Troija

Homer’s stories as fiction

The ancient Greeks considered Homer’s stories to be true accounts of events that had really happened. It was believed that the war of Troy had taken place either in the 10th or 11th century B.C. and Troy was thought to have been in the vicinity of the Dardanelles in northwestern Turkey.

By the beginning of the modern era, the idea prevailed that the stories were fictional. Some researchers maintain even today that they were stories told by the people in the Bronze Age and in the Mycenaean culture.

Greek poets after Homer modified the stories and created different versions of them. The Roman poet Virgil handles the same themes in his Aeneid.

For some, Heinrich Schliemann’s excavation in the 1870’s changed the perception of the stories. He claimed to have found the city of Troy in Hissarlik in Turkey. Although Schliemann’s findings helped later archeologists to revealed a great deal about the different ancient cultures of the area, many remain skeptical about his findings actually proving that the site is the Troy of Homer’s stories.

In Greece, Troy and the stories about it are considered to be the founding of Greek culture and especially the first expression of unity in Greek history. In their opinion the war of Troy was the first time the Greeks actually fought together. This celebrated unity may have been rather tentative, since the area was still at that time divided into city states.

Even if the stories were considered fictional, their importance to the Greek collective identity is indisputable.

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