THE NARRATIVE OF THE TROJAN WAR

According to classical sources, the war began after the abduction (or elopement)
of Queen Helen of Sparta by the Trojan prince Paris. Helens jilted husband
Menelaus convinced his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, to lead an
expedition to retrieve her. Agamemnon was joined by the Greek heroes Achilles,
Odysseus, Nestor and Ajax, and accompanied by a fleet of more than a thousand
ships from throughout the Hellenic world. They crossed the Aegean Sea to Asia
Minor to lay siege to Troy and demand Helens return by Priam, the Trojan king.

Did You Know?

Some traditions portray Homer as a blind poet, because the name Homer sounds
like a word for "blind" in some Greek dialects. In the Odyssey, a blind bard
appears telling stories of the war, which some interpret as a cameo by the poem's
author.

The siege, punctuated by battles and skirmishes including the storied deaths of
the Trojan prince Hector and the nearly-invincible Achilles, lasted more than 10
years until the morning the Greek armies retreated from their camp, leaving a
large wooden horse outside the gates of Troy. After much debate (and unheeded
warnings by Priams daughter Cassandra), the Trojans pulled the mysterious gift
into the city. When night fell, the horse opened up and a group of Greek warriors,
led by Odysseus, climbed out and sacked the Troy from within.

After the Trojan defeat, the Greeks heroes slowly made their way home.
Odysseus took 10 years to make the arduous and often-interrupted journey home
to Ithaca recounted in the Odyssey. Helen, whose two successive Trojan
husbands were killed during the war, returned to Sparta to reign with Menelaus.
After his death, some sources say she was exiled to the island of Rhodes, where a
vengeful war widow had her hanged.
THE TROJAN WAR EPICS

Little is known about the historical Homer. Historians date the completion of the
Iliad to about 750 B.C., and the Odyssey to about 725. Both began within the
oral tradition, and were first transcribed decades or centuries after their
composition. Many of the most familiar episodes of the war, from the abduction
of Helen to the Trojan Horse and the sack of Troy, come from the so-called Epic
Cycle of narratives assembled in the sixth century B.C. from older oral traditions.

In the first century B.C. the Roman poet Virgil composed the Aeneid, the third
great classical epic inspired by the Trojan War. It follows a group of Trojans led by
the hero Aeneas who leave their destroyed city to travel to Carthage before
founding the city of Rome. Virgils aim was in part to give Romes first imperial
dynasty an origin story as impressive as that of the Greeks.

HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE TROJAN WAR

Many portions of the Trojan War epics are difficult to read historically. Several of
the main characters are direct offspring of the Greek gods (Helen was fathered by
Zeus, who disguised himself as a swan and raped her mother Leda), and much of
the action is guided (or interfered with) by the various competing gods. Lengthy
sieges were recorded in the era, but the strongest cities could only hold out for a
few months, not 10 full years.

Major excavations at the site of Troy in 1870 under the direction of German
archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann revealed a small citadel mound and layers of
debris 25 meters deep. Later studies have document more than 46 building
phases grouped into nine bands representing the sites inhabitation from 3,000
B.C. until its final abandonment in A.D. 1350. Recent excavations have shown an
inhabited area 10 times the size of the citadel, making Troy a significant Bronze
Age city. Layer VIIa of the excavations, dated to about 1180 B.C., reveals charred
debris and scattered skeletonsevidence of a wartime destruction of the city
that may have inspired portions of the story of the Trojan War. In Homers day,
400 years later, its ruins would have still been visible.

GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA, EGYPT

The Great Pyramids, located at Giza on the west bank of the Nile River north of
Cairo, are the only wonder of the ancient world that has survived to the present
day. The three pyramidsKhufu (Cheops), Khafra (Chephren) and Menkaura
(Mycerimus)were built between 2700 B.C. and 2500 B.C. as royal tombs. The
largest and most impressive is Khufu, which covers 13 acres and is believed to
contain more than 2 million stone blocks that weigh from two to 30 tons each. For
more than 4,000 years, Khufu reigned as the tallest building in the world. In fact,
it took modern man until the 19th century to build a taller structure. Amazingly,
the nearly symmetrical pyramids were built without the aid of modern tools or
surveying equipment. Scientists believe that the Egyptians used log rollers and
sledges to move the stones into place. The sloped walls, which were intended to
mimic the rays of Ra, the sun god, were originally built as steps, and then filled in
with limestone. The interior of the pyramids included narrow corridors and
hidden chambers in an unsuccessful attempt to foil grave robbers. Although
modern archeologists have found some great treasures among the ruins, they
believe most of what the pyramids once contained was looted within 250 years of
their completion.

