Did the Trojan War Really Happen?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Did the Trojan War Really Happen?"

Podcast: Dan Snow's History Hit
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Professor Eric H. Cline, George Washington University
Date: September 21, 2025
Duration (content only): 02:09–39:19

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Overview

In this episode, Dan Snow is joined by Professor Eric Cline, an expert on the ancient Mediterranean world, to investigate the historicity of the Trojan War. Together they discuss whether the legendary conflict depicted in Homer's Iliad is rooted in historical events, what archaeology and ancient texts reveal, and how the story fits into the broader context of the Late Bronze Age. The conversation explores myth, literature, archaeology, and the collapse of ancient civilizations.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Story of the Trojan War and Its Enduring Influence

(02:09–05:46)

• Dan Snow opens with a dramatic reading from the Iliad, emphasizing the timeless appeal and profound impact of the story.
• The Trojan War has shaped European literature for millennia and continues to fascinate modern audiences.

Quote:
"The motivations of those characters, their hopes and anxieties, are so relatable that they melt the more than two and a half thousand years that sit between that time and our own." — Dan Snow (03:09)

2. Sources for the Trojan War: Myth, Archaeology, and Hittite Records

(06:09–09:58)

• Eric Cline stresses that Homer is not the only source; archaeology and Hittite texts provide external evidence.
• The Iliad is not pure myth; there is a "kernel of truth" underlying the legend.
• Bronze Age Greece (Mycenaean period, c. 1250–1200 BCE) was a patchwork of small kingdoms engaging in trading, diplomacy, and sporadic violence with their Anatolian neighbors.

Quote:
"We've actually got two other sources. We've got archaeology and we've got the Hittite records... I don't think it's a complete myth. There's a kernel of truth." — Eric Cline (06:19)

3. The Bronze Age World: Trade, Diplomacy, and Potential for War

(09:05–10:47)

• The Late Bronze Age Mediterranean was a "globalized" world with extensive trade in metals and luxury goods.
• Frequent contact between Greeks and Anatolians meant both cooperative and hostile interactions were likely.
• While the Iliad dramatizes a ten-year siege, reality may have involved intermittent conflict and raids rather than prolonged warfare.

Quote:
"It's a globalized Mediterranean, if you will... So it's not at all surprising that we wind up with the stories such as Homer gives us because we know that there is truth behind it." — Eric Cline (09:05)

4. Warfare and Society in the Bronze Age

(10:47–13:51)

• Homeric depictions often reflect Iron Age (Homer’s own time) warfare, not Bronze Age practices.
• Chariots were used as combat vehicles in the Bronze Age, not merely as transport to the battlefront.
• Social structure likely included high-status warrior elites, but the "coalition" of Homer may be an exaggeration of what was possible at the time.

Quote:
"When Homer describes things, is it from his period or is it actually Bronze Age?... I actually think that what we're looking at here in the Trojan War is Bronze Age fighting." — Eric Cline (11:02)

5. Political and Religious Unity—Or Lack Thereof

(13:51–15:43)

• While there was linguistic and religious unity among Mycenaean Greeks, political unification is uncertain.
• Homer’s depiction of Agamemnon as "king of kings" hints at some kind of hegemony, but most scholars see a collection of independent, fractious rulers.
• Wars could be sparked by personal slights or the quest for booty, reflecting real ancient motivations.

Quote:
"Going to war over one person like Helen, certainly conceivable." — Eric Cline (15:08)

6. The Archaeology of Troy

(15:43–19:17; 22:42–26:45)

• The site of Hissarlik in northwestern Turkey is widely identified as ancient Troy, excavated notably by Heinrich Schliemann.
• The site consists of several layers, with Troy VI and VII (c. 1300–1200 BCE) most closely matching the time frame of the supposed war.
• Evidence includes destruction layers, arrowheads embedded in walls, and bodies—signs of both earthquake and violent conquest.

Quote:
"We've got arrowheads embedded in the walls, we have bodies in the streets... The big question... is not was there a Troy that was destroyed at the site, but which one is the one we should be looking at?" — Eric Cline (22:53, 24:11)

7. The Hittite Records: Multiple "Trojan Wars"

(27:33–32:11)

• The Hittite empire documented several conflicts over a city called Wilusa (probably Troy), naming rulers and direct involvement with Mycenaean Greeks.
• Four different "Trojan Wars" are described, any of which could have inspired Homer’s narrative.
• A ruler named Alexandu is mentioned around 1280 BCE—a striking parallel to Paris (Alexander) from the Iliad.

