and delight to follow. This line really grabbed me The thing is, I really want them to have existed for the nobility, imagination and curiosity of your search... I do worry though that this turn into the "fact-finding" side road might bring you some disappointments. When I was in grad school, I printed this line as a sober reminder: “the great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact” by the biologist Thomas Huxley. I still keep it nearby :-) Regardless... may your journey bring you more delights in unearthing these fascinating myths and the stories behind them.

Ken wrote: "A good wrap on key links between literature and history.
So Odysseus, too, is a true historical figure? I know he plays a small role in The Iliad but he is my favorite character."

I can believe that Odysseus, as he appears in The Iliad, might have existed, Ken, or at least that there was a renowned fighter from Ithaca who joined forces with Agamemnon and Menelaus in their raids along the coast of Asia Minor just as it's thought Cretan Idomeneus might have been part of the raids too.

But Odysseus as he's described in The Odyssey is too large for life. For me he's just a fictional character albeit a very well-drawn one, and one with a great ability to tell tall tales. If, on the off chance he did exist, I think he's more likely to have spent the ten years after the siege of Troy imprisoned in Egypt for raiding communities in the Nile delta than having all those amazing adventures he boasts of!(Michael Wood doesn't say that by the way, it's just me speculating;-)

Ulysse wrote: "I went to primary school in Kinshasa in the mid eighties and there was a kid in my class called Priam. He was a bit of a know-it-all and I didn’t particularly like him, perhaps because we both had a crush on Hélène, the girl who sat in the front row so we could all admire her golden curls. I think she had a secret crush on Hector the school bully, who followed Electra around like a faithful dog. My story is not historically accurate but it’s true nevertheless. ..."

You've demonstrated the value of fictional recreations of past events perfectly, Ulysse! And yes, I know there have to be fictional aspects to The Iliad. I mean, Achilles' mother was a nereid! And Trojan Aeneas was the son of Venus! And Athena plus Apollo taking human form to influence the way the siege was going. But all that is just the poet's embellishments perhaps—just as your Hélène, Hector and Electra may be. I believe Priam was real, by the way;-)

Ulysse wrote: "Are you travelling to Turkey this summer so as to mix pleasure with archeology? ..."

I 'm not ruling it out, Ulysse. But this book reminded me of a visit to Turkey years ago. I visited a museum in Bodrum (modern day Helicarnassus) and saw the remains of a ship from three thousand years ago. It had been found at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Turkey and it was displayed alongside all the clay jars it contained. I was very impressed by it at the time though I knew nothing of The Iliad. Well, Michael Wood talks about the same ship and its cargo, and says it's proof of trading ships from mainland Greece landing along the coast of Asia Minor around the time of the siege of Troy.

Nick wrote: "Hector's band played at my wedding."

Sure that wasn't Ulysse's band, Nick?

Katia wrote: "I am glad you've met Euripides in this book, Fionnuala. He is not that easy to find in literature it seems. I was trying to find a single book devoted just to him and his life I couldn't. Asia Minor is such a fascinating place in general. Once we've rented a car and went all the way down from Istanbul to the South West of Turkey on the coast. It was the feeling that the time has stopped there. I've visited Troy then or basically what claimed to be Troy place. It was nothing apart from old stone ruins (probably from the later time or excavations) and huge amount of red poppies, practically a sea of them. I looked at it and still I felt the ghost of those Trojans around..."

I'm guessing Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits is the closest I'll get to Euripides, Katia.
I'm impressed that you've visited the site of Troy. And those poppies! I can't help thinking of all the blood that must have been shed on the plain of Troy. Michael Wood thinks there might have been more than one siege, or maybe an earthquake as well as a siege, judging by the state of the various layers of ruins. The layer of ruins they think was Priam's Troy did seem to have had its walls knocked by human strength though. There was a town there in Roman times as well but was abandoned sometime in the early centuries of our era.

I know what you mean about the appropriation by Western Europeans of Greek history and artifacts. I think the fact that Greek, and Homer in particular, was taught in public schools in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries has a lot to do with it. And some of those children who read The Iliad grew up to be wealthy enough to fund archeological digs and to ship home artifacts. That was the case in France and Germany too, a few people who'd read Homer at school grew up to be archeologists because of their love for the epic—or just learned about excavating on the spot like Heinrich Schliemann who, without any training, began digging at Troy, destroying important proofs in the process. But it was he who found what he called 'Helen's Treasure', a cache of gold jewelry. Here's a photo of Schliemann's wife Sophie wearing some of Helen's jewels:

Fionnuala wrote: "I believe Priam was real, by the way;-)"

You are a living lie (and truth) detector, Fionnuala. You know what's even stranger? My current next-door neighbour is a Turkish woman from Bodrum who looks like Helen of Troy. And that's the real truth.

Fionnuala wrote: "Nick wrote: "Hector's band played at my wedding."

Sure that wasn't Ulysse's band, Nick?"

If Nick got married in the late 90s I was playing in a punk band in Vancouver, BC. We were called the Cyclops and we played teen-sloppy. Not sure Nick, though Greek, would have wanted us at his wedding.

