Siguiendo a la “Ilíada” como hilo conductor, el autor realiza una aproximación a lo que pudo ser históricamente la guerra de Troya. Para ello, recaba información no sólo en Homero sino también en las historias narradas en el llamado Ciclo Épico; y argumenta sus conclusiones atendiendo a restos arqueológicos y textuales hititas, egipcios y micénicos para valorar lo narrado desde lo posible a lo improbable.
Más didáctico que erudito, la habilidad narrativa de Strauss presenta los hechos como una novela, especulando con los sentimientos y pulsiones de los personajes pero sin desdeñar las pruebas arqueológicas que sustentan sus elucubraciones y aportando una profusa bibliografía para quien quiera profundizar en la versátil sociedad de la Edad del Bronce tardía. ( )

Arguments about whether the Trojan War actually happened may well predate Homer. Certainly they predate any existing copies of Homer, since Thucydides had trenchant comments on just what might or might not have happened.

This book isn't one of those arguments; it accepts the Trojan War as real. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a history. It's more of a projection: Take the story of the Iliad and retell it, cutting out only those parts which are clearly impossible in the light of archaeology and modern science. The result is at least 75% Homer, no more than 25% observed facts. Was there a city of Ilium (Wilusa), i.e. Troy? Certainly. Was it badly damaged, very likely sacked, around the end of the Mycenaean era in Greece? Yes. Were the attackers Greeks? Very possibly. Were they led by a King of Mycenae? It would make sense, since Mycenae was a very great city. Was the king's name Agamemnon? It's possible. Did he have a supporter named Achilles? We can't absolutely rule it out. Did they have a quarrel about two women whose names we know, did it result in a Trojan attack on the ships, and did that lead ultimately to the death of the Trojan prince Hector....?

Well, let's look at some realities. By all accounts, the Trojan epic and romance attributed to Homer (the Iliad is an epic; the Odyssey a romance) were composed about four hundred years after the event -- maybe more. So, for four hundred years, the story would have had to be preserved in folktales and oral epics -- the Greeks lost the skill to write after the Mycenaean era, and didn't regain it until they borrowed a new writing system hundreds of years later.

But oral history is pretty predictable: it forgets complicated facts and boils everything down to stories of individuals. Take the story of the Battle of Otterburn in 1388; the Earl of Douglas, who was raiding Northumberland, won a battle against Henry "Hotspur" Percy. The ballad of Chevy Chase, which was picked up a few hundred years later, knows of the battle but throws out all the details and ends up telling us that Percy and Douglas actually fought hand to hand -- making a battle into a series of single combats just as the Iliad is a series of single combats. Or take the Song of Roland. We know that Roland was a real noble at the time of Charlemagne. But he was just some border lord who got himself killed. By the time of the Roland, he is the greatest knight of Christendom, who defeats an entire enemy army even as he's dying -- dying not, we note, because he was overwhelmed by his enemies but because he blew his horn so loudly that he damaged his skull. Enemies couldn't kill him; he had to do it himself.

And this sort of distortion can happen quickly. There's a sea chanty, "Santy Anno," which described Santa Anna beating Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War, even though the reverse was true. That chanty was first collected less than a century after the Mexican War, in a time when written records were readily accessible.

And we're supposed to accept the accuracy of a story transmitted orally for close to half a millennium with no written support whatsoever?

This book is highly readable, even fascinating -- I breezed through it. But believable? Come on.... ( )

An examination of the most famous war of Greek history, but did it ever happen?

This book was not what I expected. I thought it would focus on archeological evidence as a support for the existence of Troy. Instead the author asks us to imagine what a real battle at Troy would have been like. He does this by comparing events in The Iliad with practices and events from other bronze age sources. It certainly provokes some interesting thoughts and is presented well. I found it to be most intriguing during the sections when the actual archeological evidence is being discussed. I only wish there had been more of an in-depth look at the physical evidence. Overall a good read and the author does a good job of describing what an actual bronze age battle at Troy would have looked like. ( )

Thought this would give me more historical info on the actual Trojan War. Turns out we don't know enough to fill a book, so a lot of this is padded out by a blow-by-blow retelling of the Iliad, which I definitely didn't need. Pretty lame. ( )