ABSTRACT
Heinrich joyfully opened his Christmas present, Ludwig Jerrer’s Illustrated History of the World. Driven by an almost fanatical passion, Schliemann devoted himself to work and study. He amassed a considerable fortune and learnt to speak and write seven languages. Schliemann was an amateur archaeologist, and his methods were rough and destructive, but it could be said that the criticism of Schliemann has been excessive. Opinion remains widely divided, but he was probably no worse than other diggers of the time, and it should be remembered that it was through his total conviction that Troy really existed that the ancient cities were discovered and excavated. The war began because the Trojan prince, Paris, son of Hecuba and Priam, the King of Troy, had stolen, or enticed, Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, from her husband, Prince Menelaos of Lacedaemon in the Peloponnese.
