Helen of Troy: the Greek epics are not just about war – they’re about women

Of all the characters who appear in the Trojan war, all the men who fight and die in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, all those monsters and nymphs who waylay the storm-battered hero of The Odyssey, only one character is so integral to the story that we have added the words “of Troy” to her name. It reflects a fascinating truth about this remarkable myth: it is no less a story about women than it is a story of men. Without Helen, there is no war, no epic, no drama.

is ostensibly the story of one man. Its opening line is, “Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Peleus’s son, of Achilles.” Achilles embraces the line – the first word is his rage, the. It tells the story not of a man but of a city. Of Ilios, another name for Troy – the theme of a new show at the British Museum, .