Did You Know?

The Colossus of Rhodes was an inspiration for the Statue of Liberty.

HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

According to ancient Greek poets, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built
near the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq by the Babylonian king
Nebuchadrezzar II around 600 B.C. The gardens were said to have been planted as
high as 75 feet in the air on a huge square brick terrace that was laid out in steps
like a theater. The king allegedly built the towering gardens to ease his lover
Amytis homesickness for the natural beauty of her home in Media (the
northwestern part of modern-day Iran). Later writers described how people could
walk underneath the beautiful gardens, which rested on tall stone columns.
Modern scientists have deduced that for the gardens to survive they would have
had to be irrigated using a system consisting of a pump, waterwheel and cisterns
to carry water from the Euphrates many feet into the air. Though there are
multiple accounts of the gardens in both Greek and Roman literature, none of
them are firsthand, and no mention of the gardens has been found in Babylonian
cuneiform inscriptions. As a result, most modern scholars believe that the
existence of the gardens was part of an inspired and widely believed but still
fictional tale.

STATUE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA

The famed statue of Zeus was crafted by the Athenian sculptor Phidias and
completed and placed in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, site of the ancient
Olympics, around the mid-fifth century B.C. The statue depicted the god of
thunder seated bare-chested at a wooden throne. Holding up the thrones
armrests were two carved sphinxes, mythical creatures with the head and chest
of a woman, the body of lion and the wings of a bird. The statue of Zeus was richly
decorated with gold and ivory. At 40 feet, it was so tall that its head nearly
touched the top of the temple. According to legend, the sculptor Phidias asked
Zeus for a sign of his approval after finishing the statue; soon after, the temple
was struck by lightning. The Zeus statue graced the temple at Olympia for more
than eight centuries before Christian priests persuaded the Roman emperor to
close the temple in the fourth century A.D. At that time, the statue was moved to
a temple in Constantinople, where it is believed to have been destroyed in a fire
in the year 462.

TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS AT EPHESUS

There was actually more than one Temple of Artemis: A series of several altars
and temples was destroyed and then restored on the same site in Ephesus, a
Greek port city on the west coast of modern-day Turkey. The most fabulous of
these structures were two marble temples built around 550 B.C. and 350 B.C.,
respectively. The former was designed by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and
his son Metagenes and decorated by some of the most celebrated artists of the
ancient world. The building burned on July 21, 356 B.C., according to legend the
same night that Alexander the Great was born. About six years later, the building
of a new temple to replace it was begun. The new building was surrounded by
marble steps that led to a more than 400-foot-long terrace. Inside stood 127 60-
foot marble columns and a statue of Artemis. Archeologists disagree as to
whether the building had an open-air ceiling or was topped with wood tiles. The
temple was largely destroyed by Ostrogoths in A.D. 262, and it was not until the
1860s that archeologists dug up the first of the ruins of the temples columns at
the bottom of the Cayster River.

MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS

Located in what is now southeastern Turkey, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was

a tomb built by Artemisia for her husband, Mausolus, the king of Carnia in Asia
Minor, after his death in 353 B.C. Mausolus was also Artemisias brother, and,
according to legend, she was so grief-stricken at his passing that she mixed his
ashes with water and drank them in addition to ordering the mausoleums
construction. The massive mausoleum was made entirely of white marble and is
thought to have been about 135 feet high. The buildings complicated design,
consisting of three rectangular layers, may have been an attempt to reconcile
Lycian, Greek and Egyptian architectural styles. The first layer was a 60-foot base
of steps, followed by a middle layer of 36 Ionic columns and a stepped, pyramid-
shaped roof. At the very top of the roof lay the tomb, decorated by the work of
four sculptors, and a 20-foot marble rendition of a four-horse chariot. The
mausoleum was largely destroyed in an earthquake in the 13th century and its
remains were later used in the fortification of a castle. In 1846, pieces of one of
the mausoleums friezes were extracted from the castle and now reside, along
with other relics from the Halicarnassus site, in Londons British Museum.

COLOSSUS OF RHODES

The Colossus was an enormous bronze sculpture of the sun god Helios built by the
Rhodians over 12 years in the third century B.C. The city was the target of a
Macedonian siege early in the fourth century B.C. and, according to legend, the
Rhodians sold the tools and equipment left behind by the Macedonians to pay for
the Colossus. Designed by the sculptor Chares, the statue was, at 100 feet, the
tallest of the ancient world. It was completed around 280 B.C. and stood for sixty
years until it was toppled in an earthquake. It was never rebuilt. Hundreds of
years later, Arabs invaded Rhodes and sold the remains of the statue as scrap
metal. Because of this, archeologists do not know much about the exact location
of the statue or what it looked like. Most believe that it depicted the sun god
standing naked while he lifted a torch with one hand and held a spear in the
other. It was once believed that the statue stood with one leg on each side of a
harbor, but most scholars now agree that the statues legs were most likely built
close together to support its immense weight.

LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA

The Lighthouse of Alexandria was located on a small island called Pharos near the
city of Alexandria. Designed by the Greek architect Sostratos and completed
around 270 B.C. during the reign of Ptolemy II, the lighthouse helped to guide Nile
River ships in and out of the citys busy harbor. Archeologists have found ancient
coins on which the lighthouse was depicted, and from them deduced that the
structure had three tiers: a square level at the bottom, an octagonal level in the
middle and a cylindrical top. Above that stood a 16-foot statue, most likely of
Ptolemy II or Alexander the Great, for whom the city was named. Although
estimates of the lighthouses height have ranged from 200 to 600 feet, most
modern scholars believe it was about 380 feet tall. The lighthouse was gradually
destroyed during a series of earthquakes from 956 to 1323. Some of its remains
have since been discovered at the bottom of the Nile.

The Legend of Troy

The legend of Troy has been passed down to us from over three thousand years
ago. The story of Achilles, Troy and the Wooden Horse is one of the most famous
in the world. But what is the legend, really? And is it anything more than just a
myth?

The Legend

Most of what we know about the story of the Trojan War comes from a two and a
half thousand year old epic composed by a poet, Homer, called the Iliad. But it
actually only tells the story of the very last year of the war - which lasted ten
years, by the way! So what can we piece together about the rest of the war on
Troy?

The story begins with a competition between three goddesses: Hera, Athena, and
Aphrodite. Each of them wants to win the prize: a golden apple, inscribed with
the words "for the most beautiful". When their judge, a young Trojan prince by
the name of Paris, awards the apple to Aphrodite, she promises in return that he
can marry Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of the Greek
lord, Menelaus. Paris steals Helen away to Troy, Menelaus is enraged and gathers
a force of ships to attack Troy and bring her back... and the Trojan War begins.

The legend says that the fighting around Troy lasted for ten years. We know of
some of the battles that were supposed to take place, as well as some legendary
duels between the heroes. At last, however, Odysseus has an idea. He tells the
Greeks to build a wooden horse, big enough to fit some soldiers inside. Once the
horse is finished, a few of the Greeks climb inside and hide; the rest leave Troy on
their ships, pretending to retreat. Only the wooden horse is left on the seashore.
The Trojans are overjoyed, thinking that the Greek forces have left, and they drag
the horse into the city of Troy, believing it to be a sacred offering to the goddess
Athena. When night falls, however, the Greeks jump out of the horse's belly and
open the gates of Troy from the inside to the rest of the army - and Troy is burnt
to ashes.

The Facts

So much for the story - but what about the facts? Was Helen a real woman? Did
Troy really exist? Well, for a long time Troy was thought to be nothing more than
a myth a story made up by poets to entertain their audiences. But in 1884, the
German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, determined to prove the
authenticity of Homers Iliad, published an astonishing finding. I have proved,
he wrote, that in a remote antiquity there was in the plain of Troy a large city,
destroyed of old by a fearful catastrophe, which had on the hill of Hisarlk only its
Acropolis, with its temples and a few other large edifices, whilst its lower city
extended in an easterly, southerly, and westerly direction, on the site of the later
Ilium; and that, consequently, this city answers perfectly to the Homeric
description of the site of sacred Ilios."
In other words, he had discovered Troy.

