Troy and the Trojan War were popular in the middle ages, but there was no copy of Homer in the west at that time. Homer came back into western literature only in the 19th century. The Destruction of Troy, by Dares Phrygius (DP) was the primary source for those authors who stoked medieval Europe's fascination with, and idealization of the Trojan war.
Text: https://www.theoi.com/Text/DaresPhrygius.html
Summary: http://www.maicar.com/GML/DaresTW.html
I will cite a few things he says about the war, especially about how it started. But my main question in reading this has been: what does Dares say about the physical city itself? It turns out that he says very little about it. The words Xanthus, Scamander, Simois, river, stream, creek, brook, marsh, bog, swamp and bridge do not occur in DP.
There are several memorable things in this work. But I will start with a footnote from the translator.
23. There are eleven truces reported in Dares, lasting, all told, more than seven and a half years.
That is footnote 23, and it is well worth thinking about. I find the idea of a 10 year siege unrealistic, and adding over 7 years of truces does not help. Let's look at a passage about a truce.
The Lycian Sarpedon, leading his men, attacked and caused great slaughter and havoc. The Rhodian Tlepolemus met and resisted Sarpedon, but finally fell badly wounded. Then Pheres, the son of Admetus, came up and, after a long hand-to-hand fight with Sarpedon, was killed. But Sarpedon also was wounded and forced from the battle. Thus for several days there was fighting, and many leaders died on both sides. The Trojan casualties, however, were greater. When they sent envoys to seek a respite for burying their dead and healing their wounded, Palamedes granted a truce of one year. Both sides buried their dead and cared for their wounded. Their agreement allowed them to go to each other’s areas; the Trojans went to the camp, the Greeks to the city. ... Meanwhile Palamedes was readying the ships and fortifying the camp with walls and towers. The Trojans were training their army, repairing their walls, adding a rampart and ditch, and diligently getting everything ready. (DP 26)
The Greeks were visiting the city? Does that sound like the little fortress on Hisarlik? And why would Trojans visit the Greek camp? Were they bartering? Also notable: DP says that the Trojans added a rampart and a ditch during this one year truce, while the Greeks built walls and towers.
This is a one year truce, there is also a three year truce.
Agamemnon, seeing the steadily mounting casualties, felt that time was needed for burying the dead. Therefore, he sent Ulysses and Diomedes as envoys to Priam to seek a truce of three years. During this time the Greeks would also be able to heal their wounded, repair the ships, reinforce the army, and gather supplies. ... When Priam heard of their coming and what they wanted, he called all of his leaders to council. Then he announced that these were envoys Agamemnon had sent to seek a truce of three years. Hector suspected something was wrong. They wanted, he said, a truce for too long a time. Nevertheless, when Priam ordered the embers of the council to give their opinions, they voted to grant a truce of three years. During the truce the Trojans repaired their walls, healed their wounded, and buried their dead with great honor. After three years, the war was resumed. Hector and Troilus led forth their army. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, and Diomedes commanded the Greeks. A great slaughter arose, with Hector killing the leaders of the first rank, Phidippus and Antiphus, and Achilles slaying Lycaon and Phorcys. Countless numbers of others fell on both sides, as the battle raged for thirty consecutive days. Priam, seeing that many of his men were falling, set envoys to seek a truce of six months. This Agamemnon, following the will of his council, conceded. With the resumption of hostilities, the battle raged for twelve days. On both sides many of the bravest leaders fell; and even more were wounded, a majority of whom died during treatment. Therefore, Agamemnon sent envoys to Priam to seek a thirty-day truce for burying the dead. Priam, after consulting his council, agreed. (DP 22-23)
This passage describes a three year truce, followed by 30 days of battle, followed by a 6 month truce, followed by 12 days of battle, followed by a 30 day truce. That is 42 days of battle and 3.5 years of truce.
But it is not just the truces that stand out. Consider the claim that "Priam sent Alexander and Deiphobus into Paeonia to raise an army" (DP 8). This makes it sound like it is not so much that the Paeonians joined the Trojans, but that the Trojans recruited some of them.
