Troy

[Bounty]

Yes I have.

Obviously, you haven't.

Well Atlantis is a purely fictional account and there are reasonably theories that the author (or authors) were inspired by the destruction of the Crete civilisation that had occurred in recent history at the time (Atlantis sounds like fictional Mediterranean city state on steroids).

I wouldn't call 6 centuries 'recent history'.
Moreover, even if that was the inspiration then Atlantis still wasn't based on an existing city as you claim. It takes the splendour of one city or state, the demise of another, combines it with a completely fictional geography...

And Atlantis is generally credited to one author, Plato. I know ancient authorship can be a bitch to trace but it's not like the writer was lost in the mists of time.

Yes, they wanted a more romantic account of the founding of Rome that would be more suited to a respectable capital city of a young republic, not some large farming community. I can imagine the growing Roman urban middle class would find the story of Rome being founded by Troy survivors more appealing.

What "middle class"? They didn't even commission the Aeneid! Not to mention that it wasn't even written until the Republic had been reduced to a hollow shell. Young republic my ass.

That's where the Bible's tall tells and contradictions came from.

No shit, Sherlock. Tell me again why the bible is relevant in all this.

Romulas was obviously spun for peasants if it originated from early Rome, which was a glorified collection of farms and villages.

That sentence barely makes sense.

The legend of Romulus, much like the lineage of the seven kings and stories like the theft of the women, was way for the Romans to reconstruct their past that got canonised by Virgil and Livy, based on existing myths. It wasn't "spun" to entertain "peasants".

But Troy and Atlantis were written by upper class scholars, but people unable to read or write legends spread them through word of mouth.

Oh boy.

"Troy" (you do mean the Illiad, right?) was created exactly in reverse of how you describe: oral tradition coalescing in a written account. Atlantis (well, the work it first appeared in - Critias?) started and ended as a written work, it wasn't even that well-known.

[Bounty]

I wouldn't call 6 centuries 'recent history'.

Correction: 11 centuries, if you're counting from the last fires at Knossos.

[Kuroneko]

Well Atlantis is a purely fictional account and there are reasonably theories that the author (or authors) were inspired by the destruction of the Crete civilisation that had occurred in recent history at the time (Atlantis sounds like fictional Mediterranean city state on steroids).

Could be. An alternative hypothesis that's interesting in the context of this thread, but much less likely overall, is that the story of Atlantis was pre-existing (if adopted by Plato) but inspired by Troy itself. If the report of 9000 years in the past was an erroneous report of what was actually 9000 months, the time would have been right for Critias first hearing it (though not for Solon). The most likely explanation is that Plato invented it as a literary device, however.

[Big Orange]

Yes I have.

Obviously, you haven't.

I'm getting more tuned into this thread now.

I wouldn't call 6 centuries 'recent history'.

That is more recent than 3000 years, with far more than enough time for folk tales to circulate about Crete.

Moreover, even if that was the inspiration then Atlantis still wasn't based on an existing city as you claim. It takes the splendour of one city or state, the demise of another, combines it with a completely fictional geography...

I never said Atlantis existed but it was likely very loosely based on the destruction of Crete which was likely in written historical records and folk tales.

And Atlantis is generally credited to one author, Plato. I know ancient authorship can be a bitch to trace but it's not like the writer was lost in the mists of time.

It sound like most of the Atlantis myth was penned by Plato, but he may have got some inspiration from elsewhere with a similar event in the Mediterranean, even though it was centuries before his time.

What "middle class"? They didn't even commission the Aeneid!

I imagine Republic and Imperial Rome had a middle class of sorts.

Not to mention that it wasn't even written until the Republic had been reduced to a hollow shell. Young republic my ass.

OK, from a young Republic to when Rome was on the cusp of being a Imperial superpower and the story of city founders suckling on wolves would be somewhat embarrassing.

No shit, Sherlock. Tell me again why the bible is relevant in all this.

Relevant in terms to ancient folk tales and even written records to be full of BS, heavily distorting the original real events they were based on (although the Illiad and Atlantis tales were intended as fiction).

The legend of Romulus, much like the lineage of the seven kings and stories like the theft of the women, was way for the Romans to reconstruct their past that got canonised by Virgil and Livy, based on existing myths. It wasn't "spun" to entertain "peasants".

Well these ancient founding legends on Rome could've often been told to the masses if they're so full of BS.

"Troy" (you do mean the Illiad, right?) was created exactly in reverse of how you describe: oral tradition coalescing in a written account. Atlantis (well, the work it first appeared in - Critias?) started and ended as a written work, it wasn't even that well-known.

I admit that I've got the Illiad thing almost totally the wrong way around (although it must've spun-off into regional folk tales, supplementing the original folk tales). And while the Atlantis myth was, open and shut, a self contained fictional written record for fairly private use, I imagine Plato got some rudimentary ideas from various folk tales already existing for many centuries about the real lost civilisation of Crete.

[wautd]

If memory from my grade twelve English class serves, all but two Trojans were killed by the end of the war. The two survivors were Romulus and Remus, who went to Italy and founded the Roman empire. I'm not positive, but I believe there is a Roman epic that deals with the Trojan war (although the wiki makes no mention of it, so I could be wrong, grade twelve was a while ago). This could help to explain the lack of mention in other cultures.

Actually, if I remember correctly, they founded Carthage, not Rome

[Darth Wong]

No, according to the original myth, Aeneas left Troy with a whole group of survivors. They sailed across the sea and landed at Carthage, where Aeneas fell in love with Queen Dido. But he eventually realized that his people needed his leadership and could not stay here as subjects of a foreign queen. So he broke her heart and left with his people on their ships. They sailed to Italy and settled there.

Much later, Romulus and Remus were born as descendants of this group, and together, they would someday found the city of Rome. Mind you, they would also fight over the name, and Romulus would kill Remus in the process.

[Exmoor Cat]

It doesn't help that the Persians didn't even notice a 'grand and epic 10 year war' with their neighbors either. So eh. Most likely it was a minor regional war that got a lot of great press and became iconic.

Actually, they were Hittites, not Persians. And they did know something was going on at Troy, which was at best a client of the Hittites. The Tawagalawa letter, a letter written to the king of "Ahhiyawa" (presumably the Acheans/Greeks) from a Hittite king (thought to be Hattusili III), mentoned a war flaring up between the two powers at "Wilusa" (Illios, Troy), but settled 'amicably.'

Ahhiyawa is identified with Mycenean Greece from the fact that the Greeks controlled Miletus, Ahhiyawa controlled Millawanda, and the identification of Miletus with Millawanda. And whoever controlled Millawanda, Miletus is definitely on the edge of Hittite territory and uncomfortably near Hittite interests.

So the Hittites and the Greeks were almost definitely in conflict, and the Hittites did take notice of a war with one of their clients at Troy. I like to think of the Trojan War as one war in a whole campaign of Greek expansion into Anatolia.

Backing up Wyrm here, if you want to dig into this theory, which has a ton of convincing evidence from Hittite archives in Hattusas, Troy (incidentally, Schliemann's Troy was an earlier burning of the place according to more modern dating analysis) itself and some refrences in Egypt. Best to look to Michael Wood's In Search of the Trojan War (available via BBC online and amazon), the updated version.

In terms of dating the war, most evidence points to the period just after the Battle of Kadesh (there's a contingent list that lists Ahhiyawa as supplying a reasonable contingent of the chariot force there.

The Hittite empire was a shaky thing, basically succession was based on whichever warlord could muster support from the others in a capo di capo tutti style. This often led to brekaway sections, and never a fully integrated structure. The Empire itself started collapsing from attacks from the West, mainly from the "Sea Peoples", thus there is a strong case for Greek opportunism.