Quote:
"From the Hittite point of view, the question is not, was there a Trojan War? The question should rather be, which of the Trojan wars is the one Homer is talking about." — Eric Cline (28:08)

8. The Bronze Age Collapse and the Trojan War

(32:11–34:28)

• The destruction of Troy fits within a broader period of upheaval and collapse (c. 1250–1150 BCE), when the Mycenaean and Hittite civilizations fell.
• Causes ranged from invasions, drought, and famine to systemic disruptions—an ancient “perfect storm.”
• The Trojan War may have been both a symptom and a cause of this wider collapse.

Quote:
"The Trojan War fits into the general pattern of collapse there... For its day and age, yes, it was a pretty hefty accomplishment." — Eric Cline (32:20, 37:43)

9. Homer, the Epic Cycle, and Cultural Memory

(34:28–37:29)

• Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are part of a larger, largely lost epic tradition (the Epic Cycle).
• For the Greeks and later Romans, the Trojan War was a foundational myth, shaping cultural identity and historical consciousness for centuries.
• Homer was one among many epic poets; his works survived because of their popularity and resonance.

Quote:
"There's an entire group called the Epic Cycle, of which the Iliad and the Odyssey are just two... The vast majority of them are now long gone." — Eric Cline (34:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the mix of myth and reality:
  "It might not be quite the way Homer described it, but there was something. He didn’t just make up the entire war." — Eric Cline (29:43)

• On the motivations for war:
  "I'm not sure it was really because of Helen. I have a feeling Helen was an excuse for a war that was going to be fought anyway." — Eric Cline (38:18)

• On the scale of ancient warfare:
  "The battles back then, if you have a hundred chariots, that's a huge army... So it may have been a much smaller war than we generally think of, but for its day and age, yes, it was a pretty hefty accomplishment." — Eric Cline (37:43)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------| | Introduction, background of the Iliad and Trojan War | 02:09–06:09 | | Evidence for historicity: myth vs. reality, Bronze Age context | 06:09–09:58 | | Society, trade, and warfare in Mycenaean Greece and Anatolia | 09:58–15:43 | | The archaeological search for Troy | 15:43–19:17 | | Archaeology of Troy: destruction layers and chronology | 22:42–26:45 | | Hittite records: multiple wars & the Alexandu connection | 27:33–32:11 | | Bronze Age Collapse context | 32:11–34:28 | | Homer, the Epic Cycle and ancient Greek memory | 34:28–37:29 | | Reflection on the war's magnitude and lasting legacy | 37:29–39:19 |

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Conclusion

Dan Snow and Eric Cline deliver a nuanced discussion of one of history’s greatest legends, blending literary analysis with cutting-edge archaeology and textual decipherment. While the Iliad's version of the Trojan War is steeped in myth and embellishment, a historical conflict—perhaps several—did likely occur near the end of the Bronze Age, amid a swirling context of international trade, political intrigue, and civilizational collapse. The story’s survival and central place in the Western tradition speak to the timeless nature of its themes and the enduring human fascination with war, heroism, and the vagaries of fate.

Final Thought:
"Imagine that, just seizing on one small human instant to ignite a much, much wider conflict that engulfs nations. We've seen a fair bit of that in the last few generations as well." — Dan Snow (39:07)

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

Hello folks, Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London in England on 12th September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it. Get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there.

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[Dan Snow]

