Question about the "Iliad"

[Politruk]

Who ARE these Trojans?

They're supposed to be the enemies of the Achaians, the Greeks.

Only -- the Trojans appear to BE Greeks. They speak the same language as their besiegers, worship the same gods, follow the same customs, and nobody in the story ever encounters anything you might call culture shock.

 

[stxjimmy]

Who ARE these Trojans?

They're supposed to be the enemies of the Achaians, the Greeks.

Only -- the Trojans appear to BE Greeks. They speak the same language as their besiegers, worship the same gods, follow the same customs, and nobody in the story ever encounters anything you might call culture shock.

Various city states vied for leadership of Greece. Athens and Sparta being the main proponents, one a naval power and one land based.
Each led their own “leagues” and battled to dominate Greek politics, Sparta being a strict military society whilst Athens introduced a measure of democracy though both were slave states.
Ironically Persian invasions united the Greek leagues and city states in a common front.

Sparti is a modern city on the site of Sparta and is still the administrate centre of the Laconia regions.

Troy was an Asian Greek city state, thought to be in Turkey, its ruins being Troy (or Ilion )was an ancient city located next to present-day Tevfikiye, Turkey. The place was first settled around 3600 BC and grew into a small fortified city around 3000 BC. During its four thousand years of existence, Troy was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. As a result, the archeological site that has been left is divided into nine layers, each corresponding to a city built on the ruins of the previous.

 

[StillStunned]

Well, that was an answer that didn't answer the question. While Sparta does feature (with Helen being married to Menelaos of Sparta), the Iliad was written down several centuries before the hegemony of Athens began, and is set even earlier.

To answer the OP, or at least provide some things to consider: there was no "Greece" as we know it. No "Turkey". There were a whole lot of loose city states, all connected, all trading, all vying for wealth and power. Digging deep into what I remember from my studies and later reading, the Greeks belonged to the Mycenean culture, while mainland Asia Minor would probably descend from/be influenced by the peoples spreading across the steppes of Central Asia. (But don't quote me on this.)

As for speaking the same language and worshipping the same gods, this could be a literary device. Like how Nazis in WWII movies speak English with a bad accent. (But any trading civilisation will develop a lingua franca that most people can communicate in, so perhaps everyone was speaking that.)

Pantheons were fluid as well, with gods being added as people came into contact with different cultures, or being given new names if two cultures worshipped a deity with many of the same features. If Homer actually existed, it's doubtful that he had an accurate idea of precisely what gods were being worshipped half a millennium earlier by cultures that had disappeared, or at least been subsumed into later cultures.

Short answer: they're probably presented as indistinguishable to the Greeks/Achaians for the sake of convenience, and because of a lack of better understanding of earlier periods and cultures.

 

[stxjimmy]

Well, that was an answer that didn't answer the question. While Sparta does feature (with Helen being married to Menelaos of Sparta), the Iliad was written down several centuries before the hegemony of Athens began, and is set even earlier.

To answer the OP, or at least provide some things to consider: there was no "Greece" as we know it. No "Turkey". There were a whole lot of loose city states, all connected, all trading, all vying for wealth and power. Digging deep into what I remember from my studies and later reading, the Greeks belonged to the Mycenean culture, while mainland Asia Minor would probably descend from/be influenced by the peoples spreading across the steppes of Central Asia. (But don't quote me on this.)

As for speaking the same language and worshipping the same gods, this could be a literary device. Like how Nazis in WWII movies speak English with a bad accent. (But any trading civilisation will develop a lingua franca that most people can communicate in, so perhaps everyone was speaking that.)

Pantheons were fluid as well, with gods being added as people came into contact with different cultures, or being given new names if two cultures worshipped a deity with many of the same features. If Homer actually existed, it's doubtful that he had an accurate idea of precisely what gods were being worshipped half a millennium earlier by cultures that had disappeared, or at least been subsumed into later cultures.

Short answer: they're probably presented as indistinguishable to the Greeks/Achaians for the sake of convenience, and because of a lack of better understanding of earlier periods and cultures.

Long winded route to say you don’t know.

 

[mark_j]

One of the things to remember when deciphering The Iliad. It's poetry based heavily in Greek Mythology and Homer wrote it 400 years after the Trojan war ended. While the events and people may be factual the rest follows the traditions of "Epic Poetry".

Or, in the simplest terms, it's historical based fiction.

 

[Sappho_CGN]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy

I do not know when the Greek settlement in Turkley started but maybe the inhabitents were of Greek orign.

 

[Pabiporffor]

On the subject of the aincients stretching the truth more than a little, after the captured Trojans eventually escaped slavery they settled in Brition to become it's first civilised population and early Kings.

So if your British and not to concerned with lack of evidence there's a good chance your descended from a Trojan.

We think of fake news being something modern but out ancestors we're churning it out faster than the "first time" LIT section.

 

[Politruk]

On the subject of the aincients stretching the truth more than a little, after the captured Trojans eventually escaped slavery they settled in Brition to become it's first civilised population and early Kings.

So if your British and not to concerned with lack of evidence there's a good chance your descended from a Trojan.

We think of fake news being something modern but out ancestors we're churning it out faster than the "first time" LIT section.

Well, that story doesn't come from the ancients, it comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth -- medieval.

 

[Pabiporffor]

Well, that story doesn't come from the ancients, it comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth -- medieval.

Who based it on earlier stories

 

[Politruk]

Who based it on earlier stories

No, I think it was original with Geoffrey. None of his supposed sources include a line of British kings going back to Brut.