Yann Martel

What's interesting about the Trojan story too, and this I already knew, is that it is a mythical war.

There's no historical evidence for the Trojan War whatsoever.

Yes, there is a Troy, that little dump of a site south of Istanbul.

It's not even called Troy anymore.

It's called Hisarlik.

There's a little village next door.

And there's nine layers to it.

It is definitely Troy.

It did exist.

But we have no historical evidence whatsoever of an actual war.

There is evidence, very slight, very elusive, of tension between Troy...

and the Hittite Empire, the empire to the east of it.

And there is some evidence of tension with the proto-Greeks, the Mycenaeans to the west, but just tension.

The way any trading partners might have, just elusive.

There's nothing of a 10-year war and nothing at all of the characters of the Iliad.

The ones that we're still speaking about today, Helen, Achilles, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Nestor, Odysseus,

Andromache, Hecuba, these are all inventions, inventions, inventions.

It did not happen as it is discussed by the bards.

Nonetheless, clearly something happened, and the bards started singing.

But there's very few facts.