οἶνοψ πόντος(The Wine-Dark Sea)

To relieve an overburdened Earth of its teeming mortal multitudes, Zeus and Themis contrive a great war that will thin the race of heroes.

Warned that the sea-nymph Thetis is fated to bear a son mightier than his father, Zeus and Poseidon abandon their pursuit and marry her off to the mortal Peleus.

Gods and mortals gather on Mount Pelion to celebrate the marriage of Peleus and Thetis — every deity invited but one.

The uninvited goddess of Strife rolls a golden apple inscribed 'to the fairest' among the guests, igniting a fatal rivalry between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.

Warned by a prophecy that her unborn son will bring Troy to ruin, Hecuba's child Paris is exposed on Mount Ida but survives to be raised as a shepherd.

Helen's many suitors swear, at Odysseus's suggestion, to defend whoever wins her — an oath that will one day compel all Greece to war.

Hermes leads the three goddesses to the shepherd Paris on Mount Ida; he awards the golden apple to Aphrodite, who has promised him the most beautiful woman alive.

On Aphrodite's counsel Paris builds a fleet and sets out for Sparta, ignoring the warnings of Helenus and Cassandra that his voyage will doom Troy.

Menelaus hosts Paris as an honored guest, then sails to Crete for a funeral, leaving Helen to entertain the Trojan prince.

Aphrodite unites Paris and Helen, who flee Sparta by night with treasure; a storm from Hera drives them by way of Sidon before they reach Troy and wed.

Helen's brothers, the Dioscuri, are killed in a cattle raid; Zeus grants the immortal Pollux shared immortality with the fallen Castor.

Iris brings the news to Menelaus, who with his brother Agamemnon invokes the Oath of Tyndareus to summon the kings of Greece to war.

Reluctant to leave Ithaca, Odysseus feigns insanity, but Palamedes exposes the ruse by threatening the infant Telemachus.

Thetis hides the young Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes to keep him from the war, but Odysseus uncovers him with a trick of arms.

The host assembles at Aulis, where a snake devouring nine sparrows is read by Calchas as an omen that Troy will fall only in the tenth year.

The fleet mistakenly lands in Mysia and sacks Teuthrania, thinking it Troy; King Telephus routs them but is wounded by Achilles' spear.

A storm disperses the fleet home for years; an oracle sends the festering Telephus to be healed by the very spear that wounded him, in return for guiding the Greeks to Troy.

Reassembled at Aulis, the fleet is becalmed after Agamemnon offends Artemis by killing her sacred stag and boasting he is the better hunter.

Calchas declares that only the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia will appease Artemis; she is lured to Aulis, and at the altar the goddess snatches her away, leaving a deer.

En route the archer Philoctetes is bitten by a water-snake; his festering, stinking wound leads the Greeks to abandon him on the island of Lemnos.

As the Greeks storm ashore, Protesilaus — first to leap onto Trojan soil despite a prophecy of doom — is killed by Hector; Achilles then slays the invulnerable Cycnus.

Menelaus and Odysseus enter Troy to demand Helen and the stolen treasure; the Trojans refuse, and the siege proper begins.

Unable to breach Troy directly, the Greeks wage a nine-year war of attrition, and Achilles sacks the surrounding towns for plunder and provisions.

Achilles ambushes and kills the young Trojan prince Troilus, whose survival to adulthood a prophecy had linked to Troy's own survival.

Odysseus engineers the downfall of Palamedes, framing the clever hero for treason with planted gold and a forged letter, and he is stoned to death.

In the sack of Thebe and Lyrnessus, Agamemnon is awarded the captive Chryseis and Achilles the captive Briseis — the prizes that will detonate the Iliad's quarrel.

When Agamemnon spurns the priest Chryses, Apollo sends a nine-day plague; forced to give up Chryseis, Agamemnon seizes Achilles' prize Briseis, and Achilles withdraws from the war in wrath.

Achilles' mother Thetis wins from Zeus a promise to let the Trojans prevail until the Greeks learn to honor her wronged son.

