May 14, 2004: The Film "Troy" Premieres

Top: Brad Pitt as Achilles and Eric Bana as Hector.

Bottom: Diane Kruger as Helen and Orlando Bloom as Paris.

May 14, 2004: The film Troy premieres, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and loosely based on The Iliad, the story of the Trojan War, the most famous conflict of ancient Greek mythology.

Supposedly written in the 8th Century BC by a man known as Homer, it was followed by The Odyssey, possibly popular culture's first sequel. Historians have debated whether these stories actually happened, and whether Homer himself ever existed, or whether the stories were written by two completely different authors.

The Iliad and The Odyssey are among the oldest surviving works of literature still widely read by modern readers. Each of them is divided into 24 "books," and was written in dactylic hexameter.

Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a 10-year siege of the city of Tory by a coalition of Greek states in the Mycenaean Era (1750 to 1050 BC), the poem depicts significant events in the war's final weeks. It focuses primarily on Achilles, a celebrated warrior, whose wrath is the driving force of the narrative, from his fierce quarrel with King Agamemnon of Mycenae to his killing of Prince Hector, son of King Priam of Troy.

The story introduced many concepts to literature:

* "Helen of Troy": Helen is the daughter of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, and the mortal woman Leda. She is the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, who is the brother of Agamemnon. She is said to be the most beautiful woman in Greece, kidnapped by Prince Priam, another son of Priam, and taken to Troy, leading to Agamemnon declaring war on Troy, thus Helen had "the face that launched a thousand ships," as in warships.

* "Sulking in his tent": Agamemnon and Achilles each take a Trojan woman as a concubine, leading to a Trojan appeal to Apollo, Greek god of the Sun, to send a plague onto the Greek troops. To end the plague, Agamemnon returns his concubine, but takes Briseis, the one Achilles took, for himself. This insults Achilles, and he declares that his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon, and so he stays in his tent, resulting in serious battle losses for the Greeks, until Agamemnon satisfies Achilles' sense of honor.

* "Achilles heel": When Achilles was born, his mother, Thetis, dipped him in magic water, so that he would be invulnerable. But, because she held him by the heel, that one part of his body remained vulnerable, and, for all his skill and courage in battle, an arrow to the heel, fired by Paris, is what kills him. The tendon at the back of the human ankle is still known as the "Achilles tendon," or simply "the Achilles."

* "The Trojan horse." This is actually not mentioned in The Iliad, but is mentioned in The Odyssey, and more so in The Aeneid, written by the Roman poet Virgil in the 1st Century BC, as a sequel to the preceding, suggesting that Rome was founded by refugees of the Trojan War.

The giant wooden horse is a peace offering of the Greeks to Troy, and they let it through the gates, despite the warnings of Cassandra, Priam's daughter and a Trojan priestess blessed by Apollo to make accurate predictions, but cursed by him to never have them be believed. (As Homer's tales point out, the Greek gods and goddesses could be very rotten people.)

A "Cassandra" became someone whose prediction of doom is not heeded; and a "Trojan horse" became a bad thing disguising itself as a good thing. In The Aeneid, Virgil referred to it with these words: "I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts," which became the proverb, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." However, the proverb, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth" refers to being grateful for a gift, rather than being suspicious of it, such as trying to inspect a horse's teeth to judge its age, and has nothing to do with the concept of the Trojan horse.

And so the horse is let in through the gates, and that's when the Greek soldiers come out and sack the city, burning it to the ground and taking its goods and many of its women. Thus, after 10 years, is the war finally won. The horse was a plan carried out by King Odysseus of Ithaca, (known in his Latin form as Ulysses), ally of Agamemnon and namesake of The Odyssey. Speaking of which:

* "Odyssey": The sequel tells of Odysseus' 10-year struggle to get home, to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, who was born shortly before his father left for Troy, and now, at age 20, has no memory of him, and doesn't recognize him when he returns. (The Greeks had art, including statues and busts, but they did not paint portraits, much less have photography, by which people could be remembered.) So the word "odyssey" has come to mean any voyage.

What happened to the other major players? Ajax the Great, a grandson of Zeus and thus related to both Achilles and Helen, said to be Greece's second-greatest warrior after Achillies, dies after the events of The Iliad, but before the Sack of Troy; Paris dies in the final battle, as does Priam, killed by Achilles' son, Neoptolemus; Agamemnon was assassinated upon his return by his wife, Clytemnestra; and Menelaus and Helen are reconciled, return to Sparta, and have a happy ending -- mostly, as they do not produce a male heir, and Menelaus' only sons are illegitimate, born during Helen's absence.

The Homeric poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, writing about 400 years after Homer is said to have, Homer was, in simple words, the one who "has educated Greece." Writing in the early 14th Century AD, in The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri used Virgil as a character, and Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign." Writing in the early 18th Century, English writer Alexander Pope said that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets."

(It was Pope who introduced to the English language the sayings, "damn with faint praise," and, "To err is human; to forgive, divine.")

Did the war actually happen? Archaeologists have tried to prove it. Troy was said to have been on the coast of Marmara, the western part of Turkey, or Türkiye as the country now prefers to call itself. Digs at the alleged site have found evidence of a city, and a war that destroyed it, but it would have been part of the Hittite Empire, which lasted from about 1650 to 1190 BC; and there's no indication that any people of Greece had anything to do with it.