Great post! I am itching to get back to the Greeks. Just got Proust Volume 7 to crack!
Mycaenae in Greece is my stand out experience for feeling how it might have been in Homeric times. Although Ancient Akritiri in Santorini as a reminder of the Minoan civilitcomes a close second.
I must read this book by Michael Wood as Euripides beckons - got the books just need the time.
Obviously having devoured Homer; Herodotus; Aeschylus: Sophocles he is next.
The stories are what is important and the sense of that past not the obsolete veracity of everything written.
However still traumatised by our recent trip to Crete/Knossos and its frightful Victorian makeover by Arthur Evans ….

Obsolete = absolute 🙈

Fionnuala wrote: "Nick wrote: "Hector's band played at my wedding."

Sure that wasn't Ulysse's band, Nick?"

I wasn't joking, Fi. :-)

Ulysse wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Nick wrote: "Hector's band played at my wedding."

Sure that wasn't Ulysse's band, Nick?"

If Nick got married in the late 90s I was playing in a punk band in Vancouver, BC. We we..."

It would've been epic.

Pia G. wrote: "...Names change, events merge, machines become horses and yet something real may still be travelling inside the story. Maybe the strange power of Troy lies in never belonging fully to either history or myth. If it were completely invented, we might admire it differently; if every detail were proven, perhaps some of the mystery would vanish. ..."

Thanks for expressing so well what I feel, Pia. Yes of course some of the details of the siege of Troy would have been changed in the time between the 1200s when it happened and the 900s and 800s when we know it was being sung about, and then there's the time that elapsed before it was written down in the 700s. There's so much room in that scenario for shifts and changes—and the creation of myth. The horse is a great—and understandable—example of such a shift. And I especially like your point about how our admiration for The Iliad would be very different if it were all a complete fiction. That's the difference between it and The Odyssey for me. I admire The Odyssey because it is a brilliant work of fiction where all the plot threads are kept clear and all the elements fit together—though I don't particularly identify with the hero or with any of its colorful characters. In The Iliad, on the other hand, I identified with so many characters, even the ones who were only named as they fell in battle. The Homer who composed The Iliad made me feel deeply. The Homer who composed The Odyssey...felt like another person entirely.

Julie wrote: "I understand the pursuit, Fionnuala. For me, fiction is more real than reality itself. Facts tell us what happened; fiction tells us why it mattered.
And to extend it further, within the pages of a novel, a story, or a poem, I find every truth, every passion, every contradiction, every hope, and every despair that make us human. The greatest writers illuminate the hidden chambers of the heart—our loves, fears, ambitions, vanities, and acts of grace—with a clarity that everyday life rarely affords. I read fiction not to escape the world, but to understand it more deeply, for nowhere else have I found a truer account of what it means to be alive..."

Thanks for adding your thoughts to this comment thread, Julie. You always bring such a richness. Yes, yes, yes, to everything you say! And you only confirm why The Iliad means so much more to me than The Odyssey. It is in The Iliad, full as it is with death, that I found that 'true account of what it means to be alive'. Plus all the contents of the 'hidden chambers of the heart'!

Violeta wrote: "…"All our impulses and desires are found in it from deep friendship to extreme jealousy, from vengeance to forgiveness."
This remark from one of your comments in this thread provides the perfect explanation why peope are perpetually fascinated by the ancient fables of the East and West. I guess the publishing industry has always worked in favor of the latter, but Ancient Greek myths are the point where these two worlds converge ;-).."

Thanks for reminding us that Ancient Greek myths are the point where east and west converge, Violeta—and that they predate any notion of 'The West' as the arbiter of everything.
This book reminded me of what flux was happening in the eastern Mediterranean and in the lands bordering the Aegean in those centuries as new peoples arrived from the north and from the east. And that there was a 'Dark Age' in Greece many centuries before Europe experienced its dark age. I learned a lot, for example, about the excavations at Knossos in Crete. It's such an idyllic sounding island!

East and west converge in the Greek myths, yes, I believe so too. Something to me a bit weird and wonderful that I have heard is that there are parallels or borrowings or shared elements apparently between the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Marabharata! Slthough in the latter the hideously destructive war is only eighteen days long rather than ten years.

Jola wrote: "Dear Fionnuala, what a wonderfully evocative review! I love how you went hunting for Euripides like a detective searching for "further news" of old friends -- there is something so delightfully relatable about wanting these legendary figures to have actually existed, bureaucratic tax records and all...."

I'm so glad you share my wish for Hecuba and Priam to have been real, Jola, and I love how you express it: 'that Hecuba’s sigh still echoes somewhere along the Turkish coast'. If I ever get to Troy, I will be wishing I could hear it!

Vesna wrote: "...This whole journey of yours this year—actual, literary, mythological—is so enchanting and delight to follow. This line really grabbed me 'The thing is, I really want them to have existed' for the nobility, imagination and curiosity of your search... I do worry though that this turn into the "fact-finding" side road might bring you some disappointments......"

Thanks for following this reading trail I've been on for months now, Vesna. It's been a complete pleasure going from one Greek related book to another, non-fiction and fiction by turns. I never suspected when I began The Iliad how entranced I would become, and I understand your fear that books like Michael Wood's might lead to disappointment. But his title, 'In Search of the Trojan War', announces clearly that it is only a 'search'. And while I loved hearing about the efforts of so many people for several centuries to uncover some 'facts' about the Trojan war, I wasn't hung up on there being some absolute proof offered at the end. What I most enjoyed was finding out that there have been many people throughout history who have been as fascinated by The Iliad as I am. That's enough for me:-)