ABSTRACT
In 1870 amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann began to excavate a small windswept hill in Anatolia which he believed to be the site of the fabled city of Troy. He had first encountered Homer’s story at the age of eight, via a book illustration, and it had stayed in his mind through his many years as a successful businessman. Schliemann’s conviction was that the events of the Iliad had really happened, and he hoped to dig up the city that Agamemnon and his allies had besieged. Schliemann wanted the story of Troy to be real, and in this, he resembles all the inspired writers and entranced readers we have encountered in this book.
