thousands of soldiers clashing, the focus of the story is the human aspect, independent of time, of the victories and defeats narrated by Homer." Through its heroes like Achilles (Brad Pitt), Hector (Eric Bana), Paris (Orlando Bloom), and Priam (Peter O'Toole), it is these same human aspects that Petersen has emphasized in bringing to contemporary viewers Homer's immortal epic, which has influenced people of every age since it was composed. "To my mind, no writer in the last three thousand years has succeeded in describing the horror of war in more detail than Homer. And the contemporary viewer should also be drawn into the story through the lives and passions of these men."

The principal theme of the story, which consists of a number of legends, is the prolonged conflict between the Achaians (Greeks) and the Trojans, which begins when Paris, son of the Trojan King Priam, abducts Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, and brings her to Troy. Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, Greece's most powerful king, call upon all the kings to go to war against Troy and, with a fleet of close to