The 2004 film gives the date of the fall of Troy as 1184 BC, which may put it at around 100 years after the Biblical Exodus, and about 200 years before King David united the Twelve Tribes of Israel -- presuming, of course, that those events actually happened, which has not been determined by modern science.

The fall of Troy is said to have been part of "the Late Bronze Age Collapse," a series of events in which several civilizations fell. The American archaeologist Eric H. Cline, who has studied these cultures, titled his book about these events 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.

Regardless of whether the war actually happened, the peoples of the lands now known as the Hellenic Republic of Greece and the Republic of Türkiye have hated each other for over 3,000 years.

Later Greek stories based on the war include the plays Agamemnon by Aeschylus; Ajax, Philoctetes and Electra by Sophocles; and The Trojan Women, a new version of Electra, and Orestes by Euripides. In addition to Virgil's Aeneid, Roman stories about the war include The Metamorphoses by Ovid.

The late 14th Century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the poem Troilus and Criseyde, based on the Trojan War. (Troilus was yet another son of Priam, brother to Hector, Paris and Cassandra.) This was adapted by William Shakespeare into his 1602 play Troilus and Cressida.

Both Shakespeare's contemporary Christopher Marlowe and the early 19th Century German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe used Helen in their versions of the story of Faust. The early 20th Century Irish writer William Butler Yeats wrote many poems about the war. In 2019, Natalie Haynes, an English author who specializes in stories set in ancient Greece, published A Thousand Ships, a novel telling the story from various female characters' points of view.

Operas about the war include Les Troyens by (appropriately enough) Hector Berlioz in 1858, and La belle Hélène by Jacques Offenbach in 1864. Modern songs invoking the war include Bob Dylan's "Temporary Like Achilles," Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses," Led Zeppelin's "Achilles Last Stand," and songs titled "Cassandra" by ABBA and Taylor Swift.

As for the 2004 film: It tells the story most people remember, the last year of the siege, the Trojan Horse, and the Sack of Troy. The main cast:

* On the Greek side: Achilles is played by Brad Pitt, Thetis by Julie Christie, Agamemnon by Brian Cox, Menelaus by Brendan Gleeson, and Odysseus by Sean Bean, who, contrary to the joke that he dies in every film he's in, survives to undertake The Odyssey.

* On the Trojan side: Helen is played by Diane Kruger, Hector by Eric Bana, Paris by Orlando Bloom, Priam by Peter O'Toole, Briseis by Rose Byrne, Andromache by Saffron Burrows, and Archeptolemus by Nigel Terry.

Other films about the war include The Private Life of Helen of Troy in 1927, Helen of Troy in 1956, The Trojan Women in 1971, and the NBC TV-movie The Odyssey in 1993. (UPDATE: A new film version of The Odyssey premiered in 2026.)

Amsterdam Football Club Ajax (pronounced "EYE-ax"), the leading soccer team in the Netherlands, and the cleaning product Ajax (pronounced "AY-jax"), are named for Ajax the Great. Many other sports teams have been named the Trojans, including at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and at George Washington High School in Manhattan, though why a school would name its team after the most famous losing side in ancient warfare is a mystery.

"Trojan" is also the name of the world's best-selling brand of condoms, making it even odder for a Catholic school, such as St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Edison, New Jersey, to name their teams the Trojans.

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May 14, 2004 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-5 at Yankee Stadium. Mike Mussina was the winning pitcher, while M's starter Gil Meche didn't get out of the 1st inning. Derek Jeter went 0-for-5, but Bernie Williams went 2-for-3 with 3 RBIs, and Alex Rodriguez went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The New York Mets beat the Houston Astros, 8-3 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston. Steve Trachsel outpitched Roy Oswalt. Mike Piazza and Cliff Floyd hit home runs.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 9-3 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto. The Sox scored 6 runs in the top of the 8th to win it. David Ortiz went 1-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Anaheim Angels beat the Baltimore Orioles, 10-9 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Chone Figgins singled Adam Kennedy home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 8-7 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland. Casey Blake hit a home run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Texas Rangers, 7-1 at Comerica Park (now Fifth Third Park) in Detroit.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 2-0 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee. Horacio Ramírez allowed 5 hits over 8 innings, and John Smoltz completed the 5-hit shutout.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Florida Marlins, 6-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Ray Lankford hit a home run. Albert Pujols went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-2 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-4 at Coors Field in Denver. Pat Burrell went 3-for-4 with a home run, a walk and 4 RBIs. Bobby Abreu went 2-for-3 with a home run, 2 walks and 2 RBIs. Jimmy Rollins went 3-for-5.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 4-3 at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Diego Padres, 6-1 at Petco Park in San Diego.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Ken Griffey Jr. went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-2 at SBC Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in their Conference Finals, but neither was played on this day.

There were 2 games in the NBA Playoffs. In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the New Jersey Nets beat the Detroit Pistons, 127-120 in triple overtime at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. But the Pistons won Game 6 at the Meadowlands and Game 7 back at The Palace to win the series.

And in Game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals, the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Sacramento Kings, 86-74 at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The Kings won Game 6 in Sacramento, but the T-Wolves won Game 7 in Minneapolis. The Pistons beat the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Timberwolves lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, and the Pistons beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals.