GIFT HORSE According to Homer’s Iliad, the curious Trojans warmly welcomed the strange wooden horse... to their ultimate cost
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You could say that one of the biggest box office smashes of the past 15 years was three millennia in the making. When Troy was released in 2004, thousands of movie-lovers across the globe thrilled to the film’s high-octane battle sequences, expansive scenery and, no doubt, the sight of Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom running around without many clothes on.
There is, of course, nothing new in this. For the story of the Trojan Wars has been thrilling audiences for almost 3,000 years, ever since it was first brought to life by a shadowy Greek poet called Homer in his epic poem The Iliad.