Welcome to Dan Snow's history Hit Sing Goddess Achilles, rage, black and murderous that cost the Greeks incalculable pain, pitched countless souls of heroes into Hades, dark and left their bodies to rot as feasts for dogs and birds, as Zeus will was done. Begin with the clash between Agamemnon, Greek warlord, and godlike Achilles. That, as you all know, is the opening of the Iliad. The opening, the beginning of the first great piece of European literature, one that has shaped every word that has followed the story contained in the Iliad, the epic account of the grinding siege of Troy when the Greeks, led by Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, sailed to Asia Minor to seize back the beautiful Helen, his sister in law, Queen of Sparta, who had been taken by or eloped with Prince Paris of Troy. It's a story that was told to me so early in childhood that I can't remember first hearing about it. A story that my kids have been raised on. It's been imprinted upon so many imaginations by thousands of retellings. We know of Agamemnon's feud with his greatest warrior, the godlike Achilles. We know of the death of Achilles, beautiful, dearest friend, Patroclus, at the hands of Prince Hector of Troy, breaker of horses. We know of the wisdom of Odysseus of Ithaca, the great strength of warriors like Ajax and Diomedes. We know about the intervention of the gods on either side. The Iliad is a tale of war and brutality and heroism and rage and jealousy. And the motivations of those characters, their hopes and anxieties, are so relatable that they melt the more than two and a half thousand years that sit between that time and our own. It is attributed to a man called Homer, and we believe at first it was probably recited aloud and then it was eventually written down. It was once thought as well that it was entirely fictitious. It was a fairy tale. But now scholars believe it can shed light on the Aegean world at the very end of the Bronze Age. In this podcast, I'm trying to find out what we know about the Trojan War. Did it happen? Who was it between, when did it happen, and what can we be sure of? To help me answer that question, I'm very excited to say that I have got Eric Klein back on the podcast. He came on before talking about the Bronze Age world and its collapse. He's a professor of ancient history and archaeology at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and he's written the book the Trojan War, a very short introduction. He's going to talk me through what the literature, the historical sources and the archaeology are all telling us at the moment. What is the state of modern scholarship about the Trojan War if, like me, you were raised with this story? Well, this one's for you. Enjoy.

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T minus 10.

[Dan Snow]

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.

[Eric Klein]

No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff.

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And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Eric, thanks so much for coming on.

[Eric Klein]

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Dan Snow]

Let's do the top level for Is this just complete myth? Is it just one story from one source, Homer, or do we have any other evidence? Do we have any evidence for it? Historicity?

[Eric Klein]

Yes, yes, fortunately we do. We've actually got two other sources. We've got archeology and we've got the Hittite records. So we have the other side of the story. So I don't think it's a complete myth. There's a kernel of truth that the basis, and we have to figure out what that is.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, well, that's very exciting. Let's first of all say what kind of date do you think it might be? And then when was Homer's account? Well, I know written down is tricky because it might have been recited for years, but when did it become sort of canonical, regularized, do you think?

[Eric Klein]

Yeah, good question. So Homer is pulling it all together, shall we say, in the 8th century B.C. so 750 to 700, somewhere in there, the Trojan War will have taken place probably 500 years earlier, 1250-1200 BC somewhere in there.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, and what do we know about Bronze age Greece? So 1200. What's going. Well, I say Greece, but, you know, Greece and surrounding area.

[Eric Klein]

Exactly. So we're back in the late Bronze Age at that point. We're in the Mycenaean period. We're in, oh, time of Agamemnon, time of Menelaus, time of the Trojan War. Basically, we've got separate kingdoms in each place on the Greek mainland. We have a kingdom at Mycenae, another one at Tiryns, another one at Pylos and so on. We've even got ones over on Crete, such as at Knossos. So it's a series of small kingdoms. Whether they're united into a bigger one, a bigger coalition, if you will, is a good question. And we don't know that one way or the other.

[Dan Snow]

And did these Bronze Age Greek statelets and kingdoms, would they project force into Asia Minor, what we'd now call Turkey? Was that a bit of a fault line, or were there Greeks living along that Turkish coastline into the Black Sea, we get familiar with later in the ancient world?

[Eric Klein]

So we've definitely got contact and trade, that's for sure, between mainland Greece and, shall we say, the coast of western Anatolia, what is today Turkey, definitely traded interconnections. We've also probably got some Mycenaeans, if you will, living on that western coast at sites like Miletus. Certainly we're going to have that later when you've got Ionia there. But back in the Bronze Age, yes, they were back and forth. They actually were trading partners at one point. If you read the Iliad and the Odyssey and all that, very carefully, you can see that they were friends before they became enemies.

[Dan Snow]

And this was a world of maritime trade, presumably the unique geography of that part of the world. The important metals available in Cyprus, I Mean, is this a world where trading ships are crossing to and fro elite people are doing gift giving, there's relationships between these kingdoms and stateless?

