When Menelaus demanded her return, the Trojans refused. Menelaus then persuaded his brother Agamemnon to lead an army against Troy. At Aulis, troopships gathered, led by the greatest Greek heroes—Achilles, Patroclus, Diomed, Odysseus, Nestor, and the two warriors named Ajax. In order to win favourable winds for the journey, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis. The winds came and the fleet set sail for Troy.

For nine years the Greeks ravaged Troy's surrounding cities and countryside, but the city itself, well fortified and commanded by Hector and other sons of the royal household, held out.

Finally after a lot of thought Odysseus had a great idea of how to get into Troy. The Greeks built a large hollow wooden horse in which a small group of warriors were concealed. The other Greeks appeared to sail for home, leaving behind only the horse and Sinon, who deceitfully persuaded the Trojans, despite the warnings of Cassandra and Laocoön, to take the horse within the city walls. Sinon told the Trojans that the wooden horse was a gift from the gods to say that they would win the war.

The Trojans believed the story and rolled the wooden horse into the city of Troy. The Trojans celebrated the fact that they were to win the war.

That night the Greeks returned; their companions crept out of the horse. They opened the gates of Troy, letting the entire Greek army inside. The Greeks took over the city and burned it to the ground.

The gods took great interest in the war. Poseidon, Hera, and Athena aided the Greeks, while Aphrodite and Ares favoured the Trojans. Zeus and Apollo, although frequently involved in the action of the war, remained impartial.

The events of the final year of the war constitute the main part of the Iliad of Homer. The Trojan War probably reflected a real war (c.1200 B.C.) between the invading Greeks and the people of Troas, possibly over control of trade through the Dardanelles.

The Trojan War was over. The clever Greek Odysseus had tricked the enemy into bringing a colossal wooden horse within the walls of Troy. The Trojans had no idea that Greek soldiers were hidden inside, under the command of Odysseus.

Now it was time for Odysseus and his fellow warriors to return to their kingdoms across the sea. Here began the tale of the Odyssey, as told by the blind minstrel Homer.