"Gillian Cross's fine retelling of Homer's epic story captures all the heroism and savagery of war and shows why the 'Iliad' has been called the first tragedy and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization"--Front jacket flap.

It is the year 1250 B.C. during the late Bronze age. Two emerging nations clash after Paris, a Trojan prince, convinces Helen, Queen of Sparta, to leave her husband Menelaus, and sail with him back to Troy. After Menelaus finds out that his wife was taken by the Trojans, he asks his brother Agamemnon to help him get her back. Agamemnon sees this as an opportunity for power and sets off for Troy with 1,000 ships holding 50,000 Greeks. With the help...

"Millennia ago, Greek myths exposed the dangers of violent rage and the need for empathy and self-restraint. Homer's Iliad, Euripides' Hecuba, and Sophocles' Ajax show that anger and vengeance destroy perpetrators and victims alike. Composed before and during the ancient Greeks' groundbreaking movement away from autocracy toward more inclusive political participation, these stories offer guidelines for modern efforts to create and maintain civil societies....

"Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war -- including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean; it does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface...