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the Greeks have left us extraordinary testimony about war

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they were as bellicose as any people who ever lived

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they were also highly literate

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and some of their greatest writers wrote about war

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Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

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greatest poet of WWI

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Anti-war poem which ends with the words, "It is fine and honorable to die for your country"

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a quotation from the Roman poet Horace

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Owen calls this phrase, "The old lie"

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Homer isn't an anti-war poet, but like Owen, he emphasizes the horror of war and the terrible sacrifices that young men make

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war is both universal and particular

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the Vietnam War was not the same as the Iraq War or as the Korean War or as WWII

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universal

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suffering is pretty much of the same intensity

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horrors are committed

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there are heroes and cowards

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innocent people become victims

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particular

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the mode of fighting

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the arms

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the resources

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the treatment of prisoners

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the ideology of driving people to fight

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what is unique about the Trojan war

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fought between

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Mycenean Greeks

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Homer calls them Achaeans or Argives

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all the leaders of the states that participate are described as kings

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but a state at that time was primarily a "fortress surrounded by land"

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loose collection of states under Lordship of Agamemnon

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has his fortress in the Peloponnese

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the most powerful of the fortresses

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"Mycenae rich in gold" says Homer, and indeed much gold has been found there

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Trojans

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inhabit Troy

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also know to Homer as Ilium

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a war between a multi-state invading force and a single walled city which exercised some control around the surrounding region

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we don't actually know that it happened

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not as important as the fact that we have Homer as a witness

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if it took place then

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Bronze Age

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bronze used for all purposes from cooking pots to swords

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however Homer mentions that both iron and bronze are being used

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iron replaced bronze because it was much harder

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3000 BCE: bronze had been invented in Mesopotamia

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1250 BCE most probably when the Trojan War took place

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cause of war

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mythological reason

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theft of Helen, the wife of Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon by the Trojan prince Paris

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insult to Greek, to the people of Mycenae

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Paris had violated the law of hospitality

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he had been a guest at the palace of Menelaus

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Menelaus put pressure on his brother Agamemnon to organize an expedition to recover his wife

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the most beautiful woman in the world

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whose face launched a thousand ships

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we have tablets which indicate the Mycenaean raiding parties conducted raiding parties along the Turkish coast

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one of the women who was abducted was high born, like Helen

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we know that a small incident lead to a full-scale war

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e.g. the First World War began as a result of the assassination of the arch duke Francis Ferdinand, heir presumptive of the Austro-Hungarian throne

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shot by Gavrilo Princip

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structural reasons

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Troy lies where the Aegean and the Black Sea meet

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commercial and strategically important location

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perhaps due to Greece's insatiable appetite for

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imported corn from the Black Sea region

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tin and copper, the raw ingredients to make Bronze

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which Troy was blocked their access of

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perhaps Troy was imposing heavy tariff on Greek ships

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around Troy was a rich, agricultural plain

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Homer doesn't mention any reason of the war other than to recover Helen

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sources

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Iliad

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deals with the battle front

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Odyssey

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deals with absense and home coming