Talk:Trojan War/Archive 1

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Trojan horse

Have you ever wondered about the Trojan Horse and whether it was true? I have. I believe in the story because there's a lot of proof.

such as? Adam 01:34, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Chronology of Diomedes

It seems as if the article places Diomedes' fight with Ares and Aphrodite after Hector's death and outside of the Iliad. It was in the version of the Iliad I read, and took place before Hector's death.209.11.161.235 20:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Which is the entire stoty?

This is a very nice, detailed article with a lot of research. I noticed that the page article to tell the entire story of the war but implies that it is contained entirely in the Iliad. Everything after Hector's funeral comes from other sources, such as the Odyssey, as well as much later Greek poets and even Virgil. I was wondering if it would be best to mention that, somehow, since there is no classical source that tells the entire "story" and not all accounts agree in the details. -- Decumanus 18:32, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Likewise everything before the feud between Agamemnon and Achilleus, with a few important exceptions. Various events are narrated retrospectively in the poem; and a fwe later event are quite clearly predicted, such as the death of Achilles and the (inevitable) Greek victory. That said, there was once a much longer cycle of epic poems which told, it is conjectured, most or all of what's in here.

I read a hypothesis that the Trojan Horse was actually a ship (with horse decorations?) with warriors passing the Dardanelles as if it were merchant. -- Error 00:43, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reformat participants

Nice article... But the participants section seems to repeat alot of information. Participants on the trojan side, participants on the greek side, unknown side, participant/killer should all be combined into a single table - it should make things much easier. Anyone wanna do it?--Fangz 01:19, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Trojan Horse being a peace offering may be incorrect. Other sources say it was a pretend gift from the gods.

The Trojan Horse being a peace offering may be incorrect. Other sources say it was a pretend gift from the gods.

can someone tell me the EXACT dates of the Trojan War. I need them for my Latin Final...

Another says that it was a battering ram to big for the gates of Ilium, so it was dressed up like a horse. Later, according to the source, the Acheans returned and smashed open the gates while the Dardanians and their allies where in a drunken stupor.

Participants in the war

I find it confusing that some people in the "Participants" entry are simply related to those who fought in the war, as opposed to people who directly fought in the war. Example Andromache is the wife of Hector who fought in the war, not a fighter in the war. So if participating is fighting. Some people in those entries didnt participate in the war.

I don't agree that participating = fighting. Andromache may not have fought, but she was taken by Neoptolemus in the end as part of the "spoils". I would consider that "participating". But to avoid confusion, how about changing "Participants" to something like "Characters". Ravenous 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Where fought Eurypylus, for both sides?!? --172.176.147.157 23:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, they are two different persons. --172.176.147.157 17:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Chronology of Trojan War

When Trojan war is waged?

Before of after the fall of Hittite Empire?

--IonnKorr 14:31, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

It's hard to say definitively, since we know so little about the historical war that was presumably the basis for the legend. You'll notice that this article dates the historical war to between 1300 and 1200 BC. Wikipedia's article on the Hittites dates the collapse of their empire (or at least, the destruction of their capital, Hattusa) to around 1180 BC, shortly after the estimated date of the Trojan War. A letter from a later (13th century) Hittite ruler to the king of the "Ahhiyawa" mentions a previous clash over "Wilusa". Many archaeologists and scholars identify the "Ahhiyawa" with the Achaeans and "Wilusa" with Troy (Ilion), although a few archaeologists dispute these identifications. See here for more detail.
I hope this helps: I found this information with just a few minutes searching on Wikipedia and elsewhere on the web. You could too! :) —Josiah Rowe 18:14, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your answer. But, shouldn't both these Wikipedia's articles (Trojan War and Hittites) reconsile chronologically?
--IonnKorr 18:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Dido actually existed in a very different time from Aeneas. They would have never been able to meet, but the article sounds like they actually did, and Vergil just wrote about it. Can someone correct this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.207.36.226 (talk • contribs) .

Wait, Dido actually existed? News to me. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed material on "Odysseus' tomb"

I removed this from the introduction:

However, in 1991 on the Greek Island of Kefalonia, just outside the city of Poros in the hamlet of Tzannata the city and tomb of Odysseus have been found. In book XIX of the "Odyssey", described in detail is a gold brooch Odysseus was wearing on his return to Ithaca. A gold brooch meeting that precise description was discovered at the site. It is now in the archeological museum at Argostoli, the main city on Kefalonia.

This doesn't belong in the introductory paragraph, but if a source can be provided for this information it might belong in some other part of this article, or in Odysseus. Sounds fairly fishy to me, though; a quick web search turns up almost nothing on this alleged tomb. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Participants revisited

Does the "participants" section really need to be part of this article? Might it be better to spin it out into a separate list article, called List of Trojan War participants or List of participants in the Trojan War? It doesn't seem vital to an encyclopedic summary of the war to me. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

By all means, take that "participants" list to a separate article. Maybe call them "characters" instead of "participants" as well--to me "characters" seems more suitable for an event that is more literary/mythological than historical (no matter whether there was a historical Trojan War or not, we encounter it primarily through poetry and myth). Moreover, some of these characters (e.g. Kassandra) are unwilling victims rather than active participants. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Does List of Trojan War characters sound good? I guess I'll just be bold and create that — it can always be moved later if someone thinks of a better name. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Done. I've moved the maps up and made them slightly smaller, to fit better alongside the text. I'm a bit concerned about the legibility of the Troas map — it would be great if someone could find or provide a clearer map of the region, but I'm afraid that's beyond my abilities. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I like the move to List of Trojan War characters. Some free maps of the classical world are available at the Ancient World Mapping Center, but there isn't a good detail map of the Troad there. I think the best bet is to find an old historical atlas or edition of the Iliad and scan in the map. N.b. I believe that "Troad" is more common in Anglo-American scholarship than "Troas". --Akhilleus (talk) 06:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course, so it is. I was thoughtlessly copying the terminology from the current map on the page. I don't have access to a scanner, so someone else will have to supply the map. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Military conflict infobox?

I don't think the Military Conflict infobox adds much value to this article. The Trojan War we talk about is primarily a mythological/literary event, not a historical/military one. We don't know when the Trojan War happened (if it actually did), and we don't know who its historical combatants and commanders actually were. The infobox is also inaccurate, or at least incomplete: the Trojans had allies, the "Greeks" include many important and independent political units, and some of the "commanders" aren't really commanders (Priam?). The word "commanders" is a bit anachronistic, also--it implies a more developed military structure than one finds in the Iliad. Furthermore, the infobox clutters an already crowded intro that has the Greek mythology infobox there as well.

The information that's valuable in the infobox is mostly in the intro to the article, anyway. I'd like to delete the infobox, unless anyone feels strongly that it should remain. (I forgot to sign this originally, so now I'm adding a signature.) --Akhilleus (talk) 21:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

