<P> In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta . The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad . The core of the Iliad (Books II--XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade - long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes . Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments . Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid . </P> <P> The war originated from a quarrel between the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, after Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, gave them a golden apple, sometimes known as the Apple of Discord, marked "for the fairest". Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the "fairest", should receive the apple . In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy . Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the brother of Helen's husband Menelaus, led an expedition of Achaean troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris' insult . After the deaths of many heroes, including the Achaeans Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojans Hector and Paris, the city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Horse . The Achaeans slaughtered the Trojans (except for some of the women and children whom they kept or sold as slaves) and desecrated the temples, thus earning the gods' wrath . Few of the Achaeans returned safely to their homes and many founded colonies in distant shores . The Romans later traced their origin to Aeneas, Aphrodite's son and one of the Trojans, who was said to have led the surviving Trojans to modern - day Italy . </P> <P> The ancient Greeks believed that Troy was located near the Dardanelles and that the Trojan War was a historical event of the 13th or 12th century BC, but by the mid-19th century, both the war and the city were widely seen as non-historical . In 1868, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann met Frank Calvert, who convinced Schliemann that Troy was a real city at what is now Hissarlik in Turkey . On the basis of excavations conducted by Schliemann and others, this claim is now accepted by most scholars . </P> <P> Whether there is any historical reality behind the Trojan War remains an open question . Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age . Those who believe that the stories of the Trojan War are derived from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th centuries BC, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194--1184 BC, which roughly corresponds with archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VII . </P>

Where did the battle of troy take place
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