abstract
| - Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, that hugged the Aegean Sea in what is now Turkey. In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Greeks after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus king of Sparta. The Iliad relates a part of the last year of the siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes Odysseus's journey home. The war originated from a quarrel between the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, after Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, gave them a golden apple, sometimes known as the Apple of Discord, marked "for the fairest". Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the "fairest", should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the brother of Helen's husband Menelaus, led an expedition of Greek troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris' insult. Apollo aided Paris in the killing of Achilles by guiding the arrow of his bow into Achilles' heel. The city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Horse, and the Greeks slaughtered the Trojans (except for some of the women and children whom they kept or sold as slaves) and desecrated the temples, thus earning the gods' wrath. Few of the Achaeans returned safely to their homes and many founded colonies in distant shores.
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