Page 402 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[izBO-uGo b.c.] The Sack of Troy 339

Hittites, and they are known to have come from southeast Eu­
rope.
The picture Homer gives us of the Achaeans is, in fact, of
just such a collection of sea pirates, living on plunder, and with
roots in the land that rarely go back more than two generations.
The Trojan War does not appear to have been part of the ir­
ruption of European “Vikings” into Asia Minor, but rather it
seems to have been an internal quarrel between two groups of
these invaders; and we have no reason to doubt the story that
Helens abduction caused the trouble. On the other hand, the
irruptions were going on at the time, and the Achaeans did take
part. They are listed by Merenptah of Egypt among the peoples
of the sea; the Hittites mention frequently the Ahhiyawa in
western Asia Minor, and even name a certain Attarissiyas at this
time, who is believed by some (but not by others} to be Atreus
himself. Even Homer recounts that Menelaus spent seven years
in Egypt and in Libyan waters before returning home after the
fall of Troy, just at the period of the main onslaught of the peoples
of the sea on Egypt.
Many ingenious attempts have been made to explain away
the story of the wooden horse of Troy. It has never seemed a
likely story as it stood; and yet it is at least as early as Homer.
The theory here put forward is no more than a further addition
to the list of rationalizations. It is no more likely than most others
to be true.
One very considerable assumption has, of course, been made
in this chapter, the assumption that the Homeric epics, the Iliad
and the Odyssey, are substantially true. This would perhaps
appear to be a rash assumption, since they are works of poetry
first put together in the form we know some time in the eighth
century b.c., some four hundred years after the events they
purport to describe. However, though the epics are works of
poetry, they do not represent themselves as, nor were they ever
believed to be, works of fiction. And though compiled long
after the event, they bear many indications of being based upon,
and to a great extent incorporating, a large body of earlier lays,
some of which appear to go back almost, or exactly, to the time