This was a sensational find. The ancient city of Troy had long been thought if it
existed at all to be located somewhere on the plain in the north-western corner
of Turkey, on the eastern coast of the Dardanelles (the ancient Greek Hellespont
the narrow strip of water that separates Europe from Asia and connects the
Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara). But no-one had known exactly where to
place it, and all attempts to find the ancient city had been fruitless. Following a
tip-off from another amateur archaeologist by the name of Frank Calvert,
however, Schliemann started excavating in 1871 on the hill of Hisarlk, near
modern anakkale. And what he discovered there was more than even he could
have ever hoped for. The site of Troy had, in fact, it transpired, been settled for
over two thousand years before the city of Troy mentioned in Homer, and had
been continually built over and lived in until the 6th century CE, when it fell out of
use. The site was preserved as a complex layering of different cities, one over the
other, with the most recent settlement at Troy a Roman city called Ilium on
top of layers of other, older cities. But it was the layer we now label as Troy VI
(Troy X being the most recent layer, Troy I the earliest) that is the most
interesting: because this seems in every respect to match up with the ancient
Bronze Age city of Troy and the city of Homers Iliad.

What archaelogists have discovered since has changed our picture of the Homeric
poems forever. Not only has Troy been found to have been a large city for its
time, capable of maintaining a population of between five and ten thousand
people, with defensive fortifications with a perimeter wall and towers, and an
upper city with houses and palaces; but it was also clearly a powerful trading
centre in the Aegean Bronze Age, situated between the civilisations of Ancient
Greece and Anatolia, and directly on the shipping route from the Aegean to the
Black Sea. Set on a hill overlooking the coast, with its defensive walls and natural
harbour, Troy must have been one of the best-placed trading centres of the
Bronze Age world.
Which makes it fairly easy to imagine why an expedition might have set out from
Ancient Greece to take it for their own. Who knows - perhaps Achilles really did
once walk over the plain of Troy...

friends in heaven

-- Author unknown

An old cowboy was riding his trusty horse followed by his faithful dog along an
unfamiliar road. The man was enjoying the new scenery, when he suddenly
remembered dying, and realized that the dog beside him had been dead for
years, as had his horse.

Confused, he wondered what was happening, and where the trail was leading
them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall that looked like fine marble.
At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch topped by a golden letter "H"
that glowed in the sunlight. Standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the
arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked
like gold.

He rode toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.
Parched and tired out by his journey, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'
'This is ranch, Heaven, sir,' the man answered.

'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.

'Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up.'

As the gate began to open, the cowboy asked, 'Can I bring my partners, too?'

'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.'

The cowboy thought for a moment, then turned back to the road and continued
riding, his dog trotting by his side.

After another long ride, at the top of another hill, he came to a dirt road leading
through a ranch gate that looked as if it had never been closed. As he approached
the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book. 'Excuse
me,' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'

'Sure, there's a pump right over there. Help yourself.'

'How about my friends here?' the traveler gestured to the dog and his horse.

'Of course! They look thirsty, too,' said the man.

The trio went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned
hand pump with buckets beside it. The traveler filled a cup and the buckets with
wonderfully cool water and took a long drink, as did his horse and dog. When
they were full, he walked back to the man who was still standing by the tree.
'What do you call this place?' the traveler asked.

'This is Heaven,' he answered.

'That's confusing,' the traveler said. 'The man down the road said that was
Heaven, too.'

'Oh, you mean the place with the glitzy, gold street and fake pearly gates? That's
hell.'

'Doesn't it make you angry when they use your name like that?'

'Not at all. Actually, we're happy they screen out the folks who would leave their
best friends behind.'

--------

Sometimes, we wonder why friends forward things without writing a word.

