PART TWO OF THE TROY QUARTET Bringing ancient myth to life with passion, humour, and humanity, Lindsay Clarke vividly retells the story of Troy and of the heroes who fought there.

Quintus' epic, written probably in the thrid century AD, is the only extant literary work from antiquity which gives a connected account of the events of the Trojan War, which took place between the death of Hector and the departure of the Greeks.

Vigorous new life is breathed into the myth's of Homer's Iliad in Lindsay Clarke's new dramatic retelling of the wars fought for the Bronze Age City of Troy. Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector are skilfully rejuvenated in this startlingly contemporary drama of the passions.

This book contains translations of three plays:Ajax, Hecuba, and Trojan Women. They are all centered around the mythological theme of the Greek warrior, Odysseus, hero of the Trojan War. All three plays are complete, with notes and introductions, plus an introduction to the volume with background to the story which was one of the most popular themes and one of the most written about Greek hero in Greek literature. Written during a tumultuous age of sophists and demagogues, these three plays (c. 450-425 BCE) bear witness to the gradual degradation of Odysseus’ character. In presenting the unexpected devolution of a renowned mythic figure, the plays examine numerous themes relevant to contemporary American political life: the profound psychological consequences of brought on by the stress of war and why a once proud and noble warrior might commit suicide; and the dehumanizing darkness that descends upon innocent female war-victims when victors use act on false political necessity.

THE WAR AT TROY: A TRUE HISTORY. Tells the story of the entire saga based on ancient sources with a humorous tongue-in-cheek tone. Fascinating and a great source for what the ancients actually said about the course of this most famous war.

They say the most ancient war was waged for a phantom. The Trojan war was fought not for Helen of Troy, but her ghost-like double. Helen was never in Troy as the blood of Greeks and Trojans spilled out onto a battlefield now dust-laden and silver-grey. The phantom Helen strode blissfully aloof and carefree upon the balcony as she witnessed armies colliding under an ashen sky. Moments ago, she rose soundlessly from silken sheets. She walked at a leisurely pace through the voiceless corridors. Rivers of concern gathered invisibly outside the golden walls, but she remained at a precious distance from the war's fortified heart. A wordless rhythm flowed between her lips, which remained pursed with half-amusement. Paris joined her. He remained oblivious to how his real bride remained safely ensconced in an oasis somewhere in the middle of a forgotten sea of sand. Helen reveled in her new freedom. Her life previously flowed like wine in the dark. The real Helen was in Egypt, where she felt her double breathe from across a nameless calm. She felt a slight pause in the air. The phantom Helen smiled as Paris enfolded her in his embrace. She watched the gory spectacle unfold, and at the same time the real Helen moved in her tropical spaces. The double's elusive purpose sprung newly fathomed before her. The real Helen waited for Menelaus to arrive after the war's end. Paris recalled the series of events leading to the ten-year siege of Troy. He remembered how Helen's beauty reached him. He believed that her beauty was without parallel, for his eyes had never swallowed a beauty so deep in all of his royal years. The real Helen let her mind drift upon silence. She knew that the war taking place in Troy was for her. But she was not there. She imagined seeing her phantom in Troy. The phantom Helen inhabited her familiar spaces and breathed her familiar movements. But she was not her. Helen imagined her phantom observing the war from the lofty space of her bedroom. The ghostly pallor of the phantom's gaze now yielded to hints of starry blackness. The phantom Helen's brow contracted with the unease of unsteady outpourings, which made her feel like the real Helen for a few short moments. She knew that once the real Helen was found, she, her phantom, would simply fade. Helen sipped her wine as her eyes took in the sandy expanse. The phantom Helen raised her glass and sipped wine as well. For a moment, the two Helens converged, one seamlessly slipping into the half-watery shell of the other. The wine streamed through them, a secret lifeblood that united them across a cold universe of sound. The phantom smiled upon the emptied glass, and then the equally empty scene of death and decay. The wine failed to find solidity and became nothing but a blood-like pool below her. The sight of the wasted wine caused her to look upon the blood of the fallen Greeks. The phantom Helen held on to what was left of her precious solidity, for the war had not erased her yet. But it was not the war she feared; she feared only its end. She knew that the war would end, and that no one knew that this war was for a mere phantom. In Egypt, Helen rejoiced at her isolation. She put down the wine of glass and for a moment imagined that the war has already ended. I was never stolen, she tells herself. I was never taken to Troy. The Greeks and Trojans fought for something as insubstantial as their war's purpose. Then Menelaus appeared before Helen, and her phantom instantly dissolved. Now, she was nothing but a mere shadow weighing heavily on Helen's eyelids at night. A double no more.

