39 pages • 1 hour read
Barry StraussThe Trojan War: A New History
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Operation Beachhead”
Homer writes that the first Greek to land was killed by a Trojan. Hector is described as an expert and enthusiastic fighter by Homer, while Priam is wise yet frail. The Greeks feast and provision at Lemnos before landing at Troy. Agamemnon initially underestimates the size of Troy’s coalition army. Though outnumbered, the Greeks are skillful fighters, and enjoy an accompanying psychological advantage as the aggressors.
Protesilaus is the first Greek to land, but is swiftly slain by Hector, who leads the Trojan forces. The Greek victory of this first battle is marked when the famous warrior Achilles kills Cycnus, a Trojan whom the Epic Cycle credits with superhuman powers. The Greek infantry press forward and the Trojans fall back. The Greeks loot the armor of the fallen, pray to the gods, and establish camp. They bury Protesilaus near Cape Helles, within view of Troy. King Priam is left to strategize.
Chapter 3 Analysis
From their lofty lookout, the Trojans had plenty of warning that the Greeks were coming. Though Homer claims that the Trojans put up a good fight, Thucydides surmised that the Greeks must have won a battle in order to have been able to have set up camp. Non-Homeric tales from the period recount the Greeks mistakenly landing at Mysia, seventy-five miles south of Troy. If correct, this error suggests that naval navigation was primitive at the time.
There were most probably two landing sites at Troy. The Greeks probably fought in a manner similar to Shardana troops depicted on Egyptian carved reliefs of the period. An Egyptian papyrus from the 1300s BCE, housed in the British Museum, shows boar tusk helmets, which Homer also mentions. The Trojans had the sun in their eyes, but the seaborne approach adopted by the Greeks is a notoriously difficult one; a good modern reference are the D-day landings of World War II.
The Trojan hero Cycnus is said to have been king of Colonae. Colonae was inhabited during the Bronze Age, some fifteen miles south of Troy, according to a Hittite text. Homer insists that there were no fortifications around the Greek camp, asserting that the presence of the Greek heroes was protection enough. Thucydides, who knew Spartan customs, disagrees, positing the erection of semi-permanent fortifications.
