Troy is that fabled city that Homer talks about in the Iliad. As many of you know, Homer’s Iliad opens near the end of the Trojan War, after nine long years of struggle to capture Troy. Most of the Iliad takes place on the beaches that lie before the walls of Troy, so we have many descriptions of the city walls. Homer depicts Troy as well-founded, strong-built and well-walled. He describes its fine battlements, tall towers, high and steep walls.
However, only part of the city was surrounded by walls and that was the citadel, the highest part of the city, where the Temples and royal palace stood. Most everyone else lived outside the city walls, some of them in luxurious villas. But after nine years of war, one can assume that most of these houses would have been destroyed, its inhabitants fleeing either to the hills or inside the city walls.
The walls must have been unusually strong in order to withstand a ten-year siege. According to Homer, Troy fell through trickery (Odysseus’s ruse with the Trojan horse) rather than any defensive failing. In Greek mythology the walls were so impressive that they were said to have been built by Poseidon and Apollo.
I visited Troy recently when on a trip through Turkiye, and I must say that if you did not know you were looking at this fabled city you would not be impressed. Today, the site of Troy is miles from the sea, so you have to use your imagination to see the site as it was in Homer’s time, with waves crashing on a shore that was near enough to have provided a constant backdrop of sound to the inhabitants of the city.
Our guide explained that Troy came to be because people in the Bronze age simply built new houses over their old ones, approximately every 40 years, causing a tall hill to rise over this rather featureless landscape. By the time of Troy II (2550 to 2300 BCE) the city possessed a wall as well as a steep ramp that led up into the city. Over time, successive cities were destroyed by fire, and each new city was built upon (and around) the old, making this a very difficult site to excavate.
Most experts place the Trojan War in the late Bronze Age, during the time of Troy VI (roughly 1250 BCE), but no evidence has yet been found for this war. So it is entirely possible that the city described in Homer was older. Perhaps it was Troy II, the first city with a wall. Perhaps it was Troy III, or IV or or V. As these layers seem to have been destroyed almost completely, (they are referred to on archaeological maps as Troy III-VI) perhaps we will never know.
Lastly is the question of this great city’s name. In the English-speaking world, we call it Troy. But where does that name come from? Apparently, it derives from the Greek Troia, which in turn may have been Hittite in origin. (The Hittites were a dominant power in Turkiye during the Bronze Age.)
This brings us to our next question ~ Why did Homer title his epic The Iliad, rather than The Troiad? That is because Homer referred to the city by its other name Ilios, which is a Greek corruption of the Hittite name Wilusa. Nowadays, when you enter the archeological site, you will find a prominent sigh with both these names on it. But not the name Troy or Troia.
