Introduction

In around the 9th century BC, Homer wrote the Iliad, a poem with over 10000 lines split into 22 Books. It is about a few weeks at the end of the 10 year long Trojan War, a war where the Greek Achaeans sieged the city of Troy in order to save and bring back to Greece their "abducted" queen Helen. In 2004, Wolfgang Petersen released his movie Troy, a movie based on the same war, using the Iliad as a primary source of information. There are many similarities between the two for that very reason, but there are also many differences. The purpose of this blog is to examine the differences in cultures between the Ancient Greeks and Western civilisation today, and I will do this by finding these similarities and differences and then explaining the reasons behind them.

First of all, lets have a summary of how the Trojan War began. In the Ancient World, there was a city on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea called Troy. The King there, whose name was Priam, had a son, but this son was prophesied to cause the downfall of Troy, so he left this son to be exposed (left on a mountainside to die). This son was rescued and given the name Paris by a huntsman. When Paris was growing up, there was a wedding between the sea nymph Thetis and the hero Peleus and all the gods were invited. Well all except Eris, the goddess of discord. She was bitter at not being allowed in, so she threw a golden apple into the wedding which rolled to the feet of Athene, Hera and Aphrodite. It was labelled "For the Fairest". The three goddesses couldn't agree who the apple was for, so Zeus put Paris in charge of a beauty contest. Each goddess offered a reward for choosing them, but Paris chose Aphrodite's offer of the love of the most beautiful woman in the land.
  Paris was reunited with his father, who welcomed him with open arms. Paris decided to take a trip to Sparta. The king there, Menelaus had prior engagements with someone in Crete, so he sailed off, apologising for not being able to host Paris. While Paris stayed in Sparta he fell in love with Menelaus' wife Helen, and then before Menelaus got back, Paris and Helen sailed off back to Troy together. Depending on which side of the story you believe, Helen was either abducted or went willingly. The Greeks say that she was abducted and the Trojans say that she came willingly. When Menelaus got back he discovered that his wife had gone and angrily went to his brother Agamemnon, who allied some Greek tribes and they sailed off to Troy with a 1000 ship fleet to get Helen back, beginning the Trojan War.

Over the next few weeks I will show my understanding of the relationship between Homeric Greece with its culture and New Zealand today with our culture, hopefully making some insightful comments along the way. I will explain the Iliad's influence on Troy and the reasons behind the similarities and differences, and then link this analysis to one on the different cultures. Specifically, I will do a character analysis on characters from both texts, followed by an analysis on plot, setting and then a third analysis on thematic material. Then I will explain the reasons for the similarities and differences between each text, referring back to the analyses made earlier and then finally show how this relates to the difference in cultures

Simple Overview of Upcoming Posts:

1. Introduction
2. Character Analysis: Paris
3. Character Analysis: Agamemnon
4. Character Analysis: Hector
5. Character Analysis: Achilles
6. Plot Analysis
7. Theme/Practice Analysis
8. Reasons for Character Differences
9. Reasons for Plot/Theme Differences
10. Culture Analysis
11. Conclusion
12. Bibliography

Thanks for reading :)