The Trojan War in Homer and History - Recorded Books

As for the Trojan Horse, it was probably either Homer’s metaphor for an
earthquake, or a battering ram, or some other machine of war. And finally,
Helen’s abduction makes a nice story, but there were far more compelling
economic and political motives for conflict some 3,000 years ago; the war itself
was probably fought for the usual reasons of greed, glory, and territorial
expansion, with Helen serving as a convenient excuse, if she even existed.
So, where do we go from here? This is a question that is very difficult to
answer at the moment. Manfred Korfmann, the most recent director of the
excavations at Troy, is now deceased, but we are told that the excavations
will continue at Troy, particularly in the lower city, which is still essentially
untouched by archaeologists. Hopefully, future excavations in this area will
yield additional discoveries that will help to fill in the gaps within our knowledge.
An archive of written documents would be especially welcome, though
perhaps that is almost too much to wish for. At the very least, we can hope
that such additional discoveries will shed new light on age-old questions and
allow us to determine once and for all when the Trojan War took place and
whether Helen was really the reason why the war was fought.
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