Troy, Greek Troia, also called Ilios or Ilion, Latin Troia, Troja, or Ilium, ancient city in northwestern Anatolia that holds an enduring place in both literature and archaeology. The legend of the Trojan War is the most notable theme from ancient Greek literature and forms the basis of Homer’s Iliad. Although the actual nature and size of the historical settlement remain matters of scholarly debate, the ruins of Troy at Hisarlik, Turkey, are a key archaeological site whose many layers illustrate the gradual development of civilization in northwestern Asia Minor.
Geography
Ancient Troy commanded a strategic point at the southern entrance to the Dardanelles (Hellespont), a narrow strait linking the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea via the Sea of Marmara. The city also commanded a land route that ran north along the west Anatolian coast and crossed the narrowest point of the Dardanelles to the European shore. In theory, Troy would have been able to use its site astride these two lines of communication to exact tolls from trading vessels and other travelers using them; the actual extent to which this took place, however, remains unclear.
The Troad (Greek Troias; “Land of Troy”) is the district formed by the northwestern projection of Asia Minor into the Aegean Sea. The present-day ruins of Troy itself occupy the western end of a low descending ridge in the extreme northwest corner of the Troad. Less than 4 miles (6 km) to the west, across the plain of the Scamander (Kucuk Menderes) River, is the Aegean Sea, and toward the north are the narrows of the Dardanelles.
Archaeology
The search for Troy at Hisarlik the approximate location of Troy was well known from references in works by ancient Greek and Latin authors, including Homer, Herodotus and Strabo. But the exact site of the city remained unidentified until modern times. A large mound, known locally as Hisarlik, had long been understood to hold the ruins of a city named Ilion or Ilium that had flourished in Hellenistic and Roman times. In 1822 Charles Maclaren suggested that this was the site of Homeric Troy, but for the next 50 years his suggestion received little attention from Classical scholars, most of whom regarded the Trojan legend as a mere fictional creation based on myth, not history. Those who did believe in the existence of a real Troy thought it to be at Bunarbashi (Pinarbasi), a short distance south of Hisarlik. It took Frank Calvert, a scholarly amateur archaeologist, until 1860 to begin exploratory work on Hisarlik. It was he who persuaded the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann to work at Hisarlik, though Schliemann soon took full credit for adopting Maclaren’s identification and demonstrating to the world that it was correct. (Not until the late 20th century was the full extent of Calvert’s role widely known.) In seven major and two minor campaigns between 1870 and 1890, Schliemann conducted excavations on a large scale mainly in the central area of the Hisarlik mound, where he exposed the remains of a walled citadel. After Schliemann’s death in 1890, the excavations were continued (1893–94) by his colleague Wilhelm Dörpfeld and later (1932–38) by an expedition from the University of Cincinnati headed by Carl W. Blegen. After a lapse of some 50 years, excavations resumed (1988–2005) under the leadership of University of Tubingen archaeologist Manfred Korfmann and continued after his death.
Questions of Troy’s physical size, population, and stature as a trade entrepôt and regional power became subjects of intense scholarly dispute following the resumption of excavations at Hisarlik in the late 1980s. Although Homeric Troy was described as a wealthy and populous city, by this time some scholars had come to accept the probability of a lesser Troy—a relatively minor settlement, perhaps a princely seat. Beginning in 1988, Korfmann’s team investigated the terrain surrounding the citadel site in search of wider settlement. Korfmann’s findings at Hisarlik, drawn from geomagnetic surveying and isolated excavations, led him to conclude in favor of a greater Troy—that is, a settlement of some size and prosperity. His presentation of this perspective in a 2001 exhibition, accompanied by a controversial model reconstruction of the city, sparked especially intense scholarly debate over the city’s true nature.
Findings
Before excavations began, the mound rose to a height of 105 feet (32 meters) above the plain. It contained a vast accumulation of debris that was made up of many clearly distinguishable layers. Schliemann and Dörpfeld identified a sequence of nine principal strata, representing nine periods during which houses were built, occupied, and ultimately destroyed. At the end of each period when a settlement was destroyed (usually by fire or earthquake or both), the survivors, rather than clear the wreckage down to the floors, merely leveled it out and then built new houses upon it.
The nine major periods of ancient Troy are labeled I to IX, starting from the bottom with the oldest settlement, Troy I. In periods I to VII Troy was a fortified stronghold that served as the capital of the Troad and the residence of a king, his family, officials, advisers, retinue, and slaves. Most of the local population, however, were farmers who lived in unfortified villages nearby and took refuge in the citadel in times of danger. Troy I to V corresponds roughly to the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 to 1900 BCE). The citadel of Troy I was small, not more than 300 feet (90 meters) in diameter. It was enclosed by a massive wall with gateways and flanking towers and contained perhaps 20 rectangular houses. Troy II was twice as large and had higher, sloping stone walls protecting an acropolis on which stood the king’s palace and other princely residences, which were built of brick in a megaron plan. This city came to an end through fire, and Schliemann mistakenly identified it with Homer’s Troy. In the “burnt layer’s” debris were found a trove of gold jewelry and ornaments and gold, silver, copper and ceramic vessels that Schliemann named “Priam’s treasure.” The burning of Troy II seems to have been followed by an economic decline; each of the citadels of Troy III, IV, and V was fortified and somewhat larger than its predecessor, but the houses inside the walls were much smaller and more closely packed than in Troy II.
