All the Greek leaders and their armies assembled at Aulis, a protected beach in the straits of Euboea. Here Agamemnon was elected as supreme leader, because of his prowess in battle. Ill winds, however, kept them from setting off. In vain, they offered sacrifice after sacrifice to all the gods, hoping to gain favor. Yet no change occurred. The men’s spirits grew bleaker, for there was no honor in returning home empty-handed. After much consultation with the oracles, Agamemnon learned that he had offended the goddess Artemis by killing a deer sacred to her, for she was the goddess of the Hunt. She demanded a sacrifice before she changed the winds, and asked the one thing Agamemnon was least willing to give: his lovely daughter, the maiden Iphegenia. After much anguish, Agamemnon sent for his daughter under the pretext that she was to marry Achilles. Once there, he sacrificed her to Artemis by plunging a knife into his daughter’s heart. Immediately, the winds changed, and the Greeks set sail.
After once landing at the wrong place, the Greeks, called the Achaians in the Iliad, finally reached Troy. An oracle had foretold that the first man to set foot on shore would die. Protesilaos accepted the burden and was greatly honored for it; he was killed upon disembarking, in a skirmish with Hektor, the Trojan Prince. A mighty warrior, Hektor was a mainstay of the Achaians in the ten years of war that would follow. However, under the invincible Achilles, the Achaians managed to drive the Trojans back to their walls and surround the city.
Along with Hektor, Troy had one other mortal defender of note, Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite. On the other hand, the Achaians had many heroes in their midst, most notably Agamemnon, his brother Menelaos, Nestor, Odysseus, Achilles, Diomedes, and the mighty brothers, the two Ajaxes. The deities took part in the war as well, affecting the outcome of various battles. On the side of Troy were Artemis, who still held a grudge against Agamemnon, Ares, Aphrodite’s lover, Apollo, whose enmity to the Achaians was acquired by an offense to one of his priests, and Aphrodite, whose son Aeneas was a great defender of Troy. On the Achaian’s side were Poisedon, a sworn enemy of Troy, Hera and Athena, who were enraged with Paris for his decision in the quarrel over the golden apple, Hermes, and Hephaestus, who was upset with the unfaithfulness of his wife Aphrodite and wished for revenge. Zeus interfered on occasion, but maintained neutrality for the most part, being well aware of what would happen should he choose sides.
After the initial retreat of the Trojans behind Troy’s impenetrable walls, the ensuing battles were sporadic and indecisive. Troy was a well-fortified city, considered undefeatable, and for nine years, much effort was expended against it without much effect. During these nine long years, the Achaians managed to lay waste to many of the smaller kingdoms surrounding Troy, but made little headway against the city itself. Furthering their difficulty was the division of the Achaian army from within. Odysseus still harbored a grudge against Palamedes, the man who had so ruthlessly shown his madness to be a hoax. When Palamedes denounced Odysseus for an unsuccessful foraging expedition, Odysseus caused him to appear as a traitor. Consequently, Palamedes was stoned to death.
An even more disastrous quarrel then broke out, between the leaders Agamemnon and Achilles. During a raid of Troy, Agamemnon had acquired for himself the daughter of a priest of Apollo as a trophy of war. When the girl’s father came to ransom her, Agamemnon laughed in his face and sent the distraught man off without his daughter. The priest called upon Apollo to avenge him,