The Illiad: the abridged Glassel version

The Wedding:

At the royal wedding, everyone important was invited—including the gods and goddesses. Of course, Eris (the goddess of discord) was not invited. She responded to this slight by tossing into the midst of the wedding party a golden apple. Inscribed on this apple were the words, “For the fairest.” In no time at all, the goddesses are quarreling over which of them deserves it. A contest is declared and Paris Alexander (the younger prince of Troy and guest at the wedding) is named as the judge.

Being goddesses, they are all accustomed to getting what they want. Since none of them want to lose, they all attempt to bribe Paris. Athena offers him wisdom in order to guarantee that he will be successful and a great leader. Hera offers him a happy home life. Aphrodite, however, offers him the “love” of the most beautiful woman in the world. Being fifteen and male, Paris selects Aphrodite as the winner.

The Courtship:

Several years later, the most beautiful woman in the world—Helen—is being pursued by every king and prince within sailing distance. The front-runners (Odysseus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Nestor) are all friends and two of them (Agamemnon and Menelaus) are brothers. Fearful that the competition for Helen’s favor will drive them apart and lead to war, Odysseus convinces the other three kings to swear an oath. At his urging, the kings all swear to honor Helen’s choice and pledge to defend against any enemy the man whom Helen selects. Ultimately, she chooses Menelaus and the others return home.

Diplomacy:

Helen and Menelaus are, for several years, happily married. Their bliss lasts until Menelaus receives a diplomatic envoy from the Trojan empire. As luck—or the gods—would have it, that envoy is none other than Paris Alexander. Aphrodite then makes good on her earlier promise and causes Helen to fall madly in love with Paris. The two abscond back to Troy in Paris’s ship. Upon learning of his wife’s absence, Menelaus assumes that she was kidnapped and vows to rescue her. To further that cause, he enlists the aid of the other three kings and binds them to his service by invoking the oath they all swore years ago. Odysseus, after briefly attempting to shirk his duty by pretending insanity, is the last the join.

Preparation for War:

The Greek armies assemble on the beaches in preparation for sailing to Troy. The assembled might of the four kings is formidable and, though Troy is an empire in its own right, the Greeks are confident of their success. In addition to their troops and their kings, they also count Achilles among their allies. Invulnerable and commanding his own soldiers (the Myrmidons), Achilles is capable of turning the outcome of a battle on his own. However, the wind has failed them and they cannot sail without it. After prayers and sacrifices, the priests determine that Agamemnon has angered the gods (Zeus, in some versions; Artemis, in others) and must make amends. In compensation, the Olympians demand he sacrifice his teenage daughter, Iphigenia. Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, protests and begs and pleads for her daughter’s life, but her husband ignores her. Bound by his oath and his loyalty to his brother, Agamemnon chooses to kill Iphigenia. As the life leaves her body, bound upon the stone altar on the beach, the wind returns and Greeks promptly set sail for war and glory. Meanwhile, the Trojans are readying for the invasion. Hector, king of Troy, is no fool. When his little brother returns home early from the diplomatic mission and bears with him the wife of the king he was supposed to forge an alliance with, Hector knows that war is coming. Certain in this knowledge, he begins to make ready for the approaching siege.

The War:

While the Greeks hold the early advantage, due mostly to Achilles, they cannot breach the walls of Troy and the war quickly turns into a stalemate punctuated by skirmishes. In the midst of this lull, Agamemnon manages to bring a plague upon his men and alienate his greatest warrior. Both Agamemnon and Achilles had taken female captives as slaves (for fairly obvious purposes), but Agamemnon’s slave girl was the daughter of a priest of Zeus. Zeus, having been begged by her father to help, strikes the Greeks with a deadly plague. Upon learning that he must surrender his slave to her father in order the end the plague, Agamemnon petulantly demands Achilles’s slave girl as compensation. Since her capture, Achilles and his slave have fallen in love, but Agamemnon is indifferent to their protests. Rather than start a civil war, Achilles parts with her. However, Achilles is furious at his treatment at the hands of Agamemnon and vows to sit out the rest of the war. True to his word, Achilles skips the next several battles where his absence is painfully felt by the Greeks. Following those defeats, Nestor suggests to Patroclus, Achilles’s best friend, that he wear Achilles army as a ruse to inspire the Greeks and intimidate the Trojans. Achilles reluctantly agrees to the scheme. Unfortunately, Patroclus encounters Hector on the battlefield and is killed. Heartbroken and vengeful, Achilles returns to the fray the following day. He fights his way through the Trojans, reaches Hector and slays him. In his grief and rage, Achilles does not stop there. Rather, he ties Hector’s corpse to the back of his chariot and drags it around the city’s walls until it is no longer recognizable as something that was once human. Furious at his disrespectful treatment of Hector, who was an honorable man and a good king, the gods decide that Achilles must pay for his actions with his life. The next battle, Achilles is wounded by a poisoned arrow that strikes exactly the one spot on his body that his mother did not dip beneath the sacred waters: his heel. In short order, Achilles the Invincible is dead

The Trojan Horse:

With Achilles dead, the Greek war effort is in tatters. After seven years, they are no closer to breaching the walls and the Trojans show no signs of starvation. In short, the Greeks need a miracle or the entire endeavor is in danger of having been for nothing: seven years of death and bloodshed with neither victory nor glory. Rather than accept defeat, Odysseus proposes one final stratagem: the Trojan Horse. Built from their disassembled ships, the horse is left on the beach, ostensibly as a traditional parting gift from the retreating army. The next morning, the Trojans awake to find that the Greek army is nowhere to be seen. Venturing down to the shore, the find the ships are gone and the enormous wooden horse is left in their stead. Jubilant and relieved, the Trojan conclude that the Greeks have given up and left. They are, however, not unanimous in that opinion. A priest of Poseidon is particularly suspicious and loudly warns those present to “beware the Greeks and their gifts.” No sooner have these words left his mouth than a sea serpent rises from the surf and rends his head from his body. In amazement, the remaining Trojans conclude that the gods want them to accept the horse in good faith. They are, however, unaware that Poseidon was simply punishing the priest for violating one of his temples earlier. The timing was pure coincidence. The Trojans pull the horse inside the city, close the gates, and commence celebrating. Early in the dark hours of the morning, Odysseus and his men emerge from the belly of the wooden horse, open the gates, and unleash the rest of the Greek army upon the inebriated and defenseless city. The battle is over in short order and the city is sacked.

Odysseus’s Pride:

Following the successful battle, Odysseus is quick to claim credit for the victory. Yet, in his triumph, he fails to acknowledge Poseidon’s role in silencing the troublesome priest. Angered at his hubris, Poseidon vows to punish Odysseus for his selfishness and arrogance. In the last moments before he sets sail for home, the king of Ithaca has earned the enmity of the god of the sea.