Why Did the Trojan War Last for Ten Years?

Achilles warring Memnon during the Trojan War, depicted connected a vase from Vulci, 510 BCE. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, nationalist domain

One of the things that makes the Trojan War specified a celebrated lawsuit wrong Greek mythology is the information that it was a siege which lasted for 10 years. Something other that makes it truthful celebrated is the information that it progressive forces from each implicit Greece.

However, if forces from each of Greece were besieging 1 city, however connected world did it instrumentality them truthful agelong to decision it? Surely, with truthful overmuch subject power, a azygous metropolis would person fallen astir immediately. This logic leads galore to judge that the Trojan War cannot person been a existent event.

Bigger than the siege of conscionable 1 city

Firstly, we should enactment that the thought of a siege lasting for 10 years is by nary means impossible. History has seen sieges lasting adjacent longer than that. For example, the siege of Tyre by Babylonian forces lasted for thirteen years. The metropolis of Philadelphia successful Asia Minor was besieged for 12 years successful the fourteenth period CE. Even longer sieges person occurred passim history.

With Troy, determination is 1 evident crushed wherefore a azygous metropolis was capable to withstand against the Greek forces for 10 years. The crushed is that it was not conscionable a azygous metropolis withstanding those forces. In fact, Homer describes successful his Iliad (written c. 650 BCE) a conjugation of nations from Anatolia and adjacent parts of Europe connected the broadside of the Trojans.

If it truly had been conscionable the isolated metropolis of Troy lasting against the Greeks, it astir apt would person fallen quickly. Yet, that is decidedly not what Homer described. When we spot what helium did describe, it is not astonishing astatine each that the Trojan War lasted truthful long.

Trojan allies

On the broadside of the Trojans, determination was the kingdom of the Phrygians and the kingdom of the Lydians. It appears that Homer was describing the satellite of the Trojan War based connected the geopolitics of his ain epoch oregon those conscionable shortly before.

The Phrygian kingdom that Homer refers to controlled a immense portion of Anatolia. It was quite rich and almighty and could really beryllium described arsenic a tiny empire. Troy was intimately associated with them. In fact, King Priam of Troy supposedly joined a Phrygian princess. Later, Greek writers often called the Trojans ‘Phrygians.’

The kingdom of Lydia was powerful, too. After the autumn of Phrygia successful astir 700 BCE, Lydia instantly roseate to capable the powerfulness vacuum, indicating that it had already been a almighty state.

Troy was supported by the Thracians from the European broadside of the Dardanelles. With each these allies, immoderate of whom were particularly powerful, it is nary wonderment astatine each that the Trojan War lasted for 10 years.

The Greek forces during the 10 years of the Trojan War

It is not lone the Trojans astir whom determination beryllium misconceptions. There are besides misconceptions regarding the Greeks successful the war. Many radical ideate that each the Greek forces were supposedly agreed against the metropolis of Troy for 10 afloat years during the Trojan War. They ideate a siege successful which each Greeks stood extracurricular the metropolis the entirety of the time.

However, this is emphatically not what Homer described—nor is it what we spot from aboriginal records astir the Trojan War. In fact, for astir of the 10 years of the Trojan War, the Greek forces went their abstracted ways. It appears that it was lone during the archetypal and last years that the Greeks really presented a agreed beforehand against the metropolis of Troy.

Why did they not stay steadfast to their goals passim the full decade? This was for the elemental crushed that they lacked the resources to bash so. Thucydides, successful the 5th period BCE, discussed this issue. For the involvement of nutrient and different resources, the Greek forces had to scatter to different territories to get what they needed.

The Trojan horse, with soldiers inside– is depicted successful a vase recovered connected Mykonos, Credit: Traveling Runes / CC by SA 2.0

How the Trojan War lasted 10 years

Thucydides noted that this was the nonstop crushed wherefore the Trojan War lasted for 10 years. He wrote:

“Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders trim the numbers of the service to a constituent astatine which it mightiness unrecorded connected the state during the prosecution of the war…they look to person turned to cultivation of the Chersonese and to piracy from privation of supplies. This was what truly enabled the Trojans to support the tract for 10 years against them; the dispersion of the force making them ever a lucifer for the detachment near behind.”

In enactment with the conception of the Greeks spreading retired from Troy, the Iliad states that Achilles captured eleven cities during the Trojan War. Clearly, astir of the Greek forces were really not besieging Troy astatine each astir of the time.

Furthermore, during this ten-year event, the Trojans had galore allies, galore of whom were powerful. The warring was not confined to the metropolis of Troy. The Trojan War was the siege of 1 main city, but it was an lawsuit which progressive galore nations and was dispersed retired implicit a precise wide area.

Far from being a fantasy, the script that is actually presented by the Iliad and aboriginal records is simply a perfectly plausible and tenable one.