Zeus sends Agamemnon a false dream of victory; his test of the troops' morale nearly triggers a mass flight, checked by Odysseus, before the great catalogue of the assembled hosts.

To settle the war by single combat, Paris fights Menelaus for Helen, but Aphrodite whisks the losing Paris away in a cloud; from the ramparts Helen names the Greek captains for Priam.

Prompted by Athena, the Trojan archer Pandarus shoots Menelaus, shattering the truce and reigniting full battle.

Empowered by Athena, Diomedes rampages across the field, killing Pandarus and even wounding the gods Aphrodite and Ares.

Enemies Glaucus and Diomedes exchange armor in guest-friendship; Hector takes a tender, tragic farewell of his wife Andromache and infant son Astyanax.

Hector and Great Ajax fight an indecisive duel and part with gifts; a burial truce follows, and the Greeks fortify their camp with a wall and ditch.

Zeus bars the other gods from the war and weighs the fates in his golden scales; the Trojans drive the Greeks back and camp confidently on the plain overnight.

A desperate Agamemnon sends Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix with lavish gifts to beg Achilles' return, but the still-furious hero refuses.

Under cover of darkness Odysseus and Diomedes capture and kill the Trojan scout Dolon, then slaughter the newly arrived Thracian king Rhesus and steal his horses.

Agamemnon rages gloriously until wounded; Diomedes, Odysseus, and the healer Machaon fall injured too, and Achilles sends Patroclus to learn how badly the Greeks fare.

The Trojans assault the Greek rampart; Sarpedon tears at the battlements and Hector smashes the gate with a boulder, breaching the defenses despite an ominous omen.

While Zeus looks away, Poseidon secretly rallies the hard-pressed Greeks, and the fighting rages back and forth among the ships.

Hera seduces and lulls Zeus to sleep with Aphrodite's girdle so Poseidon can openly aid the Greeks; Ajax strikes Hector down with a boulder.

The furious Zeus reverses the battle, Apollo revives Hector, and the Trojans break through to set fire to the Greek ships.

Achilles lets Patroclus wear his armor and drive the Trojans from the ships; Patroclus kills Sarpedon but is slain by Hector with the help of Apollo and Euphorbus.

Menelaus and the two Ajaxes fight a savage struggle to rescue Patroclus' corpse from the Trojans, saving it as word of the death is carried to Achilles.

Devastated by Patroclus' death, Achilles routs the Trojans with a mere war-cry, and Thetis has Hephaestus forge him a magnificent new suit of armor and a wondrous shield.

Achilles publicly renounces his wrath, Agamemnon returns Briseis with gifts, and Achilles arms for battle as his own horse Xanthus foretells his death.

Zeus releases the gods to take sides, and Achilles storms the field; he nearly kills Aeneas, who is rescued by Poseidon, and cuts a bloody path toward Hector.

Achilles chokes the river Scamander with Trojan dead; the enraged river-god rises to drown him, and only Hephaestus's fire drives the waters back.

Hector alone stands to face Achilles outside the walls, is tricked by Athena, and is killed; Achilles lashes his body to his chariot and drags it in the dust before his family's eyes.

Achilles burns Patroclus on a great pyre with sacrifices, then holds elaborate funeral games for the Greek champions.

Guided by Hermes, old King Priam comes by night to beg Hector's body from Achilles; moved to pity, Achilles relents, and the Iliad closes with Hector's funeral in Troy.

The Amazon queen Penthesilea comes to Troy's aid and fights brilliantly until Achilles kills her — then mourns her beauty, and slays Thersites for mocking his grief.

Memnon, king of the Ethiopians and son of the Dawn, kills Nestor's son Antilochus, and Achilles avenges him by slaying Memnon as Zeus weighs their souls.

As Achilles storms the Scaean Gate, Paris shoots him with an arrow guided by Apollo, striking his one vulnerable spot, the heel.

Great Ajax carries Achilles' corpse from the field while Odysseus holds off the Trojans; the Greeks mourn him seventeen days, and hold funeral games.

