The Trojan War in Brief: The Iliad and the Lost Epic Cycle

The whole Trojan War in order, from the Judgment of Paris to the homecomings, showing what the Iliad covers, what came from the lost Epic Cycle and where sources differ.

Nine Muses · Last reviewed October 24, 2026 · 6 min read

Most people meet the Trojan War through the Iliad, and many are surprised to find that the Iliad does not include the Judgment of Paris, the wooden horse or the fall of Troy. Homer's poem tells one episode near the end of a ten-year war. The rest of the story was told in other early epics that are now lost, known to us mainly through ancient summaries and scattered quotations.

This guide puts the whole sequence in order. It draws on Samuel Butler's prose translation of the Iliad and on the surviving summaries of the "Epic Cycle," translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White in 1914, and it flags the places where ancient writers told the story differently.

The Trojan Cycle in one list

Evelyn-White explains that six epics, together with the Iliad and Odyssey, made up the Trojan Cycle. The summaries he translates come from the Chrestomathy of Proclus, and they give the poems in this order:

Cypria (eleven books): the causes of the war and the years before the Iliad.
Iliad: the anger of Achilles.
Aethiopis (five books), attributed to Arctinus of Miletus: from the Amazon Penthesileia to the death of Achilles.
Little Iliad (four books), attributed to Lesches of Mitylene: from the contest for Achilles' arms to the wooden horse.
Sack of Ilium (two books), also attributed to Arctinus: the fall of the city.
Returns (five books), attributed to Agias of Troezen: the Greek leaders' journeys home.
Odyssey: the return of Odysseus.
Telegony (two books), attributed to Eugammon of Cyrene: Odysseus's later life and death.

Evelyn-White argues that these cyclic poems are later than Homer and were "written round" the Iliad and Odyssey, filling the gaps on either side.

How it began: the Cypria

According to Proclus's summary, "Zeus plans with Themis to bring about the Trojan war." A quoted fragment of the Cypria gives a grim reason: the earth was overburdened with people, and Zeus resolved to relieve it "by causing the great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world."

Strife arrives at the wedding feast of Peleus and starts a quarrel between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite over which is fairest. Hermes leads them to Alexandrus (Paris) on Mount Ida, and he chooses Aphrodite, "lured by his promised marriage with Helen." Paris sails to Sparta, where Menelaus hosts him and then leaves for Crete. Aphrodite brings Helen and Paris together, and they sail away by night with great treasure.

Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon gather the Greek leaders. Odysseus pretends to be mad to avoid going, until Palamedes exposes him by seizing his infant son Telemachus. At Aulis, Agamemnon offends Artemis by boasting after shooting a stag, and she holds back the fleet with storms. The Greeks prepare to sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia, but in the Cypria, Artemis snatches her away to the land of the Tauri and puts a stag on the altar in her place.

On the way, Philoctetes is bitten by a snake and abandoned on Lemnos. At Troy, Hector kills Protesilaus as the Greeks land. Years of raids follow, and from the spoils Achilles receives Briseis and Agamemnon receives Chryseis, setting up the quarrel that opens the Iliad.

The Iliad: one quarrel in the tenth year

The Iliad begins: "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans." By Book 2, nine years have passed, and the Greeks recall a prophecy from Calchas that they would fight nine years and take the town in the tenth.

The poem's arc, in brief:

Book 1: Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles, who withdraws from the fighting.
Book 9: Achilles refuses an embassy. He says his mother Thetis told him of two fates: die at Troy with a name that lives forever, or go home to a long life and be forgotten.
Book 16: Patroclus fights in Achilles' armor. Apollo strikes him, Euphorbus wounds him, and Hector kills him.
Book 18: Thetis has new armor made for her son by Hephaestus (Butler calls him Vulcan).
Book 22: Achilles kills Hector. Dying, Hector foretells "the day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo, valiant though you be, shall slay you at the Scaean gates."
Book 24: Priam ransoms his son's body, and the poem ends: "Thus, then, did they celebrate the funeral of Hector tamer of horses."

Note that Butler uses Roman names for the gods (Jove for Zeus, Juno for Hera, Minerva for Athena), so expect them if you read his translation.

After Hector: the Aethiopis and the Little Iliad

The Aethiopis picks up right after Hector's funeral. The Amazon Penthesileia, a daughter of Ares, comes to help the Trojans and is killed by Achilles. Memnon, the son of Eos, arrives in armor made by Hephaestus, kills Nestor's son Antilochus and is killed in turn. Then, just as Hector predicted, Achilles is "killed by Paris and Apollo." Ajax carries his body from the field while Odysseus holds off the Trojans.

In the Little Iliad, Odysseus wins Achilles' arms with Athena's help, and Ajax, maddened, kills himself. Odysseus captures Helenus, who prophesies how Troy can be taken. Philoctetes is brought back from Lemnos and kills Paris, and Achilles' son Neoptolemus joins the war. Finally, "Epeius, by Athena’s instruction, builds the wooden horse."

The fall: the Sack of Ilium

The Trojans debate what to do with the horse: throw it from the rocks, burn it, or dedicate it to Athena. The third view wins, and they turn to feasting. Two serpents kill Laocoon and one of his sons. Sinon, who had got into the city by a trick, raises a fire signal, and the Greeks sail back from Tenedos as the men inside the horse come out.

What follows is brutal. Neoptolemus kills Priam at the altar of Zeus. Menelaus recovers Helen. Ajax the son of Ileus drags Cassandra away by force, tearing away the image of Athena with her. Polyxena is sacrificed at Achilles' tomb, and Odysseus kills Hector's young son Astyanax. The summary ends ominously: "Athena plans to destroy them on the high seas."

The homecomings

In the Returns, Athena sets Agamemnon and Menelaus quarreling. Diomedes and Nestor get home safely; Menelaus reaches Egypt with only five ships; Agamemnon is murdered by Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra and later avenged by Orestes. Odysseus's own long voyage is left to the Odyssey.

Where the ancient sources disagree

The Greeks themselves argued about this story.

Helen in Egypt: the historian Herodotus, in G. C. Macaulay's translation, reports that Egyptian priests told him Helen never reached Troy. Paris was blown off course to Egypt, and King Proteus kept Helen there. The Trojans told the Greeks they did not have her, and were not believed. Herodotus says he agrees, reasoning that Priam would surely have handed Helen back rather than lose so many sons.
The voyage home with Helen: Herodotus says the Cypria had Paris reach Troy on the third day with a "gently-blowing wind and a smooth sea," and he uses this to argue that the Cypria was not by Homer. The summary by Proclus, by contrast, has Hera send a storm that drives the lovers to Sidon.
The death of Astyanax: Proclus's summary of the Sack of Ilium says Odysseus killed him, but a quoted fragment of the Little Iliad has Achilles' son Neoptolemus snatch the child from his nurse and throw him from a tower.
Authorship: a fragment preserved by Tzetzes says Stasinus composed the Cypria, "which the more part say was Homer’s work."

Key takeaways

The Iliad covers a short stretch of the war's tenth year, from Achilles' quarrel to Hector's funeral.
The rest of the story comes from the Epic Cycle, which survives mainly in Proclus's summaries and fragments.
The Judgment of Paris and Iphigeneia's rescue come from the Cypria; the wooden horse from the Little Iliad and the Sack of Ilium.
Hector's dying prophecy in the Iliad matches the Aethiopis account of Achilles' death.
Ancient writers disagreed about basics, including whether Helen was ever at Troy.

Sources

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