Maybe this explains it: When you're busy, but still want to keep in touch, you can
forward things. When you have something to say, but don't know how to say it,
or... when you have nothing to say, but want to stay in contact, you can forward a
story like this. A 'forward' lets you know you're still remembered, still important,
still cared about. So. the next time you get a 'forward', realize you've been
thought of and your friend on the other end just wanted to send you a smile.

drying the tears

A True Story -- By Margarita Regina D. Araneta

A lot of people think that going through a heart ache or a relationship lost is the
greatest pain one could ever experience. I was definitely one of those people who
thought that way until I realized that there is something far greater and more
painful than having a broken heart.

The pain I experienced, one excruciating Sunday, was certainly the worst a person
could ever feel. It was early morning when the beeping of my cell phone suddenly
awakened me from a very peaceful sleep. At around 9 a.m, I was groping for my
phone somewhere around my bed and under my pillows since I have the habit of
propelling too much when sleeping. As usual, I expected to read morning
messages from friends who always take the time to remind me that friendship
still reigns despite distance and time. This is my typical Sunday morning, or so I
thought.

After ten minutes of exploration, I successfully managed to locate my phone ad

quickly opened it with much anticipation. However as I scrolled down my inbox,
much to my excitement, I was shocked and horrified with what I was reading. The
messages contained one same thing: My friend was dying. I found it hard to
breathe at that moment. It was as if everything stopped around and inside of me.
I could not move. I could not think. I could not believe.
I struggled for strength and words. I wanted to know more about what happened
but somehow, a part of me was also hesitant to know. I was afraid of what I might
hear. Sometimes, it is easier and less painful when you dont know.

Suddenly, the cacophony outside suddenly snapped me out from the deafening
silence that was contending inside of me. I was then brought back to the reality I
was too afraid to face. At that time, I wished that it would have been better if I
had not woken up from my sleep.

When I finally gained a little courage, I called up a friend and nervously asked for
details on this awful news. My friend, who was obviously sobbing, frantically told
me that our dear friend had been hit by a Jeep last night while she was on her
way home from a party, and that she was being operated as we spoke.

Upon hearing those dreadful words, an immense anger was raging inside of me. I
was furious at the careless drunk driver. I was mad at her friends who persuaded
her to go to the party even if she didnt really want to in the first place. Most of
all, I was angry at myself because I was not there for her. I felt helpless because I
was miles away from her. I wanted to see her but at the same time, I was fearful
to see her suffering. My heart could not even bear to think of the pain she was
going through. I was told that almost all of her ribs were broken and that even if
she was to survive, she would only suffer more since she was already brain dead.

Everything seemed very distant to me. It was as if I was being stabbed in the chest
over and over but I still could not feel a thing. I was immobilized. It took me while
to let the news sink in. I didnt want to face the reality. I was scared of the things
to come.
Indeed, sometimes God really plays jokes on people. Often we are being shown of
what we are most afraid to see. The words that we dread to hear the most are
usually spoken the loudest. Thats how I felt that time. It was like someone was
playing a very silly joke on me. I wish that was the case.

The truth then finally hit me. Moments later, I was informed that my dear friend
didnt surviveI was crushed into pieces. The pain I felt was unbearable. It
seemed so unfair that she had to die that way and that soon. She had a beautiful
life ahead of her. I knew she would have wanted to live. She wanted to fight but
God must have needed her so much that He wouldnt let go of her. I became
angry at Him. I just couldnt understand why He had to get her so soon. I could
not accept.

Two weeks had passed since my friends tragic death. I am still trying to figure out
why it had to happen. Even now, I am finding it hard to move on. Its just so
difficult to let go of someone who means so much to you.

Letting go has never been easy. Losing someone will always be painful. But then I
know that in time I have to let go, and for me to do this, I need to forgive myself.
Forgiving others is easier than forgiving ourselves. Somehow, I must forgive
myself for not being there for her. I must forgive myself for not letting her know
how much our friendship means to me. I know that she knows this, in some ways,
I believe I got my message across.

Moreover, letting go requires acceptance. To let go is to accept, and acceptance

takes time. In my own pace, I am slowly striving to loosen my grip. As much as I
dont want to, I just know that I need to. Surely, my friend would have agreed
with me.

Without a doubt, the agony of losing someone is unbearable. But as Leo Buscaglia
put it: There is no holding on, that we must let go, that there is nothing wrong
with tears of parting or the pain of mourning. But the tears eventually must be
dried.

Slowly, I am now drying my tears