Real reason for Trojan War???

Question

What is the real reason for the Trojan war???

Answer 1

the mythological reason for the Trojan war starts with a golden apple being thrown onto a wedding table by Eris the goddess of discord.  The apple said 'to the fairest' and so of course the three main goddesses - Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed it and no other god, Zeus included, was going to get in the middle of that so they left it up to a shepherd boy.  The poor sap actually accepted the job and picked Aphrodite (who frankly, was the goddess of beauty amoung other things).  In return she had promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, who happened to be married to a Greek at the time.  He was Paris of Troy and she was Helen of Sparta and when he kidnapped her or she ran away with him, the Greeks didn't take it well and invaded the Trojan area in order to get her back.  For ten years.

realistically - woman kidnapping was a popular past time during that age and honor, and the reputation of a man's honor, was of ridiculous importance back then.  It might have actually been motivation enough for some of the men that followed Agamemnon and his brother, Helen's husband, Menelaus all the way across the Aegean Sea to attack Troy.  Much more likely a motivation however was the fact that Troy, which was in present day Turkey, was stationed next to the narrow strait of water called the Hellespont.  The Hellespont was one of the fastest and only way for trade goods from Asia to reach the Aegean and the Greek countries beyond.  Troy, being right at the head of the pass was not only the first port most of those ships both going up the Hellespont but also traveling down it stopped at but it was also in a position to levy tariffs on the trade goods that passed through there.  It might have even started out origonally as a pirate outpost and grown into a reputable city over the course of its extensive life.  At the time of Homer's Trojan war, the city of Troy and its surrounding countryside were very, very wealthy and the strongest city in that area.  The Greeks or Acheans as they were called then, were a warlike society who raided each other and across the Aegean from time to time.  It was only a matter of time before they got organized enough under one of their many leaders and started greedily eyeing the city of gold across the water.  Not only did it get a good chunck of their money in taxes on exotic goods, that also meant it was very rich.  A man was known by his reputation as a sacker of cities and how much gold and women he could carry off.  The Greeks decided to sack Troy.  Maybe Helen was the excuse they needed, maybe they came up with something else - but to Troy they went.  The rest is history.  Or legend at least.  Look up Hisarlik on the internet for the archelogical points - Michael Wood writes an excellent arguement in the book (and on DVD) In Search of the Trojan War for Troy VI being the level of Homer's Troy and I agree with him.

The irony of it all was that it was the last great recorded civilization and after Troy's destruction, the world of mainland Greece slipped into a dark ages that took them centuries to recover from.  They lost their ability to write, their indoor plumbing, their unity - all within a lifetime of the fall of Troy.  Troy fell but in doing so the Greek empire(s) of the Late Bronze Age fell as well.  The Age of Heroes would become a legend about the last light of noblity in a growing dark world.

Answer 2

Google Helen .  

Answer 3

Difficult to guess, especially as it is not known for certain if the place currently known as Troy is the place in the epics.

Answer 4

a golden apple and a vindictive goddess Eris.