War
Achilles vs. Hector video clip scene found here, from the movie Troy.
The Greeks show up at Troy with quite an assembly of fighters and expect to get the stolen back from Troy. When the request is denied, the Greeks decide to stay, and it remains that way for ten years. A couple of poor decisions by King Agamemnon result in misfortune for the Greeks and just the opposite for the Trojans. When Achilles and Agamemnon argue in a meeting that is supposed to decide what to do next, Agamemnon then takes away Briseis, Achilles’ slave girl, and, in retaliation, withdrew himself and his allies (the Myrmidons) from the Trojan War. To complicate things further, Achilles asks Thetis, his mother, to bring hardship to the Greeks, while the Trojans have their good luck. His mother took this request to Zeus, with success. Agamemnon now realizes the consequences of insulting such a great warrior.
With the Trojan success, Prince Hector (Paris’s brother and commander of the Trojan army) got as far as attacking the Greek ships on the Trojan shores before “Achilles” entered the war again. Agamemnon desperately needs Achilles, so he tries his best to apologize, and when the condition that Hector gets to the Greek ships is met, Achilles sends his friend Patroclus into the war, only with his armor, so everyone would think that Achilles was fighting again. Confident with the admiration of Achilles, Patroclus slays many, but is slain in the end, by none other than Prince Hector.
This one death changed the course of events. Angry at Hector for killing Patroclus and stealing his armor, Achilles officially re-enters the war, single-handedly battling and killing Prince Hector. Still angry, he drags the body away and sacrifices Trojans for Patroclus’s funeral. King Priam of Troy then visits Achilles to beg for his son’s body back, and Achilles then agrees. In retaliation to his brother’s death, Prince Paris uses Apollo, god of the sun, to help him shoot Achilles in the heel with an arrow. This may have been the end of Achilles, but not quite the end of the actual war.
A Trojan captive and prophet warned the Greeks that the only way they were going to capture Troy were with the help of Philoctetes, who had the Hercules’s arrows, but they left him on an island after he suffered a severe snake bite. But, thanks to Odysseus’s skill in the art of trickery, Piloctetes was on the way back to aid the Greeks.
With more chicanery up their sleeves, the Greeks finally devised a plan to build a giant horse filled with armed soldiers. The soldiers would remain while the ships are hidden off the coast and a single soldier remains “behind”, to tell the Trojans that the Greeks have abandoned their mission and he was left behind. Laocoon, the one suspecting Trojan warned not to trust the Greeks, even when they come with offerings. He was, of course, killed to be silenced, and the plan remained in motion. The Trojans even had to tear down a portion of their walls to get the horse inside, and once they did, the warriors snuck out and began the attack. Like poison, the Greeks scattered around the city, burning, and destroying anyone and anything they could.