[Eric Klein]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, they are trading, they are interconnected. It's a globalized Mediterranean, if you will, which Susan Sherrod at Sheffield has called it. And yes, they're trading for all the raw gold, silver, copper, tin, everything you might imagine, Also supplies like grain, wine, olive oil, all the usual. And we know that the Mycenaeans on mainland Greece and the Minoans on Crete are in contact with the great powers of that day, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Hittites and so on. So it's not at all surprising that we wind up with the stories such as Homer gives us because we know that there is truth behind it. There are contacts, diplomatic, commercial, even marital between the people in the Aegean and those in the eastern Mediterranean.

[Dan Snow]

And human beings being what they are, would it have been unusual for people to fall out for there to be, if not 10 year total war, but raids, attacks, piracy as well as this great global trading system? Is there the potential for violence?

[Eric Klein]

Oh, absolutely, there's always the potential for violence in human history, as you know. But yes, we actually have documented instances where they have fallen out after being trading partners. And this is not just with the Trojans, but it's also Hittites, Egyptians and all of that. Things come and go as they do today. So this is not unexpected. Now whether a war could last 10 years, that's a whole other kettle of fish. But on again, off again, war over a number of centuries, I that's probably what we're looking at, but we'll get to that.

[Dan Snow]

And what does war look like in this period? Is there an emphasis on individuals, be they traveling in chariots or not? Is Bronze Age war different from the sort of ancient warfare that people might be a bit more familiar with from a couple hundred years later?

[Eric Klein]

Yes and no. And that's actually part of the problem when we look at Homer, he's really describing warfare from his period, which is the Iron Age, which is where you would use a chariot as like a battle taxi. So you get in the chariot, it drives you up to the the city or the front lines, you get out and you fight. That's what happened in Homer's day. Back in the Bronze Age, though, they are actually fighting from the chariots. They are tanks, they are divisions. And we know, for example, at the Battle of Kadesh, where the Hittites are fighting the Egyptians, that they had a couple of hundred chariots involved in the fighting. And they're not just ubers of the day, they're actually the tanks of that day. So part of the problem is we have to figure out when Homer describes things, is it from his period or is it actually Bronze Age 500 years difference between the two. And I actually think that what we're looking at here in the Trojan War is Bronze Age fighting, that they are fighting from chariots and all of that. It would make sense from the other battles that we know from that time period.

[Dan Snow]

And is Homer right to put so much emphasis on these high status, seemingly pretty proud warrior elites, these kings, these princes, these big men who had a bit of a hair trigger when it came to fighting others who might well have taken part in single combat between the lines? Is that a sort of battle that you think might have occurred in this period as possible?

[Eric Klein]

Yes and no. I would say again, that's probably reflecting more Homer's period in the Iron Age that you had less of that back in the Bronze Age. But bear in mind that we do have all of these individual little kingdoms or city states in Greece. And so you would have had, if not Agamemnon, somebody like him at Mycenae and similarly at Tiryns and Pylos. And we know, in fact there was a grave recently found dating to the 15th century at Pylos, the so called Griffin warrior. So there are individuals like that. But whether we have something that Homer depicts that is accurately in the Bronze Age, it's kind of hard to say, let's put it that way. We don't have evidence really one way or the other.

[Dan Snow]

Because the impression I get from Homer. Talk about coalition building today. I mean, the impression I get from Homer is a bunch of independent minded, impossible to corral, hyper violent dudes. You can sort of try and get them all pointed in the right direction, singing from the same hing sheet. But it would have been pretty challenging.

[Eric Klein]

Yeah, good luck with that. It's kind of, what, what do they say? Herding cats? It would be kind of like that. Yes. And can you imagine trying to tell Achilles what to do? I, I mean, this is where it's timeless as these are things that appeal to us now as well as them back then.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. And they are drawn from a pretty wide area, a big expanse of that eastern Mediterranean world, that Greek world. They were united by language. Were they? What about religion? There's a lot of gods that we're familiar with appearing in Iliad and the Odyssey. Would religion have been uniform in this period of the Bronze Age.

