The Trojan War by Barry Strauss Page B

One of the Trojan lookouts was Hector’s brother Polites. He was a fast runner and no doubt had excellent vision. Information that he provided would surely have been welcome, even though the Greeks had hardly kept their approach a secret.
    On the way to Troy from Aulis, the Greeks seem to have stopped first at the island of Scyros and sacked it. If there is anything to the epic tradition that Achilles’ mother had forced him as a boy into a humiliating hiding place on Scyros in girl’s clothing in order to dodge the war, which she foresaw, then this would have been sweet revenge for him. When the Greeks attacked en route to Troy, the Scyrians would not have had a chance against so big a force. In addition to settling Achilles’ private score, the attack would have been a morale builder for the men, who could thrill to their first victory. It was also an experiment, allowing the generals to see how their untested army might perform.
    Then, continuing northeastward, the Greeks landed on Lemnos. The rugged island has unexpected bounties, such as its claylike soil with medicinal properties and its sweet red wine. On Lemnos the Greeks lived like Olympians, feasting on beef and chugging wine by the cupful. The more they drank, the more they boasted: each Greek could take on a hundred Trojans, no, two hundred! It was a last binge for the boys, but the generals had to think about strategy. Lemnos was a stepping stone on the route from northern Greece across the Aegean to Troy and the Dardanelles. Lemnos was also a potentially crucial source of supplies for any Greek camp at Troy as well as a potential market for any captives whom the Greeks would want to sell as slaves. It was essential to secure Lemnos before going on.
    But the price of doing business on Lemnos was that it gave the Trojans time to prepare. And then some: the epic tradition outside Homer records that after Lemnos the Greeks took a wrong turn. Instead of landing at Troy they ended up about seventy-five miles to the south on the Aegean coast of the region known as Mysia. Mistakenly thinking they had reached Troy, they attacked the forces of King Telephus. The king’s army bloodied the Greeks, but in the end Telephus was wounded by Achilles. Myth says that only a scraping of the wood from Achilles’ spear could heal the wound—an unusual example of the herbal medicine practiced by the Greeks. Achilles’ gigantic spear was made of ash wood, and boiled ash bark makes a good poultice to apply to a wound. In exchange for the medicine, Telephus showed the Greeks the way to Troy.
    Whether or not there is any truth in this story, it underlines the fragility of early navigation—and of early military intelligence. If the tale is true, it means that the Trojans had even more time to prepare. They were indeed ready for the invader.
    Troy had assembled a grand coalition. Some of the allies came from Europe—Thrace and Macedonia—but most were Anatolian. Alliances were the bread and butter of Anatolian politics, and many figure in Hittite texts, so Homer’s list of Troy’s Anatolian partners is historically plausible. First come the Trojans or, more accurately, the Trojans and Dardanians, to refer respectively to the populations of the Trojan Plain and, to its south, the fertile middle valley of the Scamander River—Aeneas’s country. Next come men from other places in the Troad, such as Abydos, Arisbe, and Zeleia. Then there are Anatolian regions beyond the Troad, namely Mysia and Phrygia due east; Paphlagonia on the Black Sea; Maeonia to the south, in the Hermus River valley; Caria, farther south, in the Maeander River valley; and Lycia, in the southwestern corner of Anatolia. The allied army might also have included Hittites, perhaps referred to by Homer as Halizones from Halube. So just as they had promised in the Alaksandu Treaty, the Hittites might have sent infantry and chariotry in Troy’s moment of