Historicity of the Iliad

Trojan War
Achilles tending the wounded Patroclus (Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
Literary sources Iliad Epic Cycle Aeneid, Book 2 Iphigenia in Aulis Philoctetes Ajax The Trojan Women Posthomerica See also: Trojan War in literature and the arts
Episodes Judgement of Paris Seduction of Helen Trojan Horse Sack of Troy The Returns Wanderings of Odysseus Aeneas and the Founding of Rome
Greeks and allies Agamemnon Achilles Helen Menelaus Nestor Odysseus Ajax Diomedes Patroclus Thersites Achaeans Myrmidons See also: Achaean Leaders, Catalogue of Ships
Trojans and allies Priam Hecuba Hector Paris Cassandra Andromache Aeneas Memnon Troilus Penthesilea and the Amazons Sarpedon See also: Trojan Battle Order, Trojan Leaders
Participant gods Caused the war: Eris On the Greek side: Athena Hephaestus Hera Hermes Thetis Poseidon On the Trojan side: Aphrodite Apollo Ares Artemis Leto Scamander Zeus
Historicity Ahhiyawa Alaksandu Archaeology of Troy Attarsiya Hisarlik Homeric Question Late Bronze Age Troy Manapa-Tarhunta letter Milawata letter Tawagalawa letter Trojan language Wilusa See also: Historicity of the Iliad
Related topics Bronze Age Collapse Euhemerism Homeric Question Mycenae Mycenaean warfare
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The historicity of the Iliad has been a topic of scholarly debate for centuries. While researchers of the 18th century had largely rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question. The subsequent excavation of Troy VIIa and the discovery of the toponym "Wilusa" in cuneiform Hittite correspondence has made it plausible that the Trojan War cycle was at least remotely based on a historical conflict of the 12th century BC, even if the poems of Homer remembered the event only through the distortion of four centuries of oral tradition.