Homer's Trojan War - Dawn of War DOCUMENTARY

in the swirl of blood and dust on the plane before troy the mighty king agamemnon commander of a gigantic army of greeks spies two of the enemy making their way across the battlefield in their chariots they are brothers haysanda and hippolytus fate would not be kind to them as homer tells the story now the glittering reigns escaped from the hands of both of them and they were stunned with fear for against them rose like a lion atreus's son agamemnon and they supplicated him out of the chariot take us alive son of atreus and take appropriate ransom in the house of our father the treasures lie piled in abundance bronze is there and gold and difficulty wrought iron and our father would make you glad with abundant repayment were he to hear we were alive by the ships of the greeks but agamemnon wasn't interested he spurned paisanda to the ground from the chariot with a spear stroke to the chest and he crashed on his back to the ground then hippolyta sprang away but agamemnon killed him dismounted cutting his arms away with a sword stroke free of the shoulder and sent him spinning like a log down the battle this violent encounter occurred during the tenth and final year of the trojan war an epic conflict between the greeks and the trojans as time went on the fighting had grown ever more brutal bloody and desperate but what exactly had brought the greeks to this far away city in northwest anatolia why had their massive fleet of a thousand ships sailed across the aegean sea to wage a war against the trojans in this series we will be reliving the epic tale of homer's trojan war this video is brought to you by a total war saga troy it's a brand new strategy game set during the bronze age mediterranean which dives into the legendary 10-year conflict between the kingdoms of troy and mycenaean greece dominate your enemies through a blend of grand turn-based empire management and spectacular real-time battles for more information check out the link below or stick around to the end of the video [Music] the story of the trojan war is known to us from ancient texts as well as from ancient art as far as the texts are concerned the story was recorded in a series of poems that are referred to as the epic cycle of this set there were eight poems that dealt with the story of the trojan war for most of these nothing remains except scattered fragments and summaries of their contents in later sources only two the iliad and the odyssey have survived both were attributed to homer however we don't exactly know who homer was or if this was even a proper name rather than a title there is also disagreement about whether the iliad and the odyssey are the product of the same poet or composed by two different poets for our purposes however we'll continue to refer to the author of the iliad and odyssey simply as homer who most likely lived around 700 bc and was a native of either the island of kiosk or the anatolian city of smyrna when it comes to art the trojan war appears quite often in depictions such as figurative vas painting sculptures and reliefs many focus on famous scenes that are easily recognizable and which even come with handy captions but this is not always the case given the sheer amount of artwork in question [Music] while all this literary and artistic information is valuable it can also become quite confusing as their contents are never entirely consistent after all this was a time when stories were passed down orally which can easily generate diverging versions which might rise and fall in popularity one can perhaps think of this as a cinematic universe where the general story arc and key characters are fixed but the adventures can change the setting for this cinematic universe was the age of heroes for the ancient greeks however this was not merely an exercise of fantasy but rather an exploration of what they believed to be their distant past let's now consider this idea the ancient greeks believed that the trojan war had been a real event that had taken place long ago heziod a contemporary of homer placed these events at the very end of the so-called age of heroes the heroes in question had either a divine ancestry or were outright demigods the offspring of a deity and a mortal human being this heroic age was followed by the age of iron which was hesiod's own time and according to the poet a much more wretched time to live while modern archaeologists have a better understanding of these two periods today when the greeks spoke of the past they often carried over much of their own understanding of the world around them thus the age of heroes becomes a fascinating setting which largely mirrors the contemporary world of homer while at the same time containing some elements of the real past that seem alien to archaic and classical greece heroic greece was carved up into a multitude of kingdoms each territory contained multiple towns and sometimes impressive cities including mycenae athens thebes and canosos most of the regions familiar from the historical era are encountered in this setting such as the argolid in the peloponnese and biosha in central greece heroic society was divided into four main social groups at the very top there was an aristocracy referred to in greek as the basilice they own sizable tracks of arable land and large numbers of livestock they consider themselves better than the rest of the population indeed they refer to themselves as aristois the best nearly all the main characters familiar to us from the story of the trojan war belong to this social group within this aristocracy was a pecking order the highest among them were kings who ruled larger swathes of territory such as agamemnon who ruled maisini and adesius who was the king of ithaca beneath them were the princes or chiefs some of which assisted the king in his duties and formed a council of elders who would offer advice the next and largest social group consisted mostly of farmers as well as a smaller number of specialist craftsmen farmers usually owned a small piece of land that they worked and engaged in a barter system to acquire goods that they didn't produce themselves the specialist craftsmen most notably included metalworkers such as weapon and armorsmiths the lowest rung on the social ladder was occupied by the landless poor and the slaves the former earned a living as hired labourers for example as helpers on farms they are referred to as thetas another group the slaves were usually captives acquired during raids and wars who were now considered the property of their owners with this context in mind let's return to the question we asked at the start of the video why did the greeks decide to wage war against the trojans it all started with zeus the father of gods and men wanting to start a war against troy for reasons that are obscure to us to achieve this zeus sent the goddess of strife heiress to sow discord among wedding guests by rolling a golden apple into the crowd that featured the inscription for the most beautiful no less than three goddesses felt that they were entitled to have this apple they were hera zeus's wife athena daughter of zeus and goddess of wisdom and warcraft and aphrodite the goddess of love they turned to zeus to settle the issue but he instead decided to pass on the responsibility zeus told hermes the messenger god to take the three goddesses to mount ida in anatolia where they would come across a young man who would be the fairest judge among all mortals this young man was called alexander but you might know him better as paris why did he have two names glad you asked [Music] alexander was the son of none other than priyam the king of mighty troy and his wife queen hecuba right before alexander was born priyam had a nightmare a prophecy that foretold that this child would bring about the fall of troy the king had to prevent this but murdering someone outright was forbidden as it would create the stain of miasma or religious pollution however putting someone in a position to die was perfectly fine in the heroic world so shortly after alexander's birth priam gave the boy to a herdsman with the explicit instructions to leave him out in the open to die of exposure but a bear nursed the boy and when the herdsmen returned he decided to take the boy into his own family and raise him as his own it seems likely that the herdsmen to keep the boy's identity a secret had given him a different name thus explaining why this character is referred to in the story as both alexander and paris we'll just call him paris from here on out in any event the goddesses asked paris to decide which of them deserved the apple the most naturally each of them tried to bribe the young man hera promised him wealth and power while athena promised him wisdom aphrodite however said that if he were to award the apple to her he would marry the most beautiful woman in the world without a moment's hesitation paris gave the apple to aphrodite making mortal enemies out of hera and athena who would later side with the greeks during the trojan war shortly after rendering his judgment paris's royal parentage was revealed and he was reunited with priyam and hecuba there were sama troy who had misgivings about this of course but by and large he was embraced as a prince of troy at one point he traveled across the aegean sea and was entertained by menelaus the king of sparta and his wife helen helen of course was none other than the most beautiful woman in the world the one that aphrodite had promised paris in marriage she was also as it turned out a daughter of zeus who had raped her mother leader in the form of a swan helen had long been sought after by the men around her and when she reached the age of marriage many kings and princes sought her hand among them was the king of ithaca pedesius who convinced tindarius to have all the suitors swear a solemn oath to abide by whoever helen chose to be her husband and to defend that husband against whoever would quarrel with him all the kings and princes of greece swore this oath helen picked menelaus as her husband binding the rest of the suitors to his defense fast forward some time and paris has arrived in sparta when menelaus decides to head off for crete purpose unknown paris seizes the opportunity and takes helen aboard his ship and sets off back to troy whether she was abducted or went with him willingly is a point of contention but to add insult to injury paris also stole a large amount of menelaus's treasures according to both the capria and the iliad the journey to troy was not without its problems as hera conjured up a storm that blew the ship off course as a result paris and helen apparently spent some time inside on 11 teen city before reaching the safety of troy when menelaus discovered that paris had left with his wife he flew into a rage the king immediately went to his brother in mycenae and demanded that agamemnon support him in avenging this offence the two brothers then traveled around greece and reminded all the kings and princes of the oath that they had sworn to defend helen's chosen husband but not all the basilisks were eager to join menelaus and agamemnon in a war against troy the wily edisius pretended to have gone insane as he had no desire to leave his wife penelope and their newborn son telemachus but the emissaries soon discovered that odysseus faked his madness and thus he had no choice but to join them in the expedition according to the kipriya the fleet of the combined greek army with agamemnon at its head assembled at orlis a city on the coast of biosha in central greece in book 2 of the iliad in a passage known as the catalogue of ships homer gives a complete overview of the greek forces the list features 29 contingents 44 leaders and 175 named towns and other important places the total number of ships brought out for the war numbers 1186 the typical homeric warship appears to have been a low galley of 50 oars with the warriors probably serving as rowers themselves this means that the greek army consisted of around 60 000 souls although some commentators have suggested that there may have been as many as one hundred thousand keep in mind that in addition to the actual warriors the greek army also included servants slaves and dependents the fleet set off and eventually arrived at a city that they believed was troy but was in fact a place called titherania situated further south along the anatolian coast sadly the mistake wasn't discovered until the greeks had already leveled the city but when the greeks tried to set course north to attack the real troy a storm scattered the ships and they were forced to regroup at allis once again this was not an auspicious start of the trojan war and things would not immediately get better at all this the greek fleet was prevented from leaving due to unfavorable winds artemis the goddess of the hunt had been enraged by some slight she could only be placated by a terrible offering agamemnon had to sacrifice his own daughter ifa janier apparently she was lured to allis on the promise of marrying achilles the greatest of all the greek warriors but once she arrived she was taken to the sacrificial altar where her father himself stabbed her in the throat and killed her or at least this is what the playwright aeschylus tells us happened other sources including euripides and the kipriya claim that ephigenia was replaced at the last moment by a deer in any event satisfied by agamemnon's actions our team must influence the winds to change direction the fleet could now sail for troy the journey across the aegean sea was not without any further mishaps or adventures but those needn't detain us here after a long journey the shores of troy finally came into view the fury of greece was about to be unleashed [Applause] if you enjoyed this episode then definitely check out total war saga troy creative assembly's first entry of their award-winning series to be said in the bronze age mediterranean explore the epic 10-year trojan war from the perspectives of the trojans and greeks through a blend of grand turn-based empire management and spectacular real-time battles where you can lead armies with eight playable legendary characters including the heroes achilles and hector get a total war saga troy on the epic store by clicking the link in the description below a huge thanks izzo to our supporters on patreon and the many talented researchers writers and artists who made this video possible please consider contributing to fund future content and let us know what you want to see covered next thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Invicta

Views: 133,215

Keywords: trojan war, trojan war trailer, trojan war documentary, troy, troy battle scene, total war troy, total war troy gameplay, homer, troy documentary, did the trojan war really happen, did the trojan war happen, did the trojan war ever happen, total war, bronze age collapse, achilles last stand, achilles vs hector, achiles, agamemnon, odyssey, iliad audiobook, iliad summary, trojan war summary, trojan war summarized, history, greek history, helen of troy, trojan horse

Id: Ozwfn4B5NW8

Length: 17min 28sec (1048 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020