The Tragedy that is Troy

There were poppies everywhere; splashes and blobs of scarlet. In places, they grew so abundantly that I could imagine there were bodies, lying in the rubble, bleeding from spear wounds and the slashes of glittering bronze swords. 

I stood in front on a long ramp, It is easy to imagine the heroes of the Trojan war, hurtling out of the Scaean Gate, the main, guarded gate to their walled city, in their two-horse chariots, down this very ramp, out to battle onto the plains that lead to the wine-dark Aegean.

Actually, this ramp, and this wall, is at least one thousand years older than the story made famous by Homer. That makes it an even more remarkable achievement; smooth, straight, brilliant engineering. In all, there are 9 layers of Troy––3000 years of uninterrupted occupation playing a crucial role in trade and cultural links. We're still learning about its past; excavations continue in this magnificent archaeological city.

Becki and I are here, in Troy, a place I’ve longed to see for decades. The place that people…historians especially…thought only existed in the imagination of a blind poet called Homer. It’s taken recent archeology to rewind facts and evidence about the Troy, to understand that the Iliad is not a fairytale––it’s a historic account of an ancient Bronze Age war. Of course, it’s also a brilliantly told story, and we all know storytellers (and novelist, and film makers) embroider and rearrange the truth to create something engaging, something people will sit for long periods to listen to, because they are enthralled. I write about that myself here. 

Troy today (Troya in Turkish) is a protected, beloved archeological site. But don’t imagine it’s like Luxor, or like Stonehenge. It’s mostly destroyed, just piles of bricks. To enjoy it, one needs an imagination and a love of the stories that surround it.

For Becki and me, Troy is all about tragedy. From the mythic stories, to the actual, bloody battles that killed thousands of warriors, to the firing of the civilian city, to the Victorian gentleman who never found his ultimate proof (although he did find his Helen!), this city represents all the tragedies that is the human condition.

Let’s start with Cassandra. She is born of royalalty; Queen Hecuba and King Priam of Troy. Her god-given gift of prophesy leads her to warn her parents to leave their baby, Paris, to die on the mountainside, rather than bring war to them; later, she urges them not to let Paris go to Greece (where he meets Helen) and later again, against bringing the Trojan horse into the city. Her tragedy is that she was never believed. The term "Cassandra syndrome" in the twentieth century is a condition where people choose to ignore valid warnings. But through her experience, I also think of all the generations of women who, when young, lost out of using their skills and gifts because these were disregarded or mocked by their elders.

Perhaps Helen herself is a tragic figure. We’ll never know if she went willingly to Troy out of love, or was  raped, then dragged, kicking and screaming, as a trophy bride. Hittite records suggest Paris was no young blade, but in the Iliad he is definitely the younger and less courageous brother––brave Hector being the high general of the Trojans. 

One of our most delightful moments at Troy was reaching the heights of the city, which was built over and over, layers of earlier Troys hidden under later Troys, from the earliest times––3000–BCE––to the last Greek and Roman cities. 

From the vantage point at the top of the city, we could see the plains of battle, and the Aegean. We imagined being there, high on the city walls, perhaps, or in a turret of the palace, watching the black, well-benched ships of Greece…hundreds and hundreds of them, carrying supplies, horses, weapons, and soldiers, to their land…coming to take Helen back.  Fifty of those one thousand ships carried Achilles’ army, the Myrmidons, to the Trojan shores.

300 BCE depiction of Achilles
( Wikipedia )

In the Iliad, Achilles is young, strong, fearless, beautiful, but also cocksure and a terrible sulk, with definite anger management issues. After almost 9 years of war, he punishes the Greek general, Agamemnon, for stealing his trophy woman, by refusing to let the Myrmidons fight any battles. For long months, he just sits in his hut by the Aegean, sulking.This is an absolute tragedy for the Greek army, and they are hobbled without him. But after it becomes clear that Hector is about to reach the Greek ships and fire them Achilles allows his lover and bestie Patroclus, to put on his distinctive armour and take the Myrmidons into battle. Hector sees his opportunity and kills Patroclus, breaking Achilles’ heart. But it also breaks the stalemate; Achilles has new armour forged by the god Hephaestus and strides towards the walls of Troy. He’s fully fired-up, yelling for Hector to come and fight him.

This part of the Iliad is a complete page-turner. The Trojans have all chased back behind their city walls at the sight of the real Achilles heading their way. Priam and Hecube try to dissuade Hector from responding to Achilles' taunts. Hector spends some time debating (rather like Hamlet) whether or not to respond, finally deciding…'I think there is no way, from oak to rock, to chat with him…Better to start the conflict right away and we will soon see which of us is granted success…’ Achilles is the stronger of the two, and in this fight, the gods are on his side. He slays Glorious Hector, brave Trojan with a loving wife and a beautiful baby. 

Achilles' red rage was the end for him. Once the fighting is resumed, Paris shoots an arrow from the city walls that pierces his only vulnerable spot; his heel. 

Achilles’ main goal in life was to die a hero––to be remembered for eternity. He both lived and died tragically, and, thanks to Homer, we all know his name to this day, so that ambition was decidedly realised. 