Troy VI and VII may be assigned to the Middle and Late Bronze Age (c. 1900 to 1100 BCE). Troy at this time had new and vigorous settlers who introduced domesticated horses to the Aegean area. They further enlarged the city and erected a magnificent circuit of cut limestone walls that were 15 feet (4.5 metres) thick at the base, rose to a height of more than 17 feet (5 meters), and had brick ramparts and watchtowers. Inside the citadel, which was now about 650 feet (200 meters) long and 450 feet (140 meters) wide, great houses were laid out on ascending, concentric terraces. Troy VI was destroyed by a violent earthquake a little after 1300 BCE. Dörpfeld had identified this stage as Homeric Troy, but its apparent destruction by an earthquake does not agree with the realistic account of the sack of Troy in Greek tradition. Moreover, the city’s date, as indicated by imported Mycenaean pottery found in the earthquake debris, is too early for the Trojan War.
The survivors of the earthquake quickly rebuilt the town, thus inaugurating the short-lived Troy VII. The ruins were leveled and covered over by new buildings, which were set close together and filled all available space inside the fortress. Almost every house was provided with one or several huge storage jars that were sunk deep into the ground, with only their mouths above the level of the floor. Troy VIIa probably lasted little more than a generation. The crowding together of houses and the special measures to store up food supplies suggest that preparations had been made to withstand a siege. The town was destroyed in a devastating fire, and remnants of human bones found in some houses and streets strengthen the impression that the town was captured, looted, and burnt by enemies. Based on the evidence of imported Mycenaean pottery, the end of Troy VIIa can be dated to between 1260 and 1240 BCE. The Cincinnati expedition under Blegen concluded that Troy VIIa was very likely the capital of King Priam described in Homer’s Iliad, which was destroyed by the Greek armies of Agamemnon
The partly rebuilt Troy VIIb shows evidence of new settlers with a lower level of material culture, who vanished altogether by 1100 BCE. For about the next four centuries the site was virtually abandoned. About 700 BCE Greek settlers began to occupy the Troad, Troy was reoccupied and given the Hellenized name of Ilion; this Greek settlement is known as Troy VIII. The Romans sacked Ilion in 85 BCE, but it was partially restored by the Roman general Sulla that same year. This Romanized town, known as Troy IX, received fine public buildings from the emperor Augustus and his immediate successors, who traced their ancestry back to the Trojan Aeneas. After the founding of Constantinople (324 CE), Ilion faded into obscurity.
The Trojan War
The Classical legends of the Trojan War developed continuously throughout Greek and Latin literature. In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the earliest literary evidence available, the chief stories have already taken shape, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The story of the Trojan origin, through Aeneas, of Rome helped to inspire Roman interest; Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy. Finally, there are the pseudo-chronicles that go under the names of Dictys Cretencis and Dares Phrygius.
The Trojan War fought between the Greeks and Troy originated in the following manner. King Priam of Troy was wealthy and powerful; by his wife Hecuba and by concubines he had 50 sons and 12 daughters. But his son Paris was invited to judge which of the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera and Athena was entitled to receive the golden apple marked by the goddess Eris (Discord) “for the most beautiful.” Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world: he therefore awarded her the apple and went to Greece, where he won the love of, and eloped with, Helen, wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta.
To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus’s brother, Agamemnon, king of Árgos or Mycenae. The Trojans refused to return Helen. Small towns in or near the Troad were sacked by the Greeks, but Troy, assisted by allies from Asia Minor and Thrace, withstood a Greek siege for 10 years. The gods also took sides, notably Hera, Athena and Poseidon for the Greeks, and Aphrodite (who had a son, Aeneas, by the Trojan Anchises, grandson of Assaracus), Apollo and Ares for the Trojans. The Iliad, which is set in the 10th year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of (among others) Achilles’ friend Patroclus and Priam’s eldest son, Hector.
After Hector’s death the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons and Memnon, king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos. Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium) and fetch the arrows of Heracles and the sick archer Philoctetes from Lemnos and Achilles’ son Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) from Skyros; Odysseus and Diomedes achieved all these. Finally, with Athena’s help, Epeius built a huge wooden horse. Several Greek warriors hid inside it; the rest of the Greek army sailed away to Tenedos, a nearby island, pretending to abandon the siege. Despite the warnings of Priam’s daughter Cassandra, the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoön, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek leaders were told in two epics, the Returns (Nostoi; lost) and Homer’s Odyssey
The few Trojan survivors included Aeneas, whose descendants continued to rule the Trojans; later tradition took Aeneas’s Trojans to Italy as the ancestors of the Romans.