Revered as the birthplace of democracy, Athens is much more than an open-air museum filled with crumbling monuments to ancient glory. Athens takes readers on a journey from the classical city-state to today's contemporary capital, revealing a world-famous metropolis that has been resurrected and redefined time and again.

"The Story of the Iliad Homer's epic poem, The Illiad, is one of the greatest adventure stories of all time. In it, the abduction of the legendary beauty, Helen of Troy, leads to a conflict in which even the gods and goddesses take sides and intervene. It is in the Trojan War that the most valiant heroes of the ancient world are pitted against one another. Here Hectore, Ajax, Achilles, and Odysseus meet their most formidable challenges and in some casas their tragic ends. Rosemary Sutcliff makes such extraordinary stories as those of those Trojan horse, of Aphrodite and the golden apple, and of the fearsome warrior women Amazons, accessible to contemporary young people.

When Paris, prince of Troy, ran off with Helen, wife of the king of Sparta, it launched the greatest war of the mythic age of Greece. Heroes and gods assembled on both sides, as the combined armies of Greece launched a siege that would last for ten years. During that time, famous heroes, such as Achilles, Ajax, and Hector, would find glory on the battlefield, before being cut down. Others, such as Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Aeneas, would survive the war, only to face even greater challenges afterwards. Thanks to the Iliad of Homer, and numerous other ancient sources, the story of the siege of Troy has survived over 3,000 years. In this new book in the Myths and Legends series, Professor Si Sheppard draws together all of these ancient writings to tell the complete story of the Trojan war, from the flight of the "face that launched a thousand ships†? to the great wooden horse that brought the city to bloody ruin.

The women behind the Trojan War tell their stories. Helen recounts her story of the burden of being a famous beauty and her elopement with Paris. Wives, mothers and sisters watch the plains below where the heroes of Homer's tale battle in the war caused by Helen's beauty. McLaren views the Iliad in a very different way, showing how the women left inside the city deal with the death and destruction caused by this most famous and devastating war. Young Adult.

Kenneth McLeish's stunning translations of three plays exploring the Trojan War, by one of the great Athenian dramatists. Each play shows the aftermath of war from a different standpoint. Women of Troy is set amongst a group of captives waiting to be shipped from Troy as slaves - Queen Hecuba is their comforter but in Hecuba she is driven to the edge of insanity by her own great personal loss. Helen takes place seven years after the end of the War. In Egypt - treated as a backwater, far from 'real' events - Helen waits anxiously for her husband Menelaus to rescue her. One of the greatest and most influential of the Greek tragedians, Euripides, is said to have produced 92 plays, the first of which appeared in 455BC.

When Paris, a Trojan prince, abducted Helen, the brilliant beautiful Queen of the Spartans, he had assumed that only her husband Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon would gather warriors together to seek her return. A hopeless task once she was within the impregnable walls of the ancient sanctuary of Ilios, located within the rich and powerful city of Troy. Unknown to Paris, all of the kings and princes of Greece had vied for her hand in marriage when she decided to choose her consort and had sworn an oath to respect her choice and defend her with arms against any such outrage. Menelaus and Agamemnon had called on the Greeks to honour the oath and had assembled a massive fleet and army at the port of Aulis to wage war against the Trojans and bring her home to Sparta. The war at Troy lasted ten long years with devastating consequences for both Europe and Asia, destroying numerous kingdoms and bringing The Age of Heroes to a catastrophic and bloody end.Sing, Muse, of the terrible rage of Achilles, the godlike son of Peleus and Thetis, and the countless brave souls that were driven down to Hades by his long-shadowed spear, their bodies left for dogs and birds to feast on.

Fantasy fiction. The tragic and terrible drama of the war between Greeks and Trojans, the long siege of Troy and the impact of one woman's beauty on the fate of two nations, is played out again in this dazzling novel based on Homer's ILIAD. Meet enchanting Helen, who we first encounter as a spoiled teenager and whose passion for the handsome, reckless Paris leads to the betrayal of her husband, King Menelaus and the fall of the House of Troy. Powerful King Agamemnon with his terrifyingly ambitious wife Klytemnestra and his soothsaying mistress Kassandra. Odysseus, doomed to wander the Aegean for twenty long years; brave Achilles, who is haunted by the mad shade of his mother; the heroes Hektor and Ajax and many more.