Troy: Myth and Reality

Abstract

• Published to accompany a major exhibition at the British Museum, this beautifully illustrated book searches for the reality behind both the legends and the site of the ancient city itself. It introduces the storytellers who set down the original narrative, and recounts the fateful course of events – from the Judgment of Paris to the trials of Odysseus on his journey home and the wanderings of Aeneas to find a new land to settle. The nineteenth-century search for the location of Troy and Heinrich Schliemann’s excavations are also explored, as is the possible Bronze Age background for the war. The legacy of Troy is enormous, and its heroes and episodes still resonate. The multiple ways in which the story has been reworked, both in literature and art, are here comprehensively surveyed. Focusing on the major characters –Odysseus and Aeneas, Achilles and Hector, and the beautiful and enigmatic Helen – the authors examine how artists from Cranach and Rubens to Romare Bearden and Cy Twombly have been inspired by Troy. Examples of Classical objects depicting Trojan subjects are included, as well as a wide range of manuscripts, sculptures, paintings and prints from antiquity to the present day. The richness of responses to the myth of Troy and the latitude for such different interpretations – for each generation, culture or individual to discover new and varied meanings – shows the vitality of this long tradition and creates its eternal appeal.