[Eric Klein]

Yes, it looks like it. Dealing from the Linear B tablets that we've got. The tablets that we've got from the Mycenaeans. Yes. It does look like they're united by a common religion, common language, all of that, and some of those gods and goddesses survive the collapse. And so we've got Zeus and Hera and Poseidon and all of that. So, yes, they are united that way, but are they united politically? That's the $10,000 question. Do we have something like the Delian League that they had in later Greek history, where you've got a bunch of independent city states, but united in a common ca. Do we have that back in the Bronze Age? Good question. Homer does call Agamemnon king of kings, and that might be some sort of indication of what we've got back then. But you really do have a series of independent kingdoms and whether they could be united in a common goal, like trying to get Helen back. A very good question.

[Dan Snow]

The common goal of securing martial valor and perhaps booty. It might have been a unifying principle.

[Eric Klein]

Yeah, I think. I mean, it's almost always a unifying principle over time, but. And you can see it happening back then, and a lot of the details fit back then. I mean, fighting over a single person. Could you go to war? Absolutely. We have a detail that we know about the Hittites going to war because one of the princes that was being sent to Egypt to marry the Egyptian queen was assassinated en route, and as a result, the Hittites went to war because that one kid was killed. So going to war over one person like Helen, certainly conceivable.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. Tell me more about the specific archaeology of Troy itself and its so called sort of discovery by Heinrich Schliemann.

[Eric Klein]

Yes. So this is a fascinating story. It actually goes back to almost the beginning of archeology, because Schliemann's one of the earliest people that we know that is trying to do archeology, if we put it that way. So he's excavating at a site that is now today known as Hissarlik, which we think is ancient Troy. There's actually no real evidence that it was, but it's the best candidate up there. And Sleeman comes along in about 1870, digs there on and off. 1870, 1890. Bear in mind, at that time, most of the classical scholars did not think that the Trojan War had happened and therefore there was no Troy to be found. But Schliemann, who was an amateur, was convinced that it had taken place, and so he Gets together with a guy named Frank Calvert, who is the Consul General to Turkey at that point, and covert owned at least part of hisarlik. And so he and Sliman Calvert says to Sleeman Lech, you're looking for Troy. I own the site that I think is Troy. I don't have any money. You don't have a site, but you've got money. Let's put two and two together. And so they went in and Sleeman starts digging and very soon announces to the world that he has found Troy, but conveniently leaves any mention of Calvert out of the equation and takes all the glory for himself. So that's where we get the discovery of Troy by Schliemann and just before.

[Dan Snow]

We get to the remains themselves. Alexander the Great made a big play, didn't he, as he passed the site of Troy. I mean, did the ancient Greeks feel they knew where Troy was? What was Schliemann going on here?

[Eric Klein]

So Schliemann's going on a number of things, including the description of Troy that Homer gives. He has to have a city that's small enough for Hector and Achilles to be running around hot and cold springs, all of that stuff. But he's certainly not the first to explore. There were a number of explorers and there were probably three or four sites at the time that had been potentially identified, with Hissarlik being one of them. So he's basically moving in on known ground at that point, but he is using some of the descriptions at that time and is convinced. Now you ask about Alexander the Great, A very good point. He and Julius Caesar and a whole mess of people from the ancient world stopped by this area and they did think it was ancient Troy and indeed the later Greeks and Romans thought it was too. And they continued building at the site and basically called it New Troy, if you want to call it that in English. So they were convinced that this is where it was. But one of the problems that we've got is there's actually no writing that's been found at Troy. This one little seal that's been found about an inch across with some Luvian written on it, but no tablets, no nothing like that, no archives, nothing that actually identifies it as Troy. So some people have suggested that we're looking in the wrong place. And for example, one guy has said we should be looking in England, that that's where Troy is located. But to my mind, this Hyssarlik is the best candidate. There is no other good one. And it really does fit the chronology and the archaeology works as well. So I think this is it. Even if we don't have any really smoking gun.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history. Don't go anywhere. There's more to come.

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[Dan Snow]

Tell me more about how and why that chronology fits. Because there is a version of the city on that spot which has seen many different incarnations that was violently destroyed and burned, wasn't there?

