Mark Gagnon

Like I could imagine someone being crazy is like, yeah, I think that, you know, I'm talking to, I am Jesus Christ, but also I'm not going to kill my kid.

Anyway, so then they go to war and his cunning eventually, you know, would end it.

And then there was Ajax, this massive immovable beast of a man carrying a shield said to be made of seven layers of oxide and a layer of bronze.

He was the Greek wall.

He was the man who basically held the line when everyone else broke.

And then, of course, Patroclus, Achilles' closest companion and the person that he loved the most in the world.

And remember that name because we'll come back to him in a second.

Now, on the Trojan side, alongside Hector, obviously you have Paras, more of a lover kind of thief type dude than a fighter and kind of starts this whole saga.

And then you have the aging king Priam, who had built Troy into one of the wealthiest cities in the ancient world and would then live to watch it burn down.

Now, let's move on to the siege.

According to the wider mythic tradition, especially later epics, the Greeks besieged Troy for 10 years.

A decade of fighting and raiding the surrounding countryside and skirmishes.

Troy's fortifications were legendary.

It had these massive stone walls that the myths claimed were built by the gods Poseidon and by Apollo themselves.

The Greeks couldn't break through.

They just couldn't.

And the Trojans...

couldn't drive them away.

So as a result, they were kind of just stalemated for 10 years.

The Iliad picks up the story in that 10th year, right at the very end, and it begins with this catastrophic argument.