The Sword of Troy!

I recently watched the film Troy..and i was wondering if anyone could help me out by telling me if the sword of Troy was actualy real or was it just a prop used to add some excitment to the film.
At the end of the film Paris (orlando Bloom) gives the sword to some boy and says somthing like "as long as the sword of Troy is in the hands of a Trojan, there is always hope for the people of Troy", now if he really did give the kid the sword wouldnt it be out there somwhere?

i didnt think the movie was based on real events....was it

Thats that i want to know..if anyone knows anything at all about the sword of Troy..it may be a load of crap just put there to add flavour to the film, but if it does exist then as well as it being worth # loads of cash it will also prove that the Trojan war with the Greeks was real.

For the history buffs its kind of a non question - Troy was real - and the story of the war is documented in the writings of Homer - the Illiad was the source for the screenplay. As for the mention of the sword of troy - well thats a new one for me - course Agmennon didnt die during the war neither did Achilies - so chalk that down to Hollywood - however its a great tale and IMHO a pretty good film.

Even if there were a sword of Troy, back then swords were not made very well. Steel was not invented yet. Copper and brass were the metals of the time, and were usually put together.

As you might guess, both copper and brass are fairly soft metals... so swords of the time didn't last very long. Those found in museums now...like in Greece and Italy, made of these combination are rusted and even if put through restoration don't end up too well. Even if the sword was cleaned constanlty, and kept in a dry clean space, the years will take its toll on the metal and turn the metal to black.

As an owner of a Japanese Katana, I was given a cleaning kit, to make sure rust doesn't take hold and destroy the blade. The ancient Japanese found the secret of making great swords, by folding hot steel over, over and over again until the blade was unbelievablly sharp.

The best swords of Europe were later made in Badalona, Spain. The Spanish steel was hard to come by, although its been rumored that it was the favorite
of Caribbean Pirates years later. It did help the Conquistadors conquor South America. Still, these were not the best swords in the world...


Unlike other swords of the day,the Japanese sword or Katana, had its blade on one side, with the weight being on the other side. This way when it was swung downward, it could cleeve though leather, wood and flesh much easyier.

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Even during the times of the 14th Century, Gengis Khan and the Mongol hordes, the Japanese Samurai swords were made extra strong, and longer to be used on horse back. This style sword "Shobu Zukuri" Katana was made to withstand shock to cleve through Mongol armor. By that time, swordsmakers were indeed master sword makers of the world. These swords are kept in museums in Japan and still look almost as good as the day they were retired.

Japan had so many sword makers and swords they ended up selling them to the Chinese (their future enemy) along with some of the secrets of sword making. Noticed I said Some...You dont want to give away all your secrets! But thats why even today the Best swords made are Japanese.






[edit on 12-6-2004 by Scoey]

The Katana is truly a fine weapon but it is far from being the vastly superior sword that everyone seems to makes it out to be. The pattern-welding techniques used by the Japanese were quite common across the world. All this does is to create a uniform distribution of Carbon and inpurities in the steel. This increase the strength of the blade by removing the weak areas of the sword. In fact Viking smiths (as well as Indonesian) pioneered a special form of this technique called the "twistcore" method which stacked bars of soft and hard steel and twisted them around then pounded into a flat sword. Another technique that was used primarly by the Chinese was by wraping a bar of hard steel around a core of soft steel. The heat differential technique by adding a heat insulator to the sides and back of the sword is what gives the Katana it's sharpness. However this techniques was imported from China. The Japanese smiths did however develop their own unique insulating substances as well as the techniques in applying the insulating material.

i was watchin troy last night to c who the boy Paris gave the sword to was and i found out that his name is Aeneas. in Rome: total war his name is in there as the founder of Rome. "Aeneas was to have been a hero fighting the Greeks in the Trojan wars. The son of Venus and a mortal father he escaped as the great city of Troy was sacked and after quite an odyssey he landed in Latium through which the river Tiber flows. Aeneas married the daughter of King Latinus, only to aggrieve King Turnus of Rutuli who himself had his eye on her. As usual in ancient tales, there ensued a war for the princess between Turnus and Aeneas, who was by then supported by King Tarchon of the Etruscans. Naturally Aeneas, son of Venus, was triumphant.
The sack of Troy is dated to around 1220 BC."

[edit on 28-1-2005 by jammaster316]

[edit on 28-1-2005 by jammaster316]

You gotta understand that neither Homer nor Virgil ever mentioned a "Sword of Troy". As a matter of fact, Aeneas was not a major character -- if he existed at all -- in the Iliad.

The Aeneid, the epic of Aeneas, was a sequel to the Iliad, written by a roman named P. Virgilius Maro, that has nothing to do with the Iliad itself, and was, indeed, a propaganda piece for Rome (However, in my opinion, it's better written than the Iliad or the Oddyssey).

But there is no "Sword of Troy"; it was made up by some movie writer, AFAIK.

Edited to add:

Rome, which looked to Greece for its culture, never had an epic that talked to the basic core culture of the country, so Virgil decided to make one up.

His point was to invent an epic which pointed to the cultural ancestry of Rome (which really didn't exist), and to give a cultural and literary raison d'etre for Rome's supplanting of Etruria on the Italian Peninsula (which is why Turnus is there) as well as a pseudo-historical background for Rome's enmity and subsequent destruction of Carthage (which is why Queen Dido played such an important role in the Aeneid).

And, of course, throughout the book, there will always be some 'prophetess" who will say something like, "yea, Aeneas, from your loins will spring a mighty race which will be called the Romans and they will rule forever and kick mighty butt, blah blah blah."

Again, it was a propaganda piece, all right, but it was finely crafted indeed, and I consider it better literature than either th Iliad or the Odyssey.

I read a kid version as a kid, the original in Latin IV in high school, and both Dryden's translation from the 1700's and Fitzgerald's modern version, which is the best translation around.

The one I have now is Billson's interlinear translation, with Virgil's original on one side, and a pretty fair English translation when I want to cheat.


[edit on 28-1-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Such ancient history is based on myths and some archeologic findings, think about all the old greek mythology character, Heracles, Achilles, Alexander etc. All of em sons of gods, so i wouldnt really worry about sword of Troy, it might have been symbol of troy as town key or something similiar.

Also Aenaes never founded Rome, it was Romulus and Remus

The 'sword of troy', as far as I know, was an addition by the filmakers.

Notice who he gives it to, Aeneas, carrying his father, Anchises (or somesuch). The Romans had a national epic that had Aeneas, who wasn't a boy but was an active participant in the Trojan War, as the founder of Rome. He leaves the destroyed city with his family, and has an adventure much like the returning greek heroes, eventually ending up in the small village of Rome, occupied by greeks. In that way they maintain a lineage with the two great forces of classical civilization (by their reconing anyway)

off the street
so Virgil decided to make one up

I recall that Augustus commisioned a national epic from virgil also.

Also Aenaes never founded Rome, it was Romulus and Remus

These are two seperate foundation myths.

Just for fun I did a Google searcg for "sword of troy" just to see, even though I believe it was just made up for the movie.

To my surprise, this thread was the number one Google response.

spacemunkey says:

"Also Aenaes never founded Rome, it was Romulus and Remus"

No. Romulus and Remus are fictional characters, exactly as Aeneas was. Plus, they were both wolf-suckers!





[edit on 28-1-2005 by Off_The_Street]

reply to post by Who Dares Wins


Romulus and Remus were said to be descendants of Aeneas. Aeneas fled Troy and went to Carthage with other Trojans where he met Dido. After he left Carthage he went to "Hesperia"(modern day Italy) where he found a new wife.

[edit on 6-4-2009 by MLArmstrong]

reply to post by Scoey


True swords were not as good in the days of the trojan wars.
But thier swords were made of various kinds of bronze.
Some bronzes are very hard and actually will make for a better weapon than plain iron.

And yes the Katana has gone through many changes in blade shape size and cross section over the years.

The long sword used in the 11th 12th centuries was designed for use on horseback.
The cross section of the blade has changed greatly, during the years of civil war, the cross section was a clam shell shape in order to give the blade the strength to cut through armor wether it be mongol or not.
with the peace that came with the edo period the cross section changed to a starighter vee shape that gave a sharper cutting edge, better to cut unarmored flesh with.

Even though the japanesse initially learned their sword making craft from the chinese, the swords made in later periods have no equals anywhere.

Granted there are many different sword making traditions that used small batches of steel combined to make swords, but none came close to the advanced techniques used by the japanese.
The method of twisted wire forging used by the norse is only similar to the japanese method.

The japanese not only used a folding technique but they also mastered composite construction and differential hardening.
And the japanese didnt start with steel.

The core was made from grey cast iron and the skin from white cast iron, carbon was added througout the forging process as were other trace elements, that they didnt know were there.

personally
I would take a 16th century daito over any bladed weapon.

an interesting note,

the trojans were known as horsemen, the reamins a sizable stables have been uncovered at troy.
they would have fled on horseback and the only place to go is north into the steppes of southern ukraine and russia, along the black sea.

Along the black sea you have the scythians, and the scythians have a legend that there was sword that was the ancestral sword of thier kings, and it was buried/lost/stuck in a rock, and whom ever found it would be king.
This is the origin of the arthurian legend about a sword.
HMMMMMM

Never mind the Romans - one of the princes fleeing Troy founded a well-known city in 1070 BC, and left a stone here to prove it - said by some to be the stone from which Arthur pulled the sword -

www.bbc.co.uk...

The sword is a metaphor just as in the stories of merlin and Arthur. It represents the power of the ruling party.

As Military rule gave way to royalty, the Kings sceptor and signet ring, or wax seal, came to represent the ruling party.

As Royalty gave way to democracy and Republics, the wax seal gave way to the seal of the President, or institution of rule.

This metaphor is used in many movies and stories to represent the authority to govern and rule. When Senator Obama was campaigning he got into a bit of debate because he used a seal on his podium before he was President Elect.

Originally posted by jammaster316
i was watchin troy last night to c who the boy Paris gave the sword to was and i found out that his name is Aeneas. in Rome: total war his name is in there as the founder of Rome. "Aeneas was to have been a hero fighting the Greeks in the Trojan wars. The son of Venus and a mortal father he escaped as the great city of Troy was sacked and after quite an odyssey he landed in Latium through which the river Tiber flows. Aeneas married the daughter of King Latinus, only to aggrieve King Turnus of Rutuli who himself had his eye on her. As usual in ancient tales, there ensued a war for the princess between Turnus and Aeneas, who was by then supported by King Tarchon of the Etruscans. Naturally Aeneas, son of Venus, was triumphant.
The sack of Troy is dated to around 1220 BC."

[edit on 28-1-2005 by jammaster316]

[edit on 28-1-2005 by jammaster316]

This is it right here.

The Trojan War is a myth and Homer was a creative writer not a historian. The story is about the gods and their control of the humans. They play with the humans. Remember Achilles saying "the gods envy us because we're mortals"? The sword of troy which was lost was suppose to be linked to the founding of Rome and the greatest empire the world ever has.



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[edit on 19-4-2009 by 12m8keall2c]