From the apple of discord to the Trojan Horse and the homecoming of Odysseus — the Greek myth in story order, alongside the real site of Troy, the making of the epics, the Laocoön group and Schliemann’s excavations
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo · Public domain · Source
| Story | Source | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Apple of discord | Cypria (fragments), Hyginus | Myth |
| Judgement of Paris | Cypria; Iliad 24 | Myth |
| Helen and Paris | Cypria; Iliad | Myth |
| Iphigenia at Aulis | Cypria; Euripides | Myth |
| Wrath of Achilles | Iliad | Myth |
| Death of Achilles | Aethiopis; Odyssey 24 | Myth |
| Trojan Horse | Odyssey; Aeneid 2 | Legend |
| Death of Laocoön | Aeneid 2 | Legend |
| Laocoön group found (1506) | Esquiline, Rome → Vatican | History |
| Destruction of Troy (c. 1180 BC) | Hisarlik, layer VIIa | History |
| The Cyclops | Odyssey 9 | Myth |
| Circe | Odyssey 10 | Myth |
| The Sirens | Odyssey 12 | Myth |
| Calypso and the Phaeacians | Odyssey 5–8 | Myth |
| Penelope and the homecoming | Odyssey 13–24 | Myth |
| The epics take shape (8th c. BC) | Ionia; Homer | History |
| Excavation of Troy (1871–1873) | Schliemann at Hisarlik | History |
| Excavation of Mycenae (1876) | Schliemann, Grave Circle A | History |
A Greek myth told in the epic Cypria and later mythographers. Eris, goddess of strife, left out of the wedding feast of the hero Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis, threw in a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest”, setting Hera, Athena and Aphrodite against one another.
A Greek myth told in the Cypria and briefly mentioned in Book 24 of the Iliad. On Mount Ida the Trojan prince Paris had to choose the most beautiful of three goddesses, and chose Aphrodite, who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world.
A Greek myth told in the Cypria and the Iliad. When Paris carried off Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, to Troy, Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon gathered the kings of Greece for an expedition against Troy.
A Greek myth told in the Cypria and the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides. When Artemis in her anger stilled the winds and held the Greek fleet at the harbour of Aulis, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia.
A Greek myth sung in Homer’s Iliad. In the tenth year of the war Achilles, insulted by Agamemnon, withdraws from battle; when his friend Patroclus is killed by Hector he returns and kills Hector, and Priam, king of Troy, comes to ransom his son’s body.
A Greek myth told in the lost epic Aethiopis and in Book 24 of the Odyssey. After killing the Amazon queen Penthesilea and the Ethiopian king Memnon, Achilles was killed by an arrow shot by Paris and guided by Apollo.
A Greek myth and legend told in the Odyssey and in Book 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid. The Greeks hid soldiers inside a huge wooden horse and pretended to sail away; the Trojans hauled the horse into their city, and at night the soldiers came out and opened the gates, and Troy fell.
A Greek myth and legend best known from Book 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid. When the Trojan priest Laocoön warned against bringing the wooden horse into the city and hurled a spear at it, two great serpents came out of the sea and crushed him and his two sons.
On 14 January 1506 a marble group of Laocoön and his two sons in the coils of serpents was unearthed in a vineyard on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. Pope Julius II bought it and placed it in the Belvedere court of the Vatican; it is still in the Vatican Museums.
Around 1180 BC the city of Troy (layer Troy VIIa) on the mound of Hisarlik in north-western Anatolia burned and fell. Who destroyed it, and whether the Trojan War of Homer ever took place, are still debated.
A Greek myth told in Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey. Sailing home from Troy, Odysseus is trapped in the cave of the one-eyed giant Polyphemus the Cyclops; telling the giant his name is “Nobody”, he blinds him and escapes.
A Greek myth told in Book 10 of the Odyssey. When the sorceress Circe turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, Odysseus, protected by a herb from Hermes, overcomes her magic, wins his men back and stays a year on her island.
A Greek myth told in Book 12 of the Odyssey. Sailing past the Sirens, whose song lures sailors to their death, Odysseus has his men stop their ears with wax while he, tied to the mast, listens to the song.
A Greek myth told in Books 5–8 of the Odyssey. The sole survivor, Odysseus is held for seven years on the island of the nymph Calypso until the gods have him released; he sails off on a raft, reaches the land of the Phaeacians and tells them of his adventures.
A Greek myth told in Books 13–24 of the Odyssey. Returning to Ithaca after twenty years, Odysseus enters his house disguised as a beggar, strings his own bow in the contest set by his wife Penelope, defeats the suitors and is reunited with her.
Around the 8th century BC, in Ionia on the west coast of Asia Minor, the Iliad, on the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, on Odysseus’ homecoming, took their present form. Songs long passed on by word of mouth were written down in the newly adopted Greek alphabet and became the beginning of Western literature.
From 1871 the German businessman Heinrich Schliemann dug into the mound of Hisarlik in the Ottoman Empire and announced that he had found Homer’s Troy. In 1873 he found a hoard of gold he named “Priam’s Treasure”, but it came from a layer more than a thousand years older than the Trojan War.
In 1876 Schliemann excavated Grave Circle A in the citadel of Mycenae in Greece and found gold masks and a wealth of gold objects. He believed he had found the tomb of Agamemnon, but the graves date to the 16th century BC, some three hundred years before the Trojan War.
German businessman and archaeologist who, believing in Homer’s story, excavated Troy at Hisarlik and then the grave circle at Mycenae
Renaissance sculptor, painter and architect who carved the David and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Ancient Greek epic poet to whom the Iliad and the Odyssey are attributed, usually placed in Ionia around the 8th century BC; nothing certain is known of his life, and whether one poet composed both epics is debated