Troy (Ἴλιος) — the fallen city of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Troy — Windy Ilios, the holy citadel — the city that was the war, and did not return.

In its glory

Windy Ilios, holy citadel above the Skamandros — the great city of the eastern shore.

For all the long years of Priam’s reign, Troy was the richest burg of the Troad: gate-towers said to be raised by Poseidon and Apollo, a plain of horse-taming men, and allies summoned from Lycia to Thrace. Within the walls Priam fathered fifty sons, and Hektor of the glancing helm stood as the city’s shield — the wealth of Asia gathered behind the Skaian gates.

As it lies now

The city that was the war, and did not return — ash and open sky above the plain.

In the tenth year of the returns the citadel is a ruin. The wooden horse gave the sleeping city to fire; Priam was cut down at the altar of Zeus in his own courtyard, Hektor was long dead, and Hekabe and Andromache were led away as slaves. The wind now blows over the tomb of Ilios, and the victors carry its plunder — and its curse — home across the sea.

The wooden horse

The walls the gods built never fell to the spear. So how was Troy taken?

By a gift and a lie. The Argives built a great horse of timber, hid their bravest chiefs within its belly, and burned their camp as though sailing home at last. The Trojans dragged the offering inside their own walls — and in the dead of night the hidden men poured out, threw wide the gates, and gave the sleeping city to fire and sword. Years later in Phaiakia the bard Demodokos would sing of it, and Odysseus, who had devised the whole deceit, wept to hear his own war told back to him. (Od. 8.499-520)

The Trojan capital of Priam, seat of the war itself: Hektor led the greatest host of all and defended Ilios ten years, slaying Patroklos before Achilles killed him. In the tenth year of the returns the city is sacked and burned, Priam slain at the altar of Zeus.

Windy Ilios, the holy citadel above the plain of the Skamandros, was the seat of Priam son of Laomedon and the prize over which all Hellas came in arms. Behind the great walls that Poseidon and Apollo were said to have raised, and before the Skaian gates, the city stood ten years' siege — for the doom had long been fixed upon it, since the day when Paris Alexandros carried Helen of Argos out of the house of Menelaos and would not give her back.\n\nThis is the realm the whole war was mustered against. In the ranks the leaders divided their companies at the mound men call Batieia, and there \"amid the Trojans great Hector of the glancing helm was leader, the son of Priam; with him the greatest hosts by far and the goodliest were arrayed, eager warriors of the spear.\" Hektor was the shield of the city and the one man Troy could not spare. He drove the Achaians back upon their ships and fired the hull of Protesilaos; above all he cut down Patroklos, the dear companion of Achilles, stripping from him the god-wrought armour — and in so doing sealed his own death. For Achilles of the Myrmidons (MYR) came back to the war for that killing alone, ran Hektor down three times about the walls, and slew him at the last by the Skaian gates, then lashed the body behind his chariot and dragged it in the dust. Only when Priam went by night as a suppliant into the enemy camp was Hektor ransomed and given to the fire — and with his burning the Iliad closes, though the city yet stood.\n\nHektor himself foreknew the end. To Andromache upon the wall he said the thing that frames this whole realm: he knew in his heart that holy Ilios would be laid low, and Priam with it. There is no nostos here — no homecoming to tell, for Troy was itself the destination that perished. When the wooden horse, filled with the bravest of the Argives, was drawn within the walls, the Achaians poured forth in the night and sacked the burg; Demodokos would sing of it years later in Phaiakia. In that slaughter aged Priam fled to the altar of Zeus Herkeios in his own courtyard, and there Neoptolemos, son of Achilles, cut him down — the king dead at the god's hearth (Apollod. Epit. 5.21). Deiphobos, who had taken Helen after Paris fell, was hunted through his house by Odysseus and Menelaos; Hekabe and Andromache were led away as slaves, and Hektor's infant son Astyanax was hurled from the towers.\n\nAt the dramatic present, year ten of the returns, the citadel is ash and open sky. Its greatest son escaped the fire alone: Aineias of the Dardanians (DAR), Priam's kinsman, who fought brigaded beside Hektor through the whole war and was spared for his piety, bearing old Anchises out of the burning. The neighbouring Troad allies who bled for the city — Pandaros' men of Zeleia (ZEL) beneath the foot of Ida, and the far-summoned Lycians (LYC) of Sarpedon and Glaukos — have gone home broken or not at all. Against them all stood the besiegers under Agamemnon of Mycenae (MYC), overlord of the host; and it was mighty Aias of Salamis (SAL) who once held Hektor even in single combat at the wall. Now the wind blows over the tomb of Ilios, and the returning victors carry its plunder — and its curse — across the sea to their own uncertain homecomings.