Author Description

All that mythology tells us of the history of Troy, from its founding until its final destruction in the famous war. Why the quarrel started, the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the nine years of fighting, the last days of Troy, the Trojan horse. A special chapter is devoted to the Iliad, the fifty days of war described by Homer which takes the anger of Achilles as its theme. This great epic poem is presented in an extended summary, with some of its finest passages given in full. For the poetry of Homer's language often rises to heights of incomparable beauty, as in the parting of Hector from Andromache, or the scene at the end of the 'Iliad' in which Priam asks Achilles for the body of his son.