[Eric Klein]

Yes, absolutely. In fact, what we've got now, what we know looking back from Today, there are nine separate cities, actually maybe 10, because another one's just been discovered, usually called Troy 1 through 9. Now we've got a Troy 0, which puts the founding of the city back to about 3,500 B.C. b.C. About 500 years earlier than we thought. And it goes then straight from the early Bronze Age right through the roman period. Troy9 is in the Roman period. And what we've got there, we're interested particularly in what we now call Troy 6 and Troy 7. Number six at the site. Number seven at the site. What you have to realize is this is a human made mound and there are cities built one on top of another, destroyed in many cases and then rebuilt after that. So Schliemann thought It was the second city from the bottom. We now know that that's 1,000 years too early. So Schliemann misidentified the site. Now, not Troy 2 that we're looking at, but Troy 6 and 7, and those are the ones you're referring to. Troy 6 is dramatically destroyed, but we think probably by an earthquake. And then Troy 7, which is split into two parts, 7A is what we're interested in, that is also destroyed and probably by humans. We've got arrowheads embedded in the walls, we have bodies in the streets. So the big question, at least for me and for most of the scholars, is not was there a Troy that was destroyed at the site, but which one is the one we should be looking at? There's a Troy, the very last phase, Troy 6H, and it's an earthquake and the Greeks take advantage of that, or is it the slightly later one that's definitely attacked by humans? Part of the problem is that they're in the same time period, which works. The first one, the earthquake is about 1300 BC. So that pretty much works. And the other one is 70, 80 years later, 1230-1200 BC. So either one could be the candidate for the city that Homer is describing.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. And the evidence that destruction is weapons found, bodies found. Are we able to work out whether the city was truly sacked? I mean, completely destroyed, and did they start rebuilding or was the damage less dramatic?

[Eric Klein]

Good question. Definitely that second attack, choice 7A, when it's destroyed by humans, the city is looted, it's burnt to the ground, and they have to rebuild the second half, what we call choice 7B is a completely new culture. Looks like they moved down. But the earthquake one, it looks like they might have just rebuilt. And so actually, and we get a little into the weeds here, but the Troy 6H and Troy 7A, it's actually the same city that's rebuilt. So we have called it the wrong thing. 7A should actually be 6I. It should be the next phase where they just rebuild. So I think it's an earthquake that hits the first, and it may be that that's what Schliemann's Trojan horse is, and that it's a metaphor. An earthquake equals the Trojan horse. But definitely, to answer your question, the one that's burnt to the ground and completely destroyed is the second one, round about 1200 BC, when we know that it's attacked by humans.

[Dan Snow]

And that coincides with your estimate of the events that Homer's describing as well in the literature.

[Eric Klein]

Yes, absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

I'm really struck by. So when Troy is rebuilt after that one, it's different people. It's not like Troj, who have taken refuge in the hills. They come back and rebuild their city. It's evidence of a sort of different culture, different peoples coming in.

[Eric Klein]

Yeah, basically. And here again, we get kind of a little muddled because there seem to be now new evidence that there are squatters living in the aftermath. Even so. But really, Troy 7B, as we're calling it, which is finally rebuilt in about 1150 or 1100, seems to be new people coming from the north there. So there really is a change. And that change actually fits into the larger picture of the collapse at that time, because we definitely have a difference between late Bronze Age and Iron Age. The Trojan War, I think, should be seen as part and parcel of the larger overall Bronze Age collapse. So having new people come in and resettle the city makes sense.

[Dan Snow]

You've been on the podcast before talking about that, but I might just quickly get you to enlarge on what you mean by that Bronze Age Collapse. But before we do, could you fill us in on those Hittite records you mentioned that further evidence for Troy and its demise.

[Eric Klein]

