Trojan War

So ingrained in our nature is our hostility to them that even in the matter of our stories we linger most fondly over those which tell of the Trojan and the Persian wars, because through them we learn of our enemies’ misfortunes;

Moreover, I think that even the poetry of Homer has won a greater renown because he has nobly glorified the men who fought against the barbarians, and that on this account our ancestors determined to give his art a place of honor in our musical contests and in the education of our youth, in order that we, hearing his verses over and over again, may learn by heart the enmity which stands from of ol …

For if those who made war against an Alexander and took a single city were accounted worthy of such praise, what encomiums should we expect these men to win who have conquered the whole of Asia?

I ought to have a little wrong-doing from you to requite that evil, for my father Agamemnon also did wrong in gathering the Hellenes and going to Ilium, not that he had sinned himself, but he was trying to find a cure for the sin and wrong-doing of your wife.

O my home, some joy I feel to see you again on my return from Troy, but I also grieve at the sight;

For referring the sin as I do to Phoebus, I incur no pollution by addressing you; and yet I am truly sorry for the death of my sister Clytemnestra, whom I never saw after I was driven by heaven-sent frenzy to sail as I did to Ilium;

But the Greeks, thinking that the Trojans were mocking them, laid siege to the city, until they took it;

But since they did not have Helen there to give back, and since the Greeks would not believe them although they spoke the truth—I am convinced and declare—the divine powers provided that the Trojans, perishing in utter destruction, should make this clear to all mankind:

Even if it were conceded that they were so inclined in the first days, yet when not only many of the Trojans were slain in fighting against the Greeks, but Priam himself lost to death two or three or even more of his sons in every battle (if the poets are to be believed), in this turn of events, had Helen been Priam 's own wife, I cannot but think that he would have restored her to the Greeks, if …

Now our ancestors will be seen to have preserved without ceasing the spirit of concord towards the Hellenes and of hatred towards the barbarians which they inherited from the Trojan War and to have remained steadfast in this policy.

For it happened that we offended against islets so small and insignificant that many of the Hellenes do not even know of their existence, whereas the Lacedaemonians laid waste the greatest cities of the Peloponnesus—states which in every way were eminent above the others— and now hold for themselves the wealth of those states which, even supposing that in former times they possessed no merit, dese …

And no one will be found, among those who rose to fame in his time or in later generations, to have accomplished an expedition more honorable than this or more advantageous to the Hellenes.

Whenever a heaven-sent desire for temperate and just institutions arises in those who hold high positions,—whether as monarchs, or because of conspicuous eminence of wealth or birth, or, haply, as displaying the character of Nestor, of whom it is said that, while he surpassed all men in the force of his eloquence, still more did he surpass them in temperance.

For he makes Odysseus abuse Agamemnon for ordering the Achaeans to haul down their ships to the sea, when they were being pressed in fight by the Trojans;

And these cities also made attacks on Ilium, probably by sea too, as well as by land, since by this time all made use of the sea fearlessly.

Hence, beyond dispute, older than the age of the prophets just mentioned, together with the so-called seven sages, would be the first Olympiad, which is also shown to be later than the Trojan matters by four hundred and seven years.

From Inachus to the time of the Trojan War twenty generations, or one more, are reckoned, and, so to speak, four hundred years and beyond.

From the Trojan matters to the birth of Homer is, according to Philochorus, a hundred and eighty years, after the Ionian colony.

For I say that with good reason those men might be judged so far superior to those who campaigned against Troy, that the latter, the foremost princes out of the whole of Greece, with difficulty captured a single stronghold of Asia after besieging it for ten years, whereas those men single-handed not only repulsed a host assembled from an entire continent, which had already subdued all other lands, …

The Acamantidae did not fail to recall the epics in which Homer says that Acamas sailed for Troy for the sake of his mother Aethra.

And ten years he sat warring at Troy, there again flattering the leaders of the army, both he and his brother;

for I should have seen Troy burned to but sorry purpose, unless I had avenged on thee the slaughter of my comrades.

We are Ithacans by birth, and have been driven from our course by the winds of the sea on our way from Ilium, after sacking its citadel.

From Ilium and the toils of Troy.

For I will not disgrace my Trojan fame, nor, on my return to Hellas, will I receive great blame—I who robbed Thetis of Achilleus, and saw the slaughter of Aias, son of Telamon, and the son of Neleus made childless;

Let me call on you, beneath leafy haunts, sitting in your place of song, you, the most sweetly singing bird, tearful nightingale, oh, come, trilling through your tawny throat, to aid me in my lament, as I sing the piteous woes of Helen and the tearful fate of Trojan women under the Achaeans’ spears;

by it they won as their lot bed-chambers of Priam’s earth, when they could have set right by discussion the strife over you, O Helen.

For there lord Agamemnon mustered his expedition of a thousand ships of Hellas, wanting to take the crown of Troy in glorious victory and avenge the outrage to Helen’s marriage, doing this favor for Menelaus.

Perhaps you know Troy, whose fame is everywhere.

Orestes:

"Son of Atreus," it said, "we used to say that Zeus had loved you better from first to last than any other hero, for you were leader over many and brave men, when we were all fighting together in the dêmos of the Trojans;

Are we not convinced that we should see, greeting Leosthenes with wonder, those of the so-called demi-gods who sailed against Troy:

So great a passion for the hardships of that expedition and for participation in it took possession not only of the Greeks and the barbarians, but also of the gods, that they did not dissuade even their own children from joining in the struggles around Troy;

on the contrary, the Trojans allowed their cities to be laid waste and their land to be ravaged, so as to avoid yielding Helen to the Greeks, and the Greeks chose rather, remaining in a foreign land to grow old there and never to see their own again, than, leaving her behind, to return to their fatherland.

for although there had been many causes of contention between them before, none of these disturbed their peace, whereas for her they waged so great a war, not only the greatest of all wars in the violence of its passions, but also in the duration of the struggle and in the extent of the preparations the greatest of all time.

Of Princess Helen, "is" the siege and sack

Of Trojan Town, look out, they force us not

Under the Phrygian Alexander's breast,

And again, in the fight long ago before the walls of Dardanus, Corinthians seemed to decide the issue of battles on either side:

that the gods clashed in battle among themselves for the Trojans and the Achaeans, like matched pairs of gladiators;

The first claim to authority for these instruments is asserted by their extreme antiquity.

But Menelaus at once pursues the lost one, at once demands back the snatched one, wrings her out by a ten years' war, not lurking, not deceiving, not given to caviling.

And being now more in this state of things, some time after they made the expedition against Troy.

but to think that that expedition was greater indeed than any that were before it, but inferior to those of the present day;

at any rate he has made no mention of the size of any others in the catalogue of the ships.