But I like to remember Patroclus, as well. He was equally brave, and incredibly loyal to his arrogant, misguided lover who didn’t think twice about putting him in the face of danger. His story is beautifully told by Madeline Miller, in The Song of Achilles. https://madelinemiller.com/q-a-the-song-of-achilles/

Even the ‘godlike’ Agamemnon, after triumphing against the Trojans and returning home, had a tragic end, although I for one, will not weep for him!  Agamemnon had sacrificed his own daughter to get his thousand ships sailing across to Troy. On his triumphant return, his wife and her lover tempt him into a warm, scented hero’s bath…then stab him to death. Even more sadly; Cassandra dies with him. 

However, in my eyes, the greatest tragedy Troy ever witnessed happened 3,000 years after the war.  Heinrich Schliemann, a nineteenth century gentleman amateur archeologist came to Troy because was positive that the Trojan war had been a historic event, something that was laughed at by historians of the time.  He found the splendid ramp that Becki and I could

Source Wikipedia

see sloping down from those famous city walls, and imagined it as the walkway for the Trojan warriors off to fight the Greeks. He also identified layers of ashen remains, showing that parts of the city had been destroyed by a great fire. These discoveries excited him; they were perfect fits with the legendary destruction of the Homeric Troy. Finally, near the ramp, Schliemann made one of the most amazing discoveries in the history of Troy's excavations––a rich cache of copper pots, terra cotta goblets, gold cups, and bronze, copper and silver weapons. In a silver vase were two extraordinary gold diadems, thousands of gold rings and buttons.  Schliemann called them, ‘jewels of Helen’ and draped his Greek wife with their beauty. Indeed, they were a spectacular Early Bronze Age find…these items were from an earlier Troy, I which had existed 1,200 years before the Homeric war.

In the hope of finding more of Priam and Hector’s Troy, and trusting in his misguided assumption that the legendary city must be in the lowest layers of the settlement, he had his workers dig hastily through all the higher layers, using battering rams and windlasses to excavate a series of 70 metre wide trenches. 

 Ironically, Schliemann's actions completed the task of the Greeks. He razed the walls of the Homeric city to the ground, resulting in irreversible damage to the site and the loss of much valuable information.

We both agreed that this has to be as much a tragedy as anything that happened in the ancient battles. Schliemann was not educated as an archaeologist, and he had only one dream: to find the city of King Priam. His methods are contrasted with the techniques of modern archaeology when all the layers are carefully studied, and scholars agree that Schliemann's excavations destroyed the layer of the city that could be dated as contemporary with the legendary Trojan War.

As we stood on the board walks created for modern tourists, we could clearly see one of these trenches, running cavalierly through the ancient ruins. As he dug, Schliemann destroyed the very city wall he was trying to find. Ironically, he was never able to continue to prove his claims about Troy, partly because his his visa was rescinded by Turkey when he secretly removed his ‘treasures of Helen’ from the country. 

Nevertheless, as https://turkisharchaeonews.net says: Despite the significant loss of knowledge caused by digging the trench, this place enables a better understanding of the multiple layers of Troy, similar to the layers of a gigantic wedding cake, visible when the first slice is cut out. And we could see that; the foundations of Early Bronze Age houses, and these ‘levels of Troy’, carefully marked by archaeologists, are really visable.

The first and last thing that hits you in the eye in Troy is its  horse––a massive, black wooden effigy, literally full of holes. No one could hide in that horse, and I can’t imagine it standing on the Aegean shore, as the Greeks sailed away. It’s just not believable.

Nevertheless, it has a story, which we discovered during our final stop, Çanakkale, the present-day city near ancient Troy. We went into a shop in selling tourist gifts (such as Trojan horse fridge magnets). The shop owner was very proud of the horse. ‘My father worked on  the Troy site alongside the archeologists,’ he told us. 'He lived until he was 94, and loved his work on that site. He was responsible for creating and building the horse. It's a magnificent job..’ 

The film Troy donated its version of the horse to  Çanakkale,

 and, gazing up at it, I preferred it immensely to
the older version. Made of driftwood and boat parts, it felt far more authentic...close to something Odysseus might have imagined himself.

We sailed  over the Dardanelles and along the coast of the Sea of Marmara, back to to Istanbul, rather dazed and dreamy about having been to Troy. We both agreed that, if we'd been able, we would have hidden in  Schliemann's Trench all night, waiting for Hector, and Paris, and Helen, and Cassandra, to rise as shades, and take us back three thousand years.

 A few days later, back in Istanbul, we were chatting to Erkoc, the owner of our favourite local cafe. He was delighted we’d been to Troy. ‘Before buying this place,’ he explained, ‘I was an archeologist.’ He’d worked in pre-historic sites all over Turkey, but Troya was his favourite. 'It opens the pages of a book’. And, indeed, he was also a writer, with reams of poetry to his name. We chatted for hours to him, sharing our experiences. 

The previous night to our trip to Troy, back in Wales, my husband had a dream. He texted me: Dreamed I was in Troy near ruins with old guy in long robes and pillbox cap walking on a beach…

and from that, inspired by Erkoc’s poems, I wrote…

The specks and drips of blood

Become a tidal wave

When Achilles stepped into the river intent on killing. 

The blood flowed as today the poppies grow in Troy. 

'I am a Trojan,' the old man said.

He was trading in plastic gifts, postcards and books. 

'My father built the horse that stands outside the gates.'

But I was looking for an answer to a dream;

A man, walking on the beach at Troy, in strange garbs––  

A Trojan.

We walked on, gazing at the poppies,  

More and more crimson, shocks of blood on the ancient soil,

Proud and strong between the granite walls and marble columns.