So the Hittites are in central Anatolia, what is today modern day Turkey, ruling from a city called Hattusa, which is to the east of modern day Ankara, the capital today. Discovered in about 1906. By 1916, their tablets had been deciphered, turned out to be a new language called Hittite. And they are ruling in central Anatolia at almost exactly the same time as the Mycenaeans are on mainland Greece. So they're both around from about 1700 to 1200 BC. The Hittites eventually take over most of Anatolia, most of modern day Turkey, including the western coast. So Troy actually seems to become a vassal at one point. And that's where it gets kind of interesting, because Troy, it turns out, is going to be in what we call the contested periphery. It's on the periphery of the Mycenaean world, but it's also on the periphery of the Hittite world. So in the Hittite records, once they were deciphered, it turns out that there is not a Trojan War. There isn't. There are four of them. They mentioned four different Trojan Wars. So from the Hittite point of view, the question is not, was there a Trojan War? The question should rather be which of the Trojan wars is the one Homer is talking about. We've got one as early as the 15th century, about 1420 BC we've got another one in about 1280. We've got another one in about 1250 BC. And then we've got a final one that is maybe about 1210 BC. So those last three all fit into Homer's time period. Any one of them could be the one Homer was talking about. It's actually the early one in the 15th century. That's even more interesting, though. It's something the Hittites called the Osawa Rebellion. And there was a Mycenaean style sword that was found at the capital city with an inscription from the Hittite king saying, captured during the rebellion of Osawa. And it's a Mycenaean sword. So it definitely looks like the Mycenaeans are engaged on the western coast of anatolia for like 300 years, both trading and fighting. So the Hittite records, as I said at the beginning, give us a whole other level of evidence. And. And I, as an ancient historian, usually want three different types of evidence before I'll believe that anything happened. And so here we have Homer, we have the Hittite records, and we have archaeology so I'm quite sure that something happened. It might not be quite the way Homer described it, but there was something he didn't just make up the entire war.

[Dan Snow]

And it's not evidence, but it's interesting. The Dardanelles, that little passage of water that connects the Mediterranean with the Black Sea, where Troy sits astride, that has been a fault line, a frontier battlefield throughout history, hasn't it? So it's not surprising that a settlement in that place is able to derive enormous wealth and opportunities from being there, but does attract the gaze of various people from Southeast Europe to Western Asia. It's a tough neighborhood.

[Eric Klein]

Yeah, it's not surprising at all, especially when you think that directly across the Hellespont, directly across the Dardanelles from Troy, is Gallipoli, where the famous battle was fought in World War I. To go back for just a second, also add into the Hittite records, there is one further point which is fascinating. One of the battles, one of the wars that the Hittites mentioned in about 1280 BC, they say that the name of the ruler of the city, which they didn't call Troy, they called it Wilusa, but the name of the ruler is a guy named Alexandu, which is very close to Homer's other name for Paris, Alexander. Right. Alternately, in the Iliad, he's called both Paris and Alexander. So to have Alexander of Ilios and Alexandu of Wilusa, one wonders if that's the same guy, and that's how it comes down to Homer. So, again, it's a little extrapolation, but it's really interesting from that respect.

[Dan Snow]

Fascinating stuff. Tell us how it might be a symptom of this wider phenomenon called the Bronze Age collapse. How do the timings work out, first of all, on that?

[Eric Klein]

So the larger late Bronze Age collapse takes place from overall about 1250 to 1150 BC. In my book, 1177 BC, I pointed to the second time that the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt, because these unknown groups that we call the Sea Peoples, who are usually blamed for the collapse, but in fact, it's a whole combination of things. There's drought, there's famine, there's disease, and, yes, there's war. So I think the Trojan War fits into the general pattern of collapse there. What we end up with just after 1200 BC, the Mycenaeans go down for the count. The Hittites go down for the count. Other peoples have trouble surviving, but some do. The Cypriots do okay. The Assyrians and Babylonians do okay. But basically, the culture that they had known the connection, the network of trade that we talked about that had been happily going on for 500 years suddenly collapses in just a couple of decades. And so I think, again, that that's where the Trojan War fits in. But that's where we also get a bit problematic, because if the Mycenaeans are collapsing back on mainland Greece, there's no way that they would have spent 10 years over a Troy fight there. Unless, of course, that's why everything collapsed back home, is because they picked the wrong time to be gone. But overall, it does fit. We've got collapse absolutely everywhere. And the Trojans are just one of the other groups that collapses at this time. So to me, that's another reason why the whole Trojan War makes sense, because it fits into the general calamity that's going on in about 1200 BC. And bear in mind, even the ancient Greeks didn't know when the Trojan War had taken place. There's something like 13 different suggestions by ancient Greek and Roman historians as to when it took place, but the one that most people accept is about 1184 B.C. which would make sense, that fits into the general pattern.

[Dan Snow]

Was Homer as popular and important as we now think him? Or is it like these plays by Sophocles, where there are loads of Homeric stories around at the time and bards wandering village to village telling heroic tales, but that happens to be the one that's been transmitted to the present day. Was Homer as big a text in ancient Greece as we might think it is?

