TROJAN WAR UPDATE:

• Judgement of Paris: Thetis, the sea-goddess destined to have a son greater than his father, is married off to a mortal hero Peleus. Their wedding is a great social event attended by all gods except the goddess of discord, Eris, who had not been nvited. She throws on the table an apple inscribed: to the fairest. Hera, queen of gods; Athena, goddess of wisdom and Aphrodite, goddess of love, claim the apple; Paris, prince of Troy, judges the divine beauty contest and gives the apple to Aphrodite in exchange for the promise to let him marry the fairest woman of the world.
• Elopement of Helen: Paris visits Sparta in Greece and elopes with the queen Helen, who leaves behind her husband Menelaus, but takes the royal treasures. Greek cities gather a joint army of 1,000 ships to sail against Troy and bring Helen back. The chief commander of Greeks is Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae and the brother of Menelaus. For the success of the expedition, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia at the altar of Artemis.
• (The Iliadbegins) The wrath of Achilles: After ten years of the siege, Troy still holds on. Apollo, god of prophecy, poetry and medicine, punishes Greeks with a plague. Achilles, the mightiest Greek warrior (son of Peleus and Thetis, at whose wedding the whole affair had begun), calls for  the soldiers' assembly and asks the diviners of the cause of the plague. The cause: Apollo wants Agamemnon to return a captive girl Chriseis to her priestly father. Enraged, Agamemnon takes away Achilles' captive woman Briseis. Achilles quarrels with Agamemnon and retreats from battle.
• Death of Patroclus: Greeks suffer losses. Achilles' best friend, Patroclus, borrows his armor and goes to the battle to help the Greeks out and prove himself as a warrior on his own rather than a mere shadow of Achilles. He is slain by Hector, the  mightiest defender of Troy.
•  Achilles returns to battle: Devastated by the friend's death, Achilles rushes back to battle and slaughters Trojans, looking for Hector.
• Hector's good-bye: One of the most moving scenes of the Iliad:Farewell of Hector to his wife Andromache, whom he meets on the city wall with their baby-son in her arms. When asked to be careful in battle, Hector tells her that he would rather die before the city is seized, so that he does not see Andromache and the baby dragged away as slaves: he can no longer live with the knowledge that Troy is doomed.
• Death of Hector: Achilles kills Hector in single combat and daily drags his corpse around the burial place of Patroclus. Gods are angry for the insolence towards the dead.
• Visit of Priam to Achilles: A powerful scene of the Iliad: Old Trojan king Priam, Hector's father, secretly comes to Achilles at the great risk of being captured or killed, offering a rich ransom for his dead son's body. Achilles shows respect to the ruined old man; they weep together on human misfortunes, and Priam leaves with the corpse of his son. Truce is granted for 9 days, and Hector has hero's funerals. (The Iliad ends.)
• The fall of Troy: Achilles is killed by Paris/Apollo's arrow; Troy still stands. Odysseus devises the Trojan Horse: soldiers hide inside; the Trojans naively pull the horse to the city; Troy is burned overnight. Priam and his family all killed or captured; the Greeks throw Hector's baby-son off the wall, not to allow his progeny to live. The rampant pillage and slaughter angers the gods, and an ill-omened return is waiting for the most of the Greeks. (Thus, king Agamemnon, on return home, is killed by his wife Clytemnestra, avenging the death of their daughter Iphigenia at the altar of Artemis at the ouset of the war.)