The Trojan War

The Trojan War takes place between Troy and

Greece.

It all starts because of a beautiful woman named

Helen.

In Greece, all the men are fighting over Helen.

This is very similar to the way Brad Pitt and

Leonardo DiCaprio fight over Ms. Rubin.

Finally, after all the fighting, the men decide

that Helen should be able to pick the man she

wants to marry. Everyone makes a deal to defend and honor the

man that she selects.

Helen decides to marry Menelaus.

Meanwhile in another town, there is a huge

party for all of the Gods and Goddesses.

The God of Discord throws a giant golden apple into the party.

This apple says, “To the fairest of them all.”

Immediately all of the Goddesses think the

apple is specifically for them; they all start

fighting.

Finally, three Goddesses ask Paris to settle the dispute. The Goddesses are Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera.

Each goddess tells Paris if he selects them, they will give him a special

reward.

Athena is the Goddess of wisdom; she tells

Paris that she will make him the smartest

individual in all the land if he selects her.

Hera is very strong; she tells Paris that she will

make him the most powerful person in all the land if he selects

her.

Finally there is Aphrodite; she tells

Paris that if he selects her, she will make sure he can marry the most beautiful woman in all

the land.

What did Paris pick? That’s right. He wants

to marry the most beautiful woman in all

the land.

So off Paris went and took Helen away from

Menelaus.

Now Menelaus is not okay with this. He goes to all of his friends and says, “You all promised to defend me. You said if anyone got in the way

of Helen’s decision you’d stand by my

side.”

All the men nod and agree. So off they go to get Helen back. This is what started the Trojan War, a fight over a girl.

Agamemnon, Menelaus’ brother, led the troops to Troy. However, on

the way over, he upset a God very much.

It’s important to acknowledge that in

Ancient Greece, there are multiple Gods and Goddess who run the

world. If you upset them, it’s like upsetting

Ms. Rubin.

It’s very bad.

Agamemnon upset this God so much, he

decided to stop the wind so the ship full of

men couldn’t go anywhere.

All the men were annoyed at

Agamemnon so he asked the God what he could do to make it up

to him. He told Agamemnon it was very

simple.

All he had to do was sacrifice his daughter,

Iphigenia.

As you can imagine, Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra is not happy about this.

However, she’ll get her revenge later.

Now Agamemnon knew that Iphigenia would not agree to meet him if he was going to kill her, so

he made up a lie.

Achilles is the strongest and most beautiful man

in all of Greece. Agamemnon decided to

tell Iphigenia that Achilles wanted to

marry her.

Iphigenia was so excited and rushed to go meet her father. When she got there,

Agamemnon felt a little bad about lying. He

decided to tell her the truth.

“Um Iphigenia, I was asked to sacrifice you to the Gods. I tricked you.

My bad.”

Iphigenia was upset that she wasn’t going to marry Achilles, but she

understood that sometimes you need to do what the Gods say.

To Agamemnon’s surprise, Iphigenia said that he could sacrifice

her.

Agamemnon was scared but he lifted up

the knife to kill his daughter. As soon as he did that, she randomly

turned into a deer.

The God was just testing Agamemnon to see if he would obey

them.

Now the men were able to set sail and continue on their journey to Troy.

During the journey, Achilles gets in a huge fight with Agamemnon.

This is due to a silly fight over another girl.

Achilles tells all the men that he refuses to fight. This reaction manages to scare all of the men because Achilles is the

strongest guy they have.

Here is a little background on Achilles.

When Achilles was a baby, he was dipped in a special potion. This

potion has the power to protect Achilles from

any harm.

However, the only part of Achilles that was not

dipped in the potion was his heel. That’s

where he was held to be dipped, so it never

got covered.

You might have heard the phrase Achilles Heel. That means

someone’s weakness.

Ms. Rubin’s Achilles Heel is chocolate.

Yours is not doing your homework

Oh snap!

Anyway, back to the story. Now you can

imagine how awful that would be if your

strongest team member refused to help in

battle.

All the men were very discouraged, so

Achilles’ best friend, Patroclus decided to give them men some

confidence.

He put on all of Achilles’ clothing and pretended to be him. Now all the men thought Achilles

was going to fight.

It’s important to know that Troy’s strongest

team member is a man named Hector.

Now Hector sees Patroclus dressed up like Achilles and kills

him. He assumes he’s killing Achilles himself.

Achilles gets word of this and his blood

begins to boil. Not only is his best friend dead, but his anger makes him eager to fight

Achilles immediately kills Hector. He does this because he is so

upset that he killed his best friend.

Achilles also decides to tie up Hector’s dead

body on a chariot and drive it all around Troy.

He does this out of rage and spite. He wants everyone in Troy to know that their best

player is now dead and to bring it on!

So the fight between the men of Troy and the

men of Greece continue.

Now the men of Greece are still angry and

wonder how they can trick the men of Troy.

Odysseus comes up with an idea to create a giant wooden horse that

some of the men can hide in.

They then place this horse in front of the walls of Troy. They

pretend to leave it as a gift of apology.

Before the men of Troy see the gift, a

gentleman gets scared and warns the men that

it might be a trap. Suddenly, serpents

come out of the sea and devour him.

The Trojans view this as a sign that the man was lying, so they decide to

bring in the giant wooden horse.

As the Trojans fall asleep, the Greek men come out of the horse, open the gates to the city, and let the rest of

their army in.

The Greek men win the war, destroy the city of Troy, and are ready to

come home.

The Odyssey, is the story of Odysseus and his men trying to get back home to Greece

after the war.

Unfortunately, Odysseus has trouble returning home due to

various obstacles. These obstacles include: temptation, sea

monsters, upsetting the Gods, and trouble with

his crew.

Odysseus is away for twenty years trying to

return to his wife, Penelope and his son, Telemachus. Ten of these years with the

war, and ten lost at sea.