The Iliad Begins in the Tenth Year of the War. What Happened Before Book 1?

The first line of the Iliad is not the beginning of the Trojan War. It is almost the end.

In Book 2, the Greek army complains that nine years have already passed at Troy. The poem opens during the tenth year, after the expedition has sailed, landed, fought, raided neighboring cities, taken captives, and failed for years to capture Troy itself.

Homer does not begin by explaining all of this. He begins with the anger of Achilles.

First, an important warning about the backstory

There was no single ancient “Trojan War novel” from which every later version was copied. Greek myth existed in overlapping poems, local traditions, performances, artworks, and later retellings.

The Iliad itself remembers some earlier events. A fuller sequence survives through summaries of other archaic epics that are now lost, especially the Cypria, part of what scholars call the Epic Cycle. The summary below therefore describes the ancient literary tradition, not a claim about what historically happened at a Bronze Age Troy.

The Center for Hellenic Studies publishes Gregory Nagy's translation of Proclus' surviving summaries of the Epic Cycle.

1. The quarrel among the goddesses and the judgment of Paris

In the Cypria tradition, the trouble begins at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the future parents of Achilles. Eris provokes a dispute among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Paris, also called Alexandros, is made the judge.

He chooses Aphrodite, who has promised him Helen.

That is the famous Judgment of Paris. It is prehistory to the Iliad, not an episode dramatized within it.

2. Paris goes to Sparta and Helen goes to Troy

Paris travels to Sparta and is received by Menelaus. While Menelaus is away, Paris and Helen leave together with treasure and eventually reach Troy, where Paris marries her in the Cypria summary.

Ancient and later retellings differ sharply in how much agency Helen has and how to characterize her departure. For purposes of the Iliad, the essential fact is simpler: Helen is now at Troy, Menelaus wants her back, and the Greek expedition forms around that grievance.

3. The Greek leaders gather at Aulis

Menelaus and Agamemnon gather the Greek leaders for an expedition. Odysseus is among those drawn into the war.

The Iliad itself remembers Aulis. In Book 2, Odysseus recalls the omen of a serpent devouring eight sparrows and their mother. Calchas interprets the nine birds as nine years of fighting, with Troy to fall in the tenth. Book 2 also explicitly says that nine years have already passed.

The lost Cypria included more adventures before the army even reached Troy: a mistaken attack on Teuthrania, the wounding and healing of Telephus, a second gathering at Aulis, and the Iphigenia episode in which Artemis prevents the fleet from sailing until the crisis is resolved.

4. Philoctetes is left behind and the Greeks finally reach Troy

On the way, the Cypria says Philoctetes is bitten by a snake and abandoned on Lemnos because of the smell of his wound. He will matter again much later in the war.

When the Greeks land at Troy, the Trojans resist them. Protesilaus is killed as the Greeks come ashore. The Iliad knows this story too: its catalogue says Protesilaus is already dead, killed while leaping first onto Trojan soil.

The Greeks demand Helen and the treasure back. The Trojans refuse. The siege begins.

5. Nine years do not mean nine years of standing outside one wall

The Greek army attacks the surrounding region as well as Troy. Achilles is especially active in these raids. The Cypria summary has him destroying Lyrnessus, Pedasus, and other neighboring cities.

The Iliad itself confirms important parts of this. It says Achilles took Briseis after sacking Lyrnessus, and elsewhere remembers the destruction of nearby cities. These campaigns help explain how the Greeks have food, captives, prizes, and an entire wartime economy before Book 1 begins.

6. Chryseis and Briseis become the immediate cause of the poem

During these campaigns, Agamemnon receives Chryseis as a prize and Achilles receives Briseis.

This is where the broad mythology tightens into the actual plot of the Iliad.

Chryseis is the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo. At the opening of Book 1, Chryses comes to the Greek camp with ransom and asks for her return. Agamemnon humiliates him and refuses. Apollo sends a plague on the army.

Agamemnon eventually agrees to give Chryseis back, but insists on taking Briseis from Achilles as compensation. That seizure produces the quarrel at the center of Book 1.

Achilles withdraws from battle.

Now the Iliad has begun.

Why Homer starts here

A modern retelling would be tempted to begin with the divine beauty contest, explain every family relationship, show the gathering of the fleet, and march chronologically toward Troy.

The Iliad has no interest in doing that.

It opens when one man's wounded honor becomes militarily catastrophic. The preceding nine years matter because they have created the army, the relationships, the grievances, the prizes, and the reputation Achilles believes Agamemnon has insulted. But the poem does not need to dramatize those years in order to make them exert pressure on the present.

This is in medias res in the strong sense. We arrive not merely in the middle of the action, but in a world already loaded with memory.

A compact pre-Book-1 sequence

1. The wedding of Peleus and Thetis leads to the divine dispute and Judgment of Paris.
2. Paris goes to Sparta; Helen and Paris go to Troy.
3. Menelaus and Agamemnon gather the Greek expedition.
4. The fleet assembles at Aulis, with the omen that the war will last nine years before victory in the tenth.
5. After delays and adventures preserved especially in the Cypria, the Greeks reach Troy.
6. Protesilaus dies at the landing; the Trojans refuse Greek demands; the siege begins.
7. Years of fighting and raids follow. Achilles takes Briseis; Agamemnon receives Chryseis.
8. Chryses asks for his daughter back, Apollo sends the plague, Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles, and Achilles withdraws.

At that point, the backstory has done its work. The first great surviving poem of the Trojan War can finally begin.