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The connection, in this case, between the guileful tactics of the Achaeans and the Trojans in the Iliad and those of the later Greeks is not a difficult one to find. Spartan commanders, often seen as the pinnacle of Greek military prowess, were known for their tactical trickery, and for them, this was a feat to be desired in a commander.
Ajax or Aias (Αίας), also known as Telamonian Ajax (he was the son of Telamon) and Greater Ajax, was the tallest and strongest warrior (after Achilles) to fight for the Achaeans. Ajax the Lesser, an Achaean commander, son of Oileus often fights alongside Great Ajax; the two together are sometimes called the "Ajaxes" (Αἴαντε, Aiante).
Map of Homeric Greece. In the debate since antiquity over the Catalogue of Ships, the core questions have concerned the extent of historical credibility of the account, whether it was composed by Homer himself, to what extent it reflects a pre-Homeric document or memorized tradition, surviving perhaps in part from Mycenaean times, or whether it is a result of post-Homeric development. [2]
Instead, the story is assembled from a variety of sources, some of which report contradictory versions of the events. The most important literary sources are the two epic poems traditionally credited to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, composed sometime between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. [5] Each poem narrates only a part of the war.
The contrasting belief that "Achaeans", as understood through Homer, is "a name without a country", an ethnos created in the Epic tradition, [10] has modern supporters among those who conclude that "Achaeans" were redefined in the 5th century BC, as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek.
The Achaeans entered the city using the Trojan Horse and slew the slumbering population. Priam and his surviving sons and grandsons were killed. Antenor, who had earlier offered hospitality to the Achaean embassy that asked the return of Helen of Troy and had advocated so [1] was spared, along with his family by Menelaus and Odysseus.
An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems contain many regular and repeated phrases; indeed, even entire verses are repeated. Thus according to the theory, the Iliad and Odyssey may have been products of oral-formulaic composition , composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized ...
Such a historical background would explain the geographical knowledge of Hisarlık and the surrounding area, which could alternatively have been obtained, in Homer's time, by visiting the site. [17] Some verses of the Iliad have been argued to predate Homer's time, and could conceivably date back to the Mycenaean era. Such verses only fit the ...