Then Priam asked for other opinions: Would anyone like to speak against war? Thereupon Panthus, addressing himself to the king and his party, told what he had heard from his father, Euphorbus: If Alexander brought home a wife from Greece, Troy would utterly fall. It was much better, he said, to spend one’s life in peace than to risk the loss of liberty in war. Panthus’ speech won the contempt of the people, and they asked the king what had to be done. When he told them that they must build ships to go against Greece and gather supplies for the army, they cried out that they were ready to obey any order he gave them. For this he thanked them profusely, and then dismissed the assembly. Soon afterwards he ordered men to go to the forests of Ida and there cut wood for building the ships; and he sent Hector into Upper Phrygia to levy an army.
When Cassandra heard of her father’s intentions, she told what the Trojans were going to suffer if Priam should send a fleet into Greece. Soon preparations were made. The ships were built, and the army which Alexander and Deiphobus had raised in Paeonia had come. (DP 8-9)
According to Dares, the king of Troy levied armies, built ships and intended to go against Greece in order to free his sister, Hesione, who had been taken captive when Hercules sacked Troy some years earlier. However, before sending the armies he already raised, he sends Alexander to visit the demi-gods Castor and Pollux in Sparta. But this does not go well. Alexander stops at the island of Cythera.
While Alexander was on Cythera, Helen, the wife of Menelaus, decided to go there. Thus she went to the shore, to the seaport town of Helaea, intending to worship in the temple of Diana and Apollo. Alexander, on hearing that she had arrived, wanted to see her. Confident in his own good looks, he began to walk within sight of her. When Helen learned that the Alexander who was the son of King Priam had come to Helaea, she also wanted to see him. Thus they met and spent some time just staring, struck by each other’s beauty. Alexander ordered his men to be ready to sail that night. They would seize Helen in the temple and take her home with them. Thus at a given signal they invaded the temple and carried her off – she was not unwilling – along with some other women they captured. The inhabitants of the town, having learned about the abduction of Helen, tried to prevent Alexander from carrying her off. They fought long and hard, but Alexander’s superior forces defeated them. After despoiling the temple and taking as many captives as his ships would hold, he set sail for home. (DP 10)
As Dares tells it, Priam's armies never went to Greece even though at least one of them apparently arrived in Troy. Only Alexander and his royal ships went to Greece, and they returned with Helen, as many captives as they could carry, and spoils from the temple. Btw, "Diana and Apollo" combines a Roman with a Greek deity. Artemis and Apollo would be two Greek names.
Castor and Pollux are semi-divine savior types, credited with saving those in trouble at sea or in warfare. They are twins. They have twin semi-divine sisters, Clytemnestra (wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae), and Helen (wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, but better known as Helen of Troy). All four are offspring of Zeus. Agamemnon and Menelaus are also brothers.
So, Alexander is supposed to go to the two semi-divine brothers for help getting back king Priam's sister Hesione, whom Hercules abducted from Troy. But instead, he abducts one of their semi-divine sisters. A trade of Helen for Hesione at this point should be possible. But it never happens.
Castor and Pollux, immediately upon learning of their sister Helen’s abduction, had set sail in pursuit. When, however, they landed on the island of Lesbos, a great storm arose and, lo and behold, they were nowhere in sight. That was the story. Later, people thought that they had been made immortal. The Lesbians, taking to the sea and searching even to Troy, had returned to report that they found no trace of Castor or Pollux. (DP 11)
Helen's brothers disappeared while chasing her abductors across the sea.
Meanwhile Priam, having learned that the Greeks were preparing for war, sent men throughout Phrygia to enlist the support of the neighboring armies. He himself zealously readied his forces at home. (DP 15)
That is the second time Priam raises troops in Phrygia.
On arriving at Aulis, Agamemnon appeased the goddess Diana. Then he commanded his followers to sail onwards to Troy. Philoctetes, who had gone with the Argonauts to Troy, acted as pilot. Then they landed at a city which was ruled by King Priam. They took it by storm and carried off much booty. On coming to the island of Tenedos, they killed all the people, and Agamemnon divided the booty. Then, having called a meeting of the council, he sent envoys to Priam to ask for the return of Helen and the booty Alexander had taken; Diomedes and Ulysses were chosen to go on this mission. At the same time Achilles and Telephus were sent to plunder Mysia, the region ruled by King Teuthras. (DP 15-16)
At this point, the Greek contingent has raided two shores and sent Achilles to raid the coast south of the Troad. As Dares tells it, Telephus became king of Mysia after he saved King Teuthras from the wrath of Achilles.
Meanwhile the envoys had come to Priam, and Ulysses stated Agamemnon’s demands. If Helen and the booty, he said, were returned and proper reparations were made, the Greeks would depart in peace. Priam answered by reviewing the wrongs the Argonauts had done: the death of his father, the sack of Troy, and the capture of his sister Hesione. He ended by describing how contemptuously the Greeks had treated Antenor when sent as his envoy. He, therefore, repudiated peace. He declared war and commanded that the envoys of the Greeks be expelled from his boundaries. Thus the envoys returned to their camp on Tenedos and reported what Priam had answered. And the council discussed what to do. (DP 17)
The exchange of Helen for Hesione will never take place.
The war is provoked by humans, according to Dares, without gods or magic intervening. Hercules sacked Troy and carried off Hesione. The war then arises in the wake of Priam's attempts to retrieve Hesione, and from Alexander's snatching Helen and despoiling the temple at Cythera. Priam actually raises armies to retrieve Hesione, just as the Greeks later raise armies to retrieve Helen, and earlier, Hercules raised armies to take revenge on Troy for being unwelcoming toward the Argonauts.
So, what does Dares say about the physical city? In the following passage, King Priam is plotting to kill Aeneas and other traitors.
Begging Amphimachus to be faithful and true, he told him to gather a band of armed men. This could be done without any suspicion. As for his part, tomorrow after going to the citadel to worship as usual, he would invite those men to dine with him. Then Amphimachus, along with his band, must rush in and kill them. (DP 38)
The following passage ends the climactic scene in DP.
During the whole night the Greeks did not cease wreaking slaughter and carrying off plunder. With the coming day, Agamemnon called all of his leaders to a meeting on the citadel. (D 41f)
These two passages distinguish the citadel from the rest of Troy. These are the most important remarks Dares makes about the city of Troy.
He [Priam] also constructed a palace, in which he consecrated an altar and statue to Jupiter; sent Hector into Paeonia; and built the gates of Troy – the Antenorean, the Dardanian, the Ilian, the Scaean, the Thymbraean, and the Trojan. (DP 4)
When they had sworn to this promise, Polydamas gave them instructions. At night, he said, they must lead the army to the Scaean gate – the one whose exterior was carved with a horse’s head. Antenor and Aeneas would be in charge of the guard at this point, and they would open the bolt and raise a torch as the sign for attack. (DP 40)
That is six gates and a palace containing a temple of Jupiter. Dares also mentions a temple of Minerva in which some characters hid after the war. And he mentions a temple of Apollo built outside the gates of the city. In the following passage, Queen Hecuba is plotting to kill Achilles.
She would summon Achilles, in Priam’s name, to come to the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo in front of the gate, to settle an agreement according to which she would give him Polyxena to marry. When Achilles came to this meeting, Alexander could treacherously kill him. Achilles’ death would be victory sufficient for her. (DP 34)
So, Dares says there is a temple of Apollo outside one of the 6 gates of Troy. As noted in an earlier post, the anonymous medieval manuscript known as the Excidium claims that the Greeks built a temple of Minerva (Athena) outside the walls of the city of Troy.
Agamemnon and Menelaus besieged Troy with a thousand ships and ten dukes, where they erected a temple of Minerva outside the walls, and sought counsel on what should be the future for them. The answer to them was: unless through Achilles, son of Peleus and Tethys, there will be no way that Troy could be breached. (Excidium print edition page 9)
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