The armor of Achilles is awarded to Odysseus over Ajax; maddened by the shame of losing, Ajax slaughters the army's cattle and falls on his own sword.

Odysseus captures the Trojan seer Helenus, who reveals the conditions under which Troy is fated to fall: the bow of Heracles, the presence of Neoptolemus, and the Palladium.

Odysseus fetches Achilles' son Neoptolemus from Scyros and gives him his father's armor; the young warrior proves himself at once.

Eurypylus, son of Telephus, brings fresh troops to Troy and kills the healer Machaon, but is cut down by Neoptolemus.

Odysseus and Diomedes fetch the marooned Philoctetes from Lemnos; healed of his wound, he slays Paris with an arrow from the bow of Heracles.

Odysseus infiltrates Troy in disguise, then with Diomedes steals the Palladium, the sacred image of Athena that guarantees the city's safety.

On Athena's inspiration, the craftsman Epeius builds a huge hollow wooden horse, and the bravest Greeks conceal themselves inside.

The Trojans debate the horse; Sinon's false tale and the death of Laocoön and his sons in the serpents' coils persuade them to drag it inside the walls.

At night Sinon signals the fleet and opens the horse; the Greeks pour out, throw open the gates, and put the sleeping city to fire and slaughter.

The aged King Priam is butchered by Neoptolemus at the altar of Zeus, where he had taken refuge — a sacrilege that shocks even the gods.

Menelaus kills Helen's new husband Deiphobus and, sword raised to slay the faithless Helen, is disarmed by her beauty and takes her back.

Ajax the Lesser drags the prophetess Cassandra from Athena's altar and violates her, a sacrilege that dooms the Greeks' homeward voyage.

Hector's infant son Astyanax is hurled from the walls of Troy so that no heir of the royal line will survive to avenge the city.

Aeneas escapes the burning city carrying his father Anchises and leading his son Ascanius, fated to found a new Troy in Italy.

The ghost of Achilles demands the Trojan princess Polyxena, and Neoptolemus sacrifices her on his father's tomb before the Greeks depart.

The captive Trojan women are allotted to the victors and the city is left in ashes; the Greeks embark for home — into the storms Athena has prepared for them.

As Troy burns, Athena sets the Greek chieftains at odds: Agamemnon insists on staying to appease the offended gods, while Menelaus demands they sail at once.

Ajax the Lesser's assault on Cassandra at Athena's altar during the sack turns the goddess against her own Greeks; she and Poseidon prepare a reckoning on the sea.

Wise Nestor, sailing early with Diomedes, reaches sandy Pylos swiftly and unharmed — a model of the untroubled homecoming.

Diomedes, favored by Athena, sails home to Argos without loss — though later legend drives him into exile in Italy.

Sailing second, Menelaus loses most of his fleet to storms off Crete and is driven for years across Cyprus, Phoenicia, Libya, and Egypt.

Becalmed on the isle of Pharos, Menelaus ambushes the shape-shifting sea-god Proteus, who reveals how to get home and the fates of the other heroes.

After sacrificing in Egypt, Menelaus at last wins fair winds and comes home to Sparta with Helen in the eighth year — wealthy and reconciled.

The gods drive the returning fleet onto the rocks of Euboea, where Nauplius lures survivors to their deaths with false beacon-fires to avenge his son Palamedes.

Athena wrecks Ajax's ship; Poseidon saves him on a rock, but his impious boast that he escaped 'in spite of the gods' provokes Poseidon to split the rock and drown him.

Agamemnon reaches Mycenae only to be cut down at the welcome-feast by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, alongside the captive Cassandra.

Years later, Agamemnon's grown son Orestes returns with his sister Electra and, at Apollo's command, kills Aegisthus and their mother Clytemnestra.

Hounded by the Furies for matricide, Orestes is tried at Athens before Athena's new court; his acquittal ends the blood-curse on the House of Atreus.

