The Apple of Discord

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Sure, but "some period of unpleasantness between a constantly shifting network of Mycenaean and Ioian city-states" describes a war that is nothing like the Iliad, except metaphorically. It certainly isn't "the Iliad but atheist" the way Troy was supposed to be.

Well, yeah, The Iliad is first and foremost a war novel about a war that happened a thousand years earlier, not a historical account. :) It lasted ten years because Homer liked his (her?) ten year spans. The Trojan War? Ten years. Odysseus's journey home? Ten years. Odysseus's post-return exile for violation of hospitality rules? Ten years. Everyone else in classical times detailing the Trojan War built upon Homer's work trying to figure out the first nine years of the war from scanty or non-existent records, and had to in many cases stretch out the timeline.

I think the issue is that we're discussing both the historical Trojan War and the legendary one detailed by Homer and others at the same time and signals are getting crossed. I quite admit that it's unlikely (though not impossible) for the Trojan War to last ten years; however, everyone in classical times who wrote their plays and poems about it felt compelled to keep it "ten years" and filled in the blanks, not realizing or ignoring how unlikely some of the stuff really was.

As I said before, I can see the actual war lasting three years tops, with the events of The Iliad and Odysseus's Trojan Horse ploy and subsequent Sacking of Troy happening in the spring of the third year before the harvest. (Planting season in the Aegean is in the fall, due to mild winters and roasting summers. The original myths in the Classical Greek recorded Persephone spending the summers, not the winters, with Hades due to it being way too hot to grow crops in the summers there. It's only translations by those used to Northern European climate that didn't understand the Aegean climate being that warm that translated the myth to her spending winters.... but I digress big time.) And most of that three year time period would be spent blockading the port with a rotation of Achaean ships from the various factions in order to put pressure on Troy. Think of how it tends to work in real life: before the ground war starts, there are attempts to pressure capitulation through blockades preventing reinforcements/trade and projection of air power to smash the anti-air defenses. Given that there are no dragons or giant eagles to ride, even in The Iliad, we can ignore the smashing of anti-air defenses. :)