No one's responded to my comment, so for the reasons above, I'm removing the infobox. If anyone objects, could we please discuss it here? --Akhilleus (talk) 23:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with your reasons to delete it. --JW1805 (Talk) 23:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree on the deletion of the infobox. The Trojan was probably a true event and like all wars it should have its infobox. The standard template for all wars in the WikiMilitary project includes one. Of course the infobox does not add anything knew, it shouldn't. It should just summarize what happened Ikokki 09:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Ikokki and JW1805, thanks for the comments. The bulk of the discussion here indicates that most editors think of the Trojan War as a mythical event, not as part of military history (see dbachmann's comment below especially), and so the infobox is inappropriate. (I don't think it should be part of the WikiMilitary project either.) I'm going to remove the box again, since there seems to be a rough consensus that it doesn't belong. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The military conflict infobox is included in completely fictional battles in Wikipedia as Battle of the Pelennor Field,Battle of Deep Space Nine or better yet War of the Ring. It is a prequisit for Feature Article status, which we should wish to have. Check the pages out if you wish. Since it belongs to purely fictional conflicts, why should it not belong to semi-historical? Since battleboxes belong to real and fictional Wars I will return it. But since I have no intention of starting an edit war, someone please contact an administrator to write down in this space official Wiki policy Ikokki 19:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You're coming pretty close to starting an edit war by reverting a change twice. I'm not going to change it, since I've already done so twice. But in this situation the applicable "Official Wiki policy" is consensus, and it seems to me that consensus is against the infobox.
Who says that it's a "prerequisite for Feature Article status"? The Classical warfare task force, I suppose. But the chronological period this task force is supposed to cover is c. 700 BCE-500 CE, long after the supposed date of the supposed Trojan War. There's a good reason for this: it's not possible to do reliable military history for periods when the sources are so thin on actual historical detail. According to its self-description, the Classical warfare task force shouldn't even be dealing with this article.
In my opinion, the argument that even fictional wars get an infobox is irrelevant to this article. The focus of this article is the mythology of the Trojan War, and the infobox contradicts this focus by representing the war as a historical event. If the infobox is to "summarize what happened", the most important events are the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the Apple of Discord, the Judgment of Paris, the Rape of Helen, etc. Not battles, not commanders, not the list of ships. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The focus know might be on the mythology of the Trojan War but this is not necessarily going to be the focus of this article in the future. The Trojan War tales were based on a historical event, those supporting the Trojan War as a completely fictional event today are the minority. The emphasis today, at least among scholars in Greece, is on the War and its outcome on the society, not how it came about. Ever since the 6th century BC there is the story going about that Helen never went to Troy, but it was only her ghost there. Ever since Eurepedes myths get completely changed at the whim of the playwright. There are three poems written by Greek poets in the Greco-Roman era (unfortunately I do not remember their names) that have survived claiming that there was no Apple of Discord, no Judgement of Paris, No Rape of Helen. She went to Troy unmarried by her own will, the Acheans went there to kidnapp her as a pretext, Palamedes led the Acheans, the intention of the campaign was to remove the Carians from the islands of the North Aegean, Troy never fell.

It is not policy of the Classical History task force alone to have an infobox, it is WikiMilitary Project policy to have one. This was does belong to Classical History since it belongs to a classical civilisation, Ancient Greece. There other wars in which historical detail is even more thin, the Lelantine War or the Andriskos Revolution for example, but this does not mean that these wars do not deserve infoboxes (and they will get them some time). I have put a question at Wiki Help Humanities, at some point we will get an answer but since even in fictional wars there are infoboxes, there should be in semi-fictional wars too.

Standardisation, despite its failings, is very important in all matters of human affairs since it is the basis of formulation of laws. A major breakthrough took place in Psychiatry some 20 years ago with the publication of DSM-III that standardised diagnostic criteria. Infoboxes should be in all battles because they casual viewers to understand in 10 seconds what happened. It is the outcome of the war that is always more important than what led to it. Ikokki 21:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

This box doesn't let casual viewers "understand in 10 seconds what happened." The important parts of the Trojan War are narratives, not facts like the Iliad says 1186 ships came to Troy, or that Ajax was an Achaean leader. In other words, the contest for Achilles' arms and the suicide of Ajax are more important for our understanding of what the Trojan War meant to the classical Greeks than the idea that he led x number of ships and x number of men. The infobox either duplicates information given in the introduction, or gives irrelevant information, and clutters up the top of the page in doing so. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:38, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Before people go for each others' throats too much (too late, I know), a few remarks:

  • WP:MILHIST does not consider fictional events to be within its purview. The Trojan War—whether it occurred or not—is generally treated as a proto-mythological event in sources, so that's the way we have to deal with it.
  • As an extension of the above, while articles on fictional military history are free to use WP:MILHIST templates, there's no convention that they do so, since the WikiProject's guidelines do not apply to them.
  • Whether this would be an issue during an FA run is, at this point, a strictly academic question, since no fictional battle or war has attained FA status to date.

Hope that clarifies a few things! Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Since a member of the Military History project has come along and removed the notice that this article is supported by the Classical Warfare task force, and has informed us that fictional and mythological military history don't fall under the purview of the Military History project, I see no reason to retain the infobox. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Though I disagree I respect the decision and will not raise the subject again, at least until a fictional war article gets FA status. At that time, lets us have a poll Ikokki 22:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Homer and the Trojan horse

The section "The Trojan Horse" suggests that we have the story of the Trojan horse from Homer, which is not true. Did Homer even ever mention the Trojan horse? 23:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Try book 4 of the Odyssey. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)