Homer grants the Cretan king a safe return, but later legend has him vow to sacrifice the first thing he meets — his own son — and be driven into exile.

Warned by his grandmother Thetis, Achilles' son Neoptolemus travels home by land through Thrace and settles among the Molossians of Epirus.

The archer whose bow felled Paris returns home, but civil strife drives him from his city; he emigrates to southern Italy and founds new towns.

On the Trojan side, Aeneas escapes the burning city carrying his father and household gods, and begins the fated voyage that will lead to the founding of Rome.

Odysseus sacks Ismarus but loses men when the Ciconians rally; then a nine-day storm past Cape Malea blows his fleet off the map into unknown seas.

Scouts who taste the honey-sweet lotus lose all desire to return home; Odysseus must drag them back and bind them to the ships.

Trapped in the cave of the man-eating Cyclops, Odysseus blinds him with a fire-hardened stake and escapes — but the giant's curse to his father Poseidon dooms the voyage.

The wind-king gives Odysseus a bag holding all the storm-winds; within sight of Ithaca his crew opens it, and the gale blows them all the way back.

Cannibal giants hurl boulders down on the fleet in a narrow harbor, destroying eleven of the twelve ships; only Odysseus's vessel escapes.

The sorceress Circe turns Odysseus's scouts into swine; armed with the herb moly from Hermes, Odysseus resists her, frees his men, and stays a full year.

At the edge of the world Odysseus summons the dead; the seer Tiresias warns him to spare the Cattle of Helios and foretells his troubled return and distant death.

Warned by Circe, Odysseus plugs his crew's ears with wax and has himself bound to the mast, so he alone may hear the Sirens' deadly song and live.

Threading a deadly strait, Odysseus steers close to the six-headed monster Scylla to avoid the all-devouring whirlpool Charybdis, losing six men to Scylla's jaws.

Stranded and starving on Thrinacia, Odysseus's crew slaughter the forbidden cattle of the Sun-god; Zeus wrecks the ship, drowning every man but Odysseus.

The nymph Calypso rescues the castaway and holds him seven years on her island, offering immortality; he pines for home until the gods order his release.

Shipwrecked on Scheria, Odysseus is found by princess Nausicaa and welcomed by King Alcinous, to whom he recounts all his wanderings before they ferry him home.

Spurred by Athena, the young Telemachus sails to Pylos and Sparta seeking news of his father, coming of age as the suitors plot to ambush him on his return.

The Phaeacians set the sleeping Odysseus ashore on Ithaca at last; Athena meets him, reveals the danger at home, and disguises him as an aged beggar.

Disguised, Odysseus finds shelter with his loyal swineherd Eumaeus, who unknowingly hosts his master and proves his enduring faithfulness.

At the swineherd's hut, Athena restores Odysseus's true form before his son; father and son weep, embrace, and plot the suitors' destruction together.

Over a hundred suitors have besieged the palace for years, devouring its wealth and pressing Penelope to remarry; she has held them off with the trick of Laertes' shroud.

Entering his palace as a ragged beggar, Odysseus endures the suitors' abuse, is recognized only by his old dog Argos and his nurse Eurycleia by his scar.

Penelope sets Odysseus's great bow as the test for her hand; no suitor can even string it, until the disguised beggar draws it and shoots through twelve axes.

Throwing off his disguise, Odysseus turns the bow on the suitors and, with Telemachus and two loyal servants, kills them all in the locked hall.

Cautious Penelope tests the stranger by ordering their bed moved; his angry knowledge that it is rooted in a living olive tree proves he is truly Odysseus.

Odysseus seeks out his grieving old father Laertes on his farm and, after a gentle test, reveals himself by the scar and their shared memory of the orchard.

The slain suitors' kinsmen rise for revenge, but Athena and Zeus halt the fighting, imposing forgetfulness and oaths of peace so Odysseus may reign in a stable Ithaca.

Years later Telegonus, Odysseus's son by Circe, comes seeking his father and unknowingly kills him with a stingray-tipped spear — fulfilling the prophecy of death from the sea.