[Eric Klein]

Yes. But bear in mind his epics are not the only ones. There's an entire group called the Epic Cycle, of which the Iliad and the Odyssey are just two of the many epic plays, if you will, epic stories from this time period. The vast majority of them are now long gone. We have them summarized in a couple of places. But a lot of the details that we get, such as about the Trojan Horse, are from these missing other epics. I hope that we'll find some of them some days, like the Kypria or one of the others. But Homer, albeit extremely popular and well known, was just one among many of the epics that were circulating that dealt with the Trojan War cycle.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so the Trojan War itself was the source of so much art and poetry, even in the hundreds of years that followed. Yes, it's reasonable to think the Greeks thought it was a huge deal.

[Eric Klein]

Yes, and not just the Greeks, but also the Romans, because then you've got at the story of Aeneas fleeing Troy and making his way over to Italy. And his descendants founding Rome. So the Romans thought it was a big deal as well.

[Dan Snow]

So it's not unlike a lot of the sources around the World War II, the Second World War disappear. But in 500 years time, there's a dominant artistic trend and current which is about singing the praises of poetry about the Second World War.

[Eric Klein]

Yes, absolutely. And you have that with World War I as well. And in fact, you had some of the soldier poets from World War I that were fighting in the area of Gallipoli actually comparing themselves to the Greeks and the Trojans.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. So it's reasonable to think that the Greeks themselves in Homer's time still regarded the Trojan War as an absolutely essential moment phenomenon in their story.

[Eric Klein]

Yeah. And that explains why, for example, Alexander went to go visit the site. And in fact, the story is that Alexander the Great slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow along with a dagger, because he was afraid he was going to be assassinated.

[Dan Snow]

But that's not just because the Iliad happens to be a particularly great bit of art. The point is, it's a piece of art that reflects the fascination generally that existed in this great war that had gone on just out of memory.

[Eric Klein]

Yes, absolutely. And of course, the themes in the Iliad are universal. I mean, that's why it still appeals today, you know, with translations like Emily Wilson's, just bring it back to life.

[Dan Snow]

So that sounds like it's probably, if it did happen, it isn't just one of many, many raids and little wars that went on through that period that affected the Greek world. It felt like a magnitude bigger. It feels like it was an important event for that period of late Bronze.

[Eric Klein]

Age history, I would say. Yes, but we may be influenced by Homer there. I mean, it may have been much smaller than one would think. Bear in mind that the battles back then, if you have a hundred chariots, that's a huge army. You know, if you've got a dozen men, that can be big. We've got letters from about 100, 150 years earlier where people in Canaan are asking for reinforcements from the Egyptians. And they're saying, can you send me up 10 men? Can you send me up a dozen troops? So it may have been a much smaller war than we generally think of, but for its day and age, yes, it was a pretty hefty accomplishment. And of course, the ripple effects and the ramifications were fairly large because as you mentioned earlier, Troy commands the entryway into the Black Sea. So if you're trying to get up there, you're going to have to stop in at Troy. It was a very wealthy city, but it was also politically important, commercially important. So control of Troy was more than just control of a normal city. Troy was one of the big prizes. So I'm not at all surprised they went to war over it. I'm not sure it was really because of Helen. I have a feeling Helen was an excuse for a war that was going to be fought anyway.

[Dan Snow]

Imagine that, just seizing on one small human instant to ignite a much, much wider conflict that engulfs nations. We've seen a fair bit of that in the last few generations as well.

[Eric Klein]

Yes, yes.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you very much for coming on the podcast and taking us through that extraordinary story.

[Eric Klein]

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History it we could not make this podcast without you. That's actually true. So. So make sure if you want to keep it going, that is to hit follow in your podcast player right now, you'll get new episodes dropped into your podcast library automatically. By the power of tech, you can listen anywhere you get your pods, Apple, Spotify, even BBC sounds. Imagine a world. Just imagine you never miss an episode of this podcast. I mean, it's there. The technology makes that possible. That could be your reality right now if you hit follow. See you next time Only Boost Mobile.

[Eric Klein]

Boost Mobile will give you a free year of service. Free year when you buy a new.

[Dan Snow]

5G phone new 5G phone?

[Eric Klein]

Enough. But I'm your hype man. When you purchase an eligible device, you get $25 off every month for 12 months with credits totaling one year of free service. Taxes extra for the device and service plan online only.

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