City in north-west Asia Minor overlooking the Dardanelles. Famous because of the Trojan War, which was occasioned by the Judgement of Paris. The Greeks besieged the city for ten years and finally destroyed it. The events of the Trojan War are the subject of much ancient art and literature (for example, the Iliad), but it is not certain whether they have any historical basis. A major early city was discovered at the site in the mid 19th century, by the German archaeologist Schliemann. Apart from the many individual episodes at Troy shown in art the Sack appears sometimes as a sequence of scenes including the deaths of Priam and Astyanax, rape of Kassandra, escape of Aineias and Anchises, rescue of Aithra, defence by Andromache, sacrifice of Polyxena, the Trojan Horse.
Above: Map of Greece and the Agean © Beazley Archive, Ian Hiley