EXTREME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA DURING THE TROJAN WAR

Abstract

The Homeric Epic, Iliad, describes the Trojan War’s events during a period of only seven days around Pa- troclus’ death. These events are initiated after Athena’s appearance as a shooting star. During this period, the poet describes in detail various physical phenomena, which attributed to the gods. Zeus’ thunderbolts in a clear sky, ‘divine’ screams, a fallen thunder stone inducing odor of sulphur, sporadic yellow, red and dark clouds appearing out of nowhere, red droplets are falling from the sky, river Xanthus is flooding and turns into red, Hephaestus’ ‘flames’ ignite fires, whereas seismic activity and raising of the sea level are recorded. The above phenomena can be explained as a consequence of the local weather’s circumstances and land- scape peculiarities, as well as due to the partial solar eclipse’s manifestation, which occurred during the same period. We analysed all these descriptions in detail and we concluded that an intense astronomical phenomenon like a meteor shower including some fireball’s explosions is indicated by the poet, in parallel with the Trojan War’s combats. This is in accordance with the mythological account of a comet’s appearance during Troy’s fall, because meteor showers produced by the remnants of the comets, when they approach to the Sun.