What do ancient legends tell about the Trojan War? It began by the will and fault of the gods. All the gods were invited to the wedding of the Thessalian hero Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis, except for Eris, the goddess of discord. The angry goddess decided to take revenge and threw a golden apple with the inscription "To the most beautiful" to the feasting gods. Three Olympian goddesses, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, argued which of them it was meant for. Zeus ordered the young Paris, the son of the Trojan king Priam, to judge the goddesses. The goddesses appeared to Paris on Mount Ida, near Troy, where the prince was tending herds, and each tried to seduce him with gifts. Paris preferred the love offered to him by Aphrodite to Helen, the most beautiful of mortal women, and handed the golden apple to the goddess of love.
Helena, daughter of Zeus and Leda, was the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus. Paris, who was a guest in the house of Menelaus, took advantage of his absence and, with the help of Aphrodite, convinced Helen to leave her husband and go with him to Troy. The fugitives took with them slaves and treasures of the royal house. About how Paris and Helen got to Troy, the myths tell in different ways. According to one version, they arrived safely in Paris's hometown three days later. According to another, the goddess Hera, hostile to Paris, raised a storm on the sea, his ship skidded to the shores of Phoenicia, and only a long time later the fugitives finally arrived in Troy. There is another option: Zeus (or Hera) replaced Helen with a ghost, which Paris took away. Elena herself during the Trojan War was in Egypt under the protection of the wise old man Proteus. But this is a late version of the myth, the Homeric epic does not know it.
The Trojan War, according to the ancient Greeks, was one of the most significant events in their history. Ancient historians believed that it occurred approximately at the turn of the 13th-12th centuries. BC, and began with it a new - "Trojan" era: the ascent of the tribes inhabiting Balkan Greece to a higher level of culture associated with life in cities. Numerous Greek myths were told about the campaign of the Greek Achaeans against the city of Troy, located in the northwestern part of the peninsula of Asia Minor - Troad, later combined into a cycle of legends - kyklich poems. The most authoritative for the Hellenes was the epic poem "Iliad", attributed to the great Greek poet Homer, who lived in the VIII century. BC. It tells about one of the episodes of the final, tenth year of the siege of Troy-Ilion - this is the name of this Asia Minor city in the poem.
