Comparison of Troy and the Iliad

Wolfgang Peterson tackles the job of bringing the epic of Homer's The Iliad to the big screen in his film Troy. Iliad being a lengthy text, it is impossible to include every detail in a movie. Therefore, there are obvious deviations from the book such as the length of the Trojan War, and the absence of celestial participation in the war. There is also an absence of mortal female characters such as Chryseis, Hecuba, and Cassandra in the movie. In contrast, though, the female characters who are included in the film are developed more elaborately than they are in the book.

In The Iliad, the first of many quarrels between Agamemnon and Achilles is ignited by Briseis and Chryseis. Because Agamemnon is forced to relinquish his prize, Chryseis, he demands Achilles to give up his own war prize, Briseis, as shown in the following quote:

But let this be my warning on your way:

Since Apollo insists on taking my Chryseis,

I'll send her back in my own ships with my crew.

But I, I will be there in person at your tents

To take Briseis in all her beauty, your own prize--

So you can learn just how much greater I am than you

(Homer, I. 215-219)

This angers Achilles so greatly that he nearly kills Agamemnon, but is narrowly stopped in time by Athena. While Troy portrays the tension between Achilles and Agamemnon, it does not provide the same explanations for the animosity as the book does. Rather, the character of Briseis is given most of the credit for their fragile relationship. In the movie, the warrior and the king fight over Briseis, and when that argument is ended with Achilles finally getting his way, he is so distracted by her that it nearly costs the Achaeans the entire war. As Odysseus, played by Sean Bean, says, "Women have a way of complicating things." It is true that Briseis is a character from the book, however she does not play as large of a role in the story as the character does in the movie and her name is only mentioned a few times throughout the book. Chryseis is missing in the movie, but her character is somewhat woven into the character of Briseis. According to The Iliad, Chryseis is a priestess of Apollo and Briseis is the princess of another land. In Troy, Briseis is said to be the cousin of Hector and Paris of Troy, who has recently committed herself to the worship of Apollo.

Hecuba, queen of Troy, is never mentioned nor shown in Troy, and neither is the daughter of the royal family, Cassandra. These two women also do not play vital roles in the book, however their presence is fairly significant. To make up for their absence, the movie Troy focuses more on the three female royalties actually portrayed: Briseis, as already mentioned, Andromache, wife of Hector, and Helen, the cause of the Trojan War. Andromache's character in the movie parallels her character in the book. She is dedicated to her husband and fears for his safety when he goes out into battle. And when she realizes that he has died, "the world [goes] black as night before her eyes, she faint[s], falling backward, gasping away