{
  "id": "trojan-war",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Trojan War",
  "summary": "The ten-year siege of Troy by the Greeks under Agamemnon to recover Helen, whom Paris took after the judgement on Ida; the Iliad tells only the wrath of Achilles in it, the Odyssey the Wooden Horse and the returns, Apollodorus's Epitome the whole from the apple of Strife to the sack. Herodotus, from Egyptian priests, denied Helen was ever in Troy.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "greek",
    "events",
    "troy",
    "homer",
    "helen"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "zeus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "hera"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "athena"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "aphrodite"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "apollo"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "achilles"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "odysseus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "iliad"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "odyssey"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "bibliotheca"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "aeneid"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "What caused the Trojan War?",
    "How long did the Trojan War last?",
    "Does the Iliad tell the whole Trojan War?",
    "How many ships sailed to Troy?",
    "How did the Greeks take Troy?",
    "Was Helen really in Troy?",
    "Does Hesiod mention the Trojan War?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Apollodorus gives the cause in full: Paris \"carried off Helen, as some say, because such was the will of Zeus, in order that his daughter might be famous for having embroiled Europe and Asia\", or to exalt the demigods; Strife threw the apple, Hermes led Hera, Athena and Aphrodite to Paris on Ida, each promised a gift, \"and he decided in favour of Aphrodite\"; while Menelaus was in Crete, Paris \"persuaded Helen to go off with him\" (Apollod. E. 3.1–3). Homer's elders on the wall judge her worth the war (Il. 3.156–160).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-epitome",
        "homer-iliad"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "Hesiod places it in the age of heroes: \"grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebes ... and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen's sake\" (WD 156–165).",
      "sources": [
        "hesiod-works-and-days"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The muster: Homer's catalogue begins with the invocation \"Tell me now, ye Muses ... who were the captains of the Danaans\", since \"the common folk I could not tell nor name, nay, not though ten tongues were mine\" (Il. 2.484–493). Apollodorus's list ends \"The total of ships was one thousand and thirteen; of leaders, forty-three\" (Apollod. E. 3.11–14), Achilles \"being fifteen years old\" as admiral (E. 3.16); Calchas read ten years from the serpent and the sparrows (E. 3.15), and counting the false start in Mysia \"it is said that the war lasted twenty years\" (E. 3.18).",
      "sources": [
        "homer-iliad",
        "apollodorus-epitome"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "The Iliad covers only \"the wrath ... of Peleus' son, Achilles\", through which \"the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment\" (Il. 1.1–7). Its Troy has not fallen: Hector foresees \"the day shall come when sacred Ilios shall be laid low\" (Il. 6.447–449), and the poem ends \"On this wise held they funeral for horse-taming Hector\" (Il. 24.800).",
      "sources": [
        "homer-iliad"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "The end is told by the Odyssey and the Epitome: Demodocus sings of \"the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena's help\", the Trojans' three counsels, and the Achaeans pouring out to sack the city (Od. 8.492–520); Apollodorus has Odysseus invent it, fifty men inside, the false dedication \"For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this thank-offering to Athena\", Sinon's beacon, Cassandra and Laocoon disbelieved, and Priam slain by Neoptolemus at the altar (Apollod. E. 5.14–21). Virgil tells it from inside the walls, the horse \"by Pallas' skill divine ... a thing of mountain size\" (Aen. 2.1).",
      "sources": [
        "homer-odyssey",
        "apollodorus-epitome",
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Herodotus heard from the priests of Memphis that Paris was driven to Egypt and that Proteus kept Helen and the treasure there, so that the Trojans \"did not have Helen\"; the Greeks \"thinking that the Trojans were mocking them, laid siege to the city, until they took it; but there was no Helen there\". He believes it, arguing Priam would never have kept her at such a price, and says Homer knew the story \"but seeing that it was not so well suited to epic poetry ... rejected it\" (Hdt. 2.112–120, esp. 2.116, 2.118–120). Apollodorus records the same as a variant with a phantom Helen (Apollod. E. 3.5).",
      "sources": [
        "herodotus-histories",
        "apollodorus-epitome"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "The division of the spoil: Menelaus took Helen back to the ships, Ajax violated Cassandra at Athena's image, the Greeks \"threw Astyanax from the battlements and slaughtered Polyxena on the grave of Achilles\", and Agamemnon got Cassandra, Neoptolemus Andromache and Odysseus Hecuba (Apollod. E. 5.22–23); Aeneas alone was let go \"on account of his piety\" (E. 5.21).",
      "sources": [
        "apollodorus-epitome"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "The Iliad is a few weeks of the tenth year and ends with Hector's funeral; the judgement of Paris, the Horse and the sack are in the Odyssey, the Epitome and Virgil.",
    "Apollodorus's arithmetic gives 1,013 ships, ten years by Calchas and twenty by the calendar.",
    "Herodotus's Egyptian Helen is a primary ancient dissent, argued on grounds of plausibility, and Apollodorus keeps it as a variant.",
    "Hesiod knows the war only as the death of the race of heroes."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "What caused the Trojan War?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "Does the Iliad tell the whole Trojan War?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "How many ships sailed to Troy?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "How did the Greeks take Troy?",
      "claim": "c5"
    },
    {
      "q": "Was Helen really in Troy?",
      "claim": "c6"
    },
    {
      "q": "Does Hesiod mention the Trojan War?",
      "claim": "c2"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Shows which text carries which part of the war, so an agent does not attribute the Horse to the Iliad, and gives Herodotus's counter-history its own claim with the chapters.",
  "confidence": 0.93,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "greek",
      "kind": "event",
      "domains": [
        "war",
        "the age of heroes"
      ]
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/trojan-war",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/trojan-war.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Trojan War",
    "description": "The ten-year siege of Troy by the Greeks under Agamemnon to recover Helen, whom Paris took after the judgement on Ida; the Iliad tells only the wrath of Achilles in it, the Odyssey the Wooden Horse and the returns, Apollodorus's Epitome the whole from the apple of Strife to the sack. Herodotus, from Egyptian priests, denied Helen was ever in Troy.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/trojan-war",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Hesiod, Works and Days — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0020/tlg002/tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Apollodorus, Epitome — tr. Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0548/tlg002/tlg0548.tlg002.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Homer, Iliad — tr. A. T. Murray (Loeb, 1924), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0012/tlg001/tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng3.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Homer, Odyssey — tr. A. T. Murray (Loeb, 1919), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0012/tlg002/tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng3.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Herodotus, Histories — tr. A. D. Godley (Loeb, 1920), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0016/tlg001/tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Virgil, Aeneid — tr. Theodore C. Williams (1910), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0690/phi003/phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng2.xml"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Trojan War"
  }
}