Troy: Myth or Reality

History and Literature in a Bargin Bin

by Philip J. Viverito

Much to my surprise I discovered a very good DVD at of all places Walmart! The cover, shown below gives an idea of what the Trojan Horse might have looked like. While it is not perfect in the reenactments or city views it is an idea piece with the speakers and their concepts being more important and realistic than the images used. Too many horses and no chariots. The city views look more Inca than Trojan but considering the stinker film called Troy this was much better production than the big budget, big disappointment mega film. I can forgive low budget. Troy Myth or Reality made up for its scant budget with good discussions and realistic interpretation via the spoken word. In this DVD a single word is worth a thousand frames of pictures when compared to Troy. In fact it would have done just as well as a audio CD. Nonetheless for the $5.50 it costs, speaks volumes over the bombastic bastardization of the less than epic film Troy. The basic concepts of the period and its ideals and ideas are well developed even if some of the images are incorrect. There are several well made points and the verbiage is not bad. The DVD discusses the style and brutality of Heroic warfare, political situations, with a good handling of the human and divine characters in the story of Troy. The history and the legend are compared and contrasted, weaving both into a reasonable assemblance of order; juxtapositioning myth and reality. This is a good place to start for newbies to the period. Even for the experienced researcher there are a couple of surprises like the horse itself. If I had to chose between spending about $15.00 on the not so-epic film Troy or $5.50 on Troy Myth or Reality there would be no contest, Troy Myth or Reality would win out. Back to Table of Contents -- Classical Hack Newsletter # 5 Back to Classical Hack Newsletter List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Phil Viverito. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com