Episode 6 - The Iliad and the Trojan War

TWICE

21 min

Knowledge

Description

Episode 6 - The Iliad and the Trojan War [intro music] Hi, my name is Clayton Mills. Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History’ - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world. Welcome to Episode 6 - The Iliad and the Trojan War. One of the most famous events of the ancient world is war between the Greeks and the Trojans, which is told in the epic novel the Iliad, and then finished in the Odyssey. Funny thing is, we don’t know for sure if this war really happened! Regardless of whether the battle really happened, the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the most important and famous written works in all of human history. So today we’re going to look at the stories, their author, their historical background, and the impact they had on Greek society, and on history. Last week, we looked at the city-states and geography of ancient Greece. As we mentioned, the Greeks were sailors, adventurers, explorers and warriors. To the east of the Greek peninsula is the Aegean Sea, and across the Aegean was one of the rival cities to the cities of Greece - the city-state of Troy. The ancient Greeks called the city 'Ilium,' and it was one of the chief rivals for control of the Aegean Sea and the trade routes from Asia. The Iliad tells the story of a Greek fleet that has already landed on the shores of the city of Troy, and the battles between the Greek heroes and the Trojan heroes. We’ll talk about the story itself in a bit, but let’s look at the background of it first. The Iliad and the Odyssey were to the Greeks what the Bible is to Christianity. These are the works with which the Greeks identify with their gods, and their mythology. Even though it is mythology, that does not necessarily mean that the stories are untrue. It is most likely that there was a war at

Uploader

luke.writer

Episodes

Episode 6 - The Iliad and the Trojan War

TWICE

21:50