A reporter interviews some veterans from the Troy war, by both sides, about the crucial point of the war: the duel of Achilles and Hector. Homer told the story by the heroes' point of view; now also the average soldier, brave or coward, fierce or ch...
To tell a single day of a war lasted ten years asked almost as much time, travel and work as the ones spent by the Achaeans to conquer the Ilion walls. I gathered and tested tens and tens of tales. I went in the Achaeans palaces and in the Colchis hovels, refuge of the exiles by the burned city. Sometimes, I had to win the reluctance of many witnesses to wake up grievous memories; otherwise, I had to dampen their enthusiasm, which made them boast about never happened deeds. I passed the Ionic Sea, directed to that Italy chosen as resting-place by many reduces of one and the other side.
Many of the fighters on the Scamander shores today are not able to give their version of facts, and I don't mean only the ones, like the brave and gentle Hector, or the quick-feet Achilles, fallen on the field and burnt with their arms on a pyre. Unfortunately, when I began my work, many of the Achaeans chiefs, who escaped the Parches so long to see the victory day, had already fallen, victims of a mocking destiny. So the commander Agamemnon, killed by his wife, or Ajax the Lesser, dead in a wrecking, or the astute Ulysses, a particularly precious witness, notwithstanding his fame as a liar, but about which, actually, I can't even say surely if he's alive or dead. (Not confirmed voices want him just came back to his Ithaca, after an adventurous travel.)
I must, dutifully, make clear a point. A poetical version of the battle, not coinciding with the mine in many points, runs for some time. I don't mean to make a polemic with its author (being him, furthermore, a gravely infirm person) but I must underline that any single word of my reconstruction is based on the facts or on an eyewitnesses.
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I hinted, a little over, to the cruel destiny harassing the Greek winner chefs. Diomedes was among the few ones escaping it, but not wholly. Because an affair of conjugal dissension, that don't matter to report here, he let the native Argus and retired in Apulia, where he lives quietly and doesn't want speak or hear speaking about wars.
Luckily, Hypponax, a veteran of the Trojan War who followed his commander in the new country, has not such problems.
"Our king could not take part to that battle, because he was not again restored by the wounds of the former; but he was again able to take part to the Achaeans chiefs' council. I confess. Seeing Achilles passing, we the Argives wanted to split on his face. I mean, a guy let us in the crucial hour, let the Trojans slaughter us, and then, just because his friend suffered for it, he repents and wants to fight again. But I must say that, besides us needing him, he had a so suffering face that I, and everybody of us, forgave him at once. He made his excuses to Agamemnon for his excesses, Agamemnon made his excuses to him, and they sacrificed a boar to the gods, the usual rituals, in short. We the soldiers, having to go fighting and risking the skin, would have preferred to get the trouble out the way, but chefs, before the battle, always need a little of ceremonies. We waked up a little by boring, when we saw the passing of the eight female slaves gifted by Agamemnon to Achilles as peace sign, and before them the famous Briseis, the stone of the scandal. Sincerely, the big boss put in the basket a lot of other things too, but you understand that, after nine years spent far for home, a soldier who sees women passing, doesn't notice at all vases or horses. The slave women were all nice dolls, but the famous Briseis, with that sad expression on the face, had something of different. Seeing her, you almost understood why Achilles cared so much of her taking away.
