Greek Perspectives on the Justness and Merits of the Trojan War

This paper poses the question of how later Greek writers and generals view the Trojan War, its causes, and, especially, whether the war was just or worthwhile. What makes this question meaningful is that it involves important issues, such as the place of the divine and human in bringing about war, the extent to which the relation between cause and the war as an effect is proportional, the role of private as opposed to public interest in going to war, one's responsibility for collective action and suffering, and leaders' and followers' different perspectives on the war and its causes. The paper examines how historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides, playwrights such as Aeschylus and Euripides, the Athenian essayist Isocrates, and the Spartan king Agesilaus and Alexander the Great regard and use the Trojan War.