The events of the Trojan War take place in the late Bronze Age (around 1200 B.C.), a time where, as the name suggests, the use of bronze tools was widespread, and had fundamentally transformed every human society that came into contact with them. An alloy of copper and tin, bronze was a relatively durable metal that was vastly superior to any stone implements. It revolutionized how humans lived, making work easier.
As typical with humans, there is also a darker side to this story. The advent of bronze weapons also revolutionized warfare. It at once made killing more efficient and made armor more protective.
Bronze thus had the power to do well or ill for humanity.
Another crucial piece of military technology as the Bronze Age continued was the advent of the horse-drawn chariot. It allowed humans to travel faster, farther, and acted as a great mobile platform for troops in the field, particularly archers. A charioteer was a position of prestige, and chariot drivers are often said to be the "fighter pilots of their time."
Both bronze weapons and the chariot are on prominent display in the Epic Cycle of the Trojan War. The troops fight with bronze weapons and armor. Homer makes us see and hear the gruesome displays of bronze meeting flesh. Death could be slow and painful, as Homer makes clear numerous times in the Iliad. Recall that bronze is a metal which bends very often, meaning that it would bend inside a person's body when it penetrated.
Aside from the dying part, there is also the killing. I wonder if Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder would have been far worse for soldiers that were afflicted with it after the Trojan War was over?
The battlefield for a soldier in the Trojan War was far more personal than it is today. No one shot anyone. There were no smart bombs and cruise missiles. There were certainly no drones. Killing was done up close and personal. Even the archers are described by Homer as knowing exactly who their targets were, and you could certainly see him up close, sweating in the thick of battle just as you were. Images of a soldier slitting open an enemy groin to navel, as Homer so descriptively writes on numerous occasions, had to have been very painful for anyone suffering from the condition. A story of such a soldier, with modern knowledge of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder would certainly be very interesting to read.
The war in Troy was even more personal than this, however, as enemies often knew each other's names- at least as far as the captains of the two sides are concerned and which the stories are also. There are thus some instances of civility. Diomedes famously exchanges armor with the Lycian second-in-command Galucus, after the two learned (in the heat of battle) that their grandfathers were host and guest, respectively, which was a very important relationship in the Homeric era (as evidenced by the entirety of the Odyssey). Ajax and Hector agree to a one-on-one duel, and then exchange gifts when both of the armies call for a cease to it.
There is an inverse to this relationship though- bringing the reader back to reality after reading perhaps some pleasant fantasies that Homer penned, fantasies that would have no place on a real battlefield.
Taunts and insults are traded far more than gifts. Greeks shout to Trojans that they will kill them and then drag their women into slavery. Trojans defy the Greeks and dare them to try before their lives are ripped out beneath Trojan spears.
When a soldier can hear and see his enemy, and look into his eyes up close, the entire affair becomes far more personal. The courage it must have taken as a warrior in those days seems unimaginable to us today. War is fully humanized in the Trojan War, and seems to make it more tragic in many